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THE 




HISTORY OF ROME. 



1 



BY 



THOMAS ARNOLD, D. D., 

u 

LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CXrORD, 

HEAD MASTER OF RUGBY SCHOOL, 

AND MEMBER OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ROME. 



THREE VOLUMES IN ONE. 



REPRINTED ENTIRE, FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 

MDCCCLI. 



n 



V* 5 






/ <//? 



.PREFACE. y4 



In attempting to write the History of Rome, I am not afraid of incur- 
ring the censure pronounced by Johnson upon Blaekwell,* that he had 
chosen a subject long since exhausted ; of which all men knew already 
as much as any one could tell them. Much more do I dread the re- 
proach of having ventured, with most insufficient means, upon a work 
of the greatest difficulty ; and thus by possibility deterring others from 
accomplishing a task which has never yet been fulfilled, and which they 
might fulfil more worthily. The great advances made within the last 
thirty years in historical knowledge have this most hopeful symptom, 
that they have taught us to appreciate the amount of our actual igno- 
rance. As we have better understood what history ought to be, we are 
become ashamed of that scanty information which might once have 
passed for learning ; and Our discovery of the questions which need to 
be solved has so outrun our powers of solving them, that we stand hu- 
miliated rather than encouraged, and almost inclined to envy the con- 
dition of our fathers, whose maps, so to speak, appeared to them com- 
plete and satisfactory, because they never suspected the existence of a 
world beyond their range. 

Still, although the time will, I trust, arrive, when points now alto- 
gether obscure will receive their full illustration, and when this work 
must be superseded by a more perfect history, yet it may be possible in 
the mean while to render some service, if I shall be able to do any jus- 
tice to my subject up to the extent of our present knowledge. And 
we, who are now in the vigor of life, possess at least one advantage 
which our children may not share equally. We have lived in a period 
rich in historical lessons beyond all former example ; we have witnessed 
one of the great seasons of movement in the life of mankind, in which 
the arts of peace and war, political parties and principles, philosophy 
and religion, in all their manifold forms and influences, have been de- 
veloped with extraordinary force and freedom. Our own experience 
has thus thrown a bright light upon the remoter past : much which our 
fathers could not fully understand, from being accustomed only to 

* In his review of Black-well'" Memoirs of the Court of Augustus. — Works, Vol. II. 
8vo. 1806. 



vi PREFACE. 

quieter times, and which again, from the same cause, may become ob- 
scure to om* children, is to us perfectly familiar. This is an advantage 
common to all the present generation in every part of Europe ; but it 
is not claiming too much to say, that the growth of the Roman com- 
monwealth, the true character of its parties, the causes and tendency of 
its revolutions, and the spirit of its people and its laws, ought to be un- 
derstood by none so well as by those who have grown up under the 
laws, who have been engaged in the parties, who are themselves citi- 
zens of our kingly commonwealth of England. 

Long before Niebuhr's death I had formed the design of writing the 
History of Rome ; not, it may well be believed, with the foolish notion 
of rivalling so great a man, but because it appeared to me that his work 
was not likely to become generally popular in England, and that its 
discoveries and remarkable wisdom mio-ht best be made known to Enp> 
lish readers by putting them into a form more adapted to our common 
taste. It should be remembered, that only the two first volumes of 
JSTiebuhr's History were published in his lifetime ; and although careful 
readers might have anticipated his powers of narration even from these, 
yet they were actually, by the necessity of the case, more full of dis- 
sertations than of narrative ; and for that reason it seemed desirable to 
remould them for the English public, by assuming as proved many of 
those results which Niebuhr himself had been obliged to demonstrate 
step by step. But when Niebuhr died, and there was now no hope of 
seeing his great work completed in a manner worthy of its beginning, 
I was more desirous than ever of executing my original plan, of pre- 
senting in a more popular form what he had lived to finish, and of con- 
tinuing it afterwards with such advantages as I had derived from a 
long study and an intense admiration of his example and model. 

It is my hope, then, if God sj>ares my life * and health, to carry on 
this history to the revival of the western empire, in the year 800 of the 
Christian era, by the coronation of Charlemagne at Rome. This point 
appears to me its natural termination. We shall then have passed 
through the chaos which followed the destruction of the old western 
empire, and shall have seen its several elements, combined with others 
which in that great convulsion had been mixed with them, organized 
again into their new form. That new form exhibited a marked and 
recognized division between the so-called secular and spiritual powers, 
and thereby has maintained in Christian Europe the unhappy distinc- 
tion which necessarily prevailed in the heathen empire between the 
church and the state ; a distinction now so deeply seated in our laws, 
our language, and our very notions, that nothing less than a miraculous 
interposition of God's providence seems capable, within any definite 

* Dr. Arnold died Juno 12th, 1842. Ho had completed the present volume, with the ex- 
ception of adding a running commentary to the last part of it. 



PREFACE. ■?{{ 

time, of eradicating it. The Greek empire, in its latter, years, retained 
so little of the Roman character, and had so little influence upon what 
was truly the Roman world, that it seems needless, for the sake of a 
mere name, to protract the story for six hundred and fifty years fur- 
ther, merely to bring it down to the conquest of Constantinople by the 
Turks. 

For the whole of the period, from the origin down to the capture of 
Rome by the Gauls, in the middle of the fourth century before the 
Christian era, I have enjoyed Niebuhr's guidance ; I have everywhere 
availed myself of his materials as well as of his conclusions. No ac- 
knowledgment can be too ample for the benefits which I have derived 
from him : yet I have not followed him blindly, nor compiled my work 
from his. It seemed to be a worthier tribute to his greatness, to en- 
deavor to follow his example ; to imitate, so far as I could, his manner 
of inquiry ; to observe and pursue his hints ; to try to practise his mas- 
ter-art of doubting rightly and believing rightly ; and, as no man is 
infallible, to venture sometimes even to differ from his conclusions, if a 
compliance with his own principles of judgment seemed to require it. 
But I can truly say, that I never differ from him without a full con- 
sciousness of the probability that further inquiry might prove him to 
be right. 

The form and style in which I have given the legends and stories of 
the first three centuries of Rome may require some explanation. I 
wished to give these legends at once with the best effect, and at the 
same time with a perpetual mark, not to be mistaken by the most care- 
less reader, that they were legends and not history. There seemed a 
reason, therefore, for adopting a more antiquated style, which, other- 
wise, of course would be justly liable to the charge of affectation. 

It might seem ludicrous to speak of impartiality in writing the his- 
tory of remote times, did not those times really bear a nearer resem- 
blance to our own than many imagine ; or did not Mitford's example 
sufficiently prove that the spirit of modern party may affect our view 
of ancient history. But many persons do not clearly see what should 
be the true impartiality of an historian. If there be no truths in moral 
and political science, little good can be derived from the study of either : 
if there be truths, it must be desirable that they should be discovered 
and embraced. Skepticism must ever be a misfortune or a defect : a 
misfortune, if there be no means of arriving at truth ; a defect, if while 
there exist such means we are unable or unwilling to use them. Be- 
lieving that political science has its truths no less than moral, I cannot 
regard them with indifference, I cannot but wish them to be seen and 
embraced by others. 

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that these truths have 
been much disputed ; that they have not, like moral truths, received 



viii PREFACE. 

that universal assent of good men which makes us shrink from submit- 
ting them to question. And, again, in human affairs, the contest has 
never been between pure truth and pure error. Neither, then, may we 
assume political conclusions as absolutely certain ; nor are political 
truths ever wholly identical with the professions or practice of any 
party or individual. If, for the sake of recommending any principle, 
we disguise the errors or the crimes with which it has been in practice 
accompanied, and which, in the weakness of human nature, may per- 
haps be naturally connected with our reception of it, then we are guilty 
of most blamable partiality. And so it is no less, if, for the sake of 
decrying an erroneous principle, we depreciate the wisdom, and the 
good and noble feelings with which error also is frequently, and in 
some instances naturally, joined. This were to make our sense of 
political truth to overpower our sense of moral truth ; a double error, 
inasmuch as it is at once the less certain, and, to those who enjoy a 
Christian's hope, by far the less worthy. 

While, then, I cannot think that political science contains no truths, 
or that it is a matter of indifference whether they are believed or no, I 
have endeavored also to remember, that be they ever so certain, there 
are other truths no less sure ; and that one truth must never be sacri- 
ficed to another. I have tried to be strictly impartial in my judgments 
of men and parties, without being indifferent to those principles which 
were involved more or less purely in their defeat or triumph. I have 
desired neither to be so possessed with the mixed character of all things 
human, as to doubt the existence of abstract truth ; nor so to dote on 
any abstract truth, as to think that its presence in the human mind is 
incompatible with any evil, its absence incompatible with any good. 

In the first part of my History, I have followed the common chro- 
nology without scruple ; not as true, but as the most convenient. 
Where the facts themselves are so uncertain, it must be a vain labor 
to try to fix their dates minutely. But when we arrive at a period of 
greater certainty as to the facts, then it will be proper to examine, as 
far as possible, into the chronology. 

Those readers who are acquainted with Niebuhr, or with the history 
written by Mr. Maldon, for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge, may be surprised to find so little said upon the antiquities 
of the different nations of Italy. The omission, however, was made 
deliberately : partly, because the subject does not appear to me to be- 
long essentially to the early history of Rome, and still more, because 
the researches now carried on with so much spirit in Italy, hold out 
the hope that we may obtain, ere long, some more satisfactory knowl- 
edge than is at present attainable. Pelasgian inscriptions, written in a 
character clearly distinguishable from the Etruscan, have been discov- 
ered very recently, as I am informed, at Agylla or Caere. And the 



PREFACE. i x 

study and comparison of the several Indo-Germanic languages is making 
such progress, that if any fortunate discovery comes in to aid it, we 
may hope to see the mystery of the Etruscan inscriptions at length un- 
ravelled. I was not sorry, therefore, to defer any detailed inquiry into 
the aD tiquities of the Italian nations, in the expectation that I might be 
able hereafter to enter upon the subject to greater advantage. 

Amongst the manifold accomplishments of Niebuhr's mind, not the 
least extraordinary was his philological knowledge. His acquaintance 
with the manuscripts of the Greek and Roman writers was extensive 
and profound ; his acuteness in detecting a corrupt reading, and his 
sagacity in correcting it, were worthy of the critical ability of Bentley. 
On no point have I been more humbled with a sense of my own infe- 
riority, as feeling that my own professional pursuits ought, in this 
respect, to have placed me mpre nearly on a level with him. But it is 
far otherwise. I have had but little acquaintance with manuscripts, 
nor have I the means of consulting them extensively ; and the common 
editions of the Latin writers in particular, do not intimate how much of 
their present text is grounded upon conjecture. I have seen references 
made to Festus, which, on examination, have been found to rest on no 
other authority than Scaliger's conjectural piecing of the fragments of 
the original text. But, besides this, we often need a knowledge of the 
general character of a manuscript or manuscripts, in order to judge 
whether any remarkable variations in names or dates are really to be 
ascribed to the author's having followed a different version of the story, 
or whether they are mere blunders of the copyist. For instance, the 
names of the consuls, as given at the beginning of each year in the 
present text of Diodorus, are in many instances so corrupt, that one is 
tempted to doubt how far some apparent differences in his Fasti from 
those followed by Livy, are really his own or his copyist's. 

There are some works which I have not been able to consult ; and 
there are points connected with the topography of Rome and its neigh- 
borhood, on which no existing work gives a satisfactory explanation. 
On these points I have been accustomed to consult my valued friend 
Bunsen, Niebuhr's successor in his official situation as Prussian minis- 
ter at Rome, and his worthy successor no less in the profoundness of 
his antiquarian, and philological,. and historical knowledge. 

There has lately appeared in the second volume of ISTiebuhr's life 
and letters, a letter written by him to a young student, containing 
various directions and suggestions with respect to his philological 
studies. Amongst other things, he says, " I utterly disapprove of the 
common practice of adopting references, after verifying them, without 
naming the source whence they are taken ; and, tedious as the double 
reference is, I never allow myself to dispense with it. When I cite a 
passage simply, I have found it out myself. He who does otherwise, 



X PREFACE. 

assumes the appearance of more extensive reading than belongs to 
him." 

The perfect uprightness of Niebuhr's practice in this point is well 
worthy of him, and is deserving of all imitation. But I should find it 
difficult in all cases to say whether I had first noticed a passage my- 
self, or had been led to it by a quotation in another writer. I have 
availed myself continually of Niebuhr's references, and of those made 
by Freinsheini in his supplement of Livy ; but it has happeued, also, 
that passages referred to by them had been taken by myself directly 
from the original source, without recollecting, or, indeed, without know- 
ing, that they had been quoted previously by others. Niebuhr's read- 
ing was so vast, and his memory so retentive, that he may be presumed 
never to have overlooked any thing which could illustrate his subject : 
it is probable, therefore, that every quotation made in this volume may 
be found previously made by Niebuhr, unless it happen to relate to a 
matter which he has not written on. But yet, some quotations were 
made by me with so little consciousness of their existing in Niebuhr, 
that in one instance I searched his volume to see whether he had noticed 
a passage, because I did not remember to have observed any quotation 
of it by him, and yet I felt sure, as proved to be the case, that he had 
not overlooked it. 

I have only, therefore, to state that many passages have been quoted 
by me from Pliny, Yalerius Maximus, Frontinus, and other writers, for 
the knowledge, or at least for the recollection of which, I was indebted 
either to Nlebuhr or to Freinsheim, or to some other modern writer. 
And yet I can truly say, that not a single paragraph has been written 
on a mere verifying of the references made by preceding writers," but 
that my own reading and comparison of the ancient authorities has 
been always the foundation of it. This is not said as laying claim to 
any remarkable degree of diligence or of learning, but simply to estab- 
lish my right to call this history an original work, and not a mere com- 
pilation from ISuebukr or from others who have gone over the ground 
previously. 

But I shall be believed by all who are acquainted with ISTiebuhr's 
third volume, when I say that the composition of this period in mine 
has been throughout a most irksome labor; inasmuch as I was but 
doing, with manifest inferiority in every point, what Niebuhr had done 
in all points admirably. In the first part, although all the substance 
of it and much more, was to be found in Niebuhr, yet in its form I 
might hope to have some advantage, as putting his matter into a more 
popular shape. But his third volume is no less eloquent than wise ; 
and is as superior in the power of its narrative as in the profoundness 
of its researches. And yet, this portion of the history was to be written 
as a necessary part of my own work. I was obliged, therefore, to go 



PREFACE. Xi 

through with it as well as I could, feeling most keenly all the while the 
infinite difference between Niebuhr's history and mine. 

It may be thought by some that this volume is written at too great 
length. But I am convinced, by a tolerably large experience, that most 
readers find it almost impossible to impress on their memory a mere 
abridgment of history : the number of names and events crowded into 
a small space is overwhelming to them, and the absence of details in the 
narrative makes it impossible to communicate to it much of interest ; 
neither characters nor events can be developed with that particularity 
which is the best help to the memory, because it attracts and engages 
us, and impresses images on the mind as well as facts. At the same 
time I am well aware of the great difficulty of giving liveliness to a 
narrative which necessarily gets all its facts at second-hand. Ai d a 
writer who has never been engaged in any public transactions, either 
of peace or war, must feel this especially. One who is himself a states- 
man and orator, may relate the political contests even of remote ages 
with something of the spirit of a contemporary ; for his own experience 
realizes to him, in great measure, the scenes and the characters which 
he is describing. And, in like manner, a soldier or a seaman can enter 
fully into the great deeds of ancient warfare ; for, although in out- 
ward form ancient battles and sieges may differ from those of modern 
times, yet the genius of the general and the courage of the soldier, the 
call for so many of the highest qualities of our nature which constitutes 
the enduring moral interest of war, are common alike to all times, and 
he who has fought under Wellington has been in spirit an eye-witness 
of the campaigns of Hannibal. But a writer whose whole experience 
has been confined to private life and to peace, has no link to connect 
him with the actors and great deeds of ancient history, except the feel- 
ings of our common humanity. He cannot realize civil contests or 
battles with the vividness of a statesman and a soldier ; he can but 
enter into them as a man ; and his general knowledge of human nature, 
his love of great and good actions, his sympathy with virtue, his abhor- 
rence of vice, can alone assist him in making himself, as it were, a wit- 
ness of what he attempts to describe. But these even by themselves 
will do much ; and if an historian feels as a man and as a citizen, there 
is hope that, however humble his experience, he may inspire his 
readers with something of his own interest in the events of his history : 
he may hope, at least, that a full detail of these events, however feebly 
represented, will be worth far more than a mere brief summary of them, 
made the text for a long comment of his own. 

Rugby, May 28th, 1840. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

PAGE 

Early Legends of Eome 1 

CHAPTEE II. 
The early History of Eome 8 

CHAPTEE III. 
Of the city of Eome, its territory, and its scenery 12 

CHAPTEE IV. 
Stories of the later Kings 15 

CHAPTEE V. 

The History of the later Kings of Eome, and of the greatness of the Monarchy 19 

CHAPTEE VI. 
Miscellaneous notices of the state of the Eomans under their Kings 32 

CHAPTEE VII. 

The Story of the Banishing of King Tarquinius and his House, and of then - attempts to get 
themselves brought back again 39 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

Eome after the end of the Monarchy— the Dictatorship — the Tribunes of the Commons. . . 47 

CHAPTEE IX. 

Spurius Cassius — the League with the Latins and Hernicans — the Agrarian Law — A.t/.c. 
261-269 57 

CHAPTEE X. 

Ascendency of the Aristocracy— the Fabii and their Seven Consulships — the Publilian 
Law— a.tj.o. 269-283 62 

CHAPTEE XI... 

Wars with the iEauians and Volscians — Legends connected with these "Wars — Stories of 
Coriolanus, and of Cincinnatus 68 

CHAPTEE XII. 

Wars with the Etruscans — Veii — Legend of the slaughter of the Eabii at the river 
Cremera 79 

CHAPTEE XIII. 

Internal History — the Terentilian Law — Appointment of the ten High Commissioners to 
frame a Code of written Laws. — a.tj.o. 284-303 B& 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK XIV. 

PAGK 

The first Decemvirs, and the Laws of the Twelve Tables 96 

CHAPTER XV. 
The second Decemvirate — Story of Virginia— Revolution of 305 114 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Internal History— Constitution of the Year 306— Valerian Laws, and Trials of the Decem- 
virs — Eeaction in favor of the Patricians — Canuleian Law — Constitution of 312 — 
Counter-Revolution 121 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Internal History from 312 to 350 — the Censorship, and the limitation of it by Mamercus 
iEmiliiis — Sp. Mselius and C. Ahala — the Qua?storship laid open to the Commons — Six 
Tribunes of the Soldiers appointed, and pay issued to the Soldiers . . .. 132 

CHAPTER XVEH. 

Wars of the Romans from 300 to 363 — the iEquians and Volscians — the Etruscans — Siege 
and Capture of Veii 143 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Internal History from 850 to 364— Plebeian Military Tribunes — Banishment of Camillus. . . 156 

CHAPTER XX. 
State of foreign Nations at the period of the Gaulish invasion — Italy, Sardinia, Corsica . . . 161 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Dionysius the Elder, Tyrant of Syracuse 168 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Carthage— Barbarians of "Western Europe — East of Europe— Greece — Macedonia — Ulyria. . 182 

CHAPTER XXni. 
Miscellaneous — Physical History 190 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Gauls invade Central Italy — Battle of the Alia — Burning of Rome — Ransom of the 
Capitol and of the City— Retreat of the Gauls 197 

CHAPTER XXV. 

History, foreign and domestic, from tb<? year 365 to 378 — Rome after the retreat of the 
Gauls — its weakness, and the great misery of the Commons — Popularity and death of 
M. Manlius — Wars with the neighboring Nations 210 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
The Licinian Laws.— 878-384 222 

CHAPTER XXVn. 

General History, domestic and foreign, from the admission of the Commons to the Consul- 
ship to the beginning of tho first Samnite War — Evasion of the Licinian Laws — Wars 
with the Gauls, Tarquiniensians, and Volscians. — a.tj.o. 889-412, Livy : 884-407, 
Nicbuhr g 284 

CHAPTER XXVIir. 

The first Samnite War — Sedition of the year 408— Genucian Laws. — a.tt.o. 407-409, Nie- 
buhr: 410-412, Fasti Capit. : 412-414, Livy 247 



CONTENTS. xv 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

PAGE 

The great Latin War— Battle under Mount Vesuvius— The Publilian Laws— Final settle- 
ment of Latium. — a.tj.o. 415-417 : 410-412, Niebuhr 260 

CHAPTEE XXX. 

General History to the beginning of the second Samnite War — Privernum — Palsepolis. — 
a.u.0. 418-428 : 413-423, Niebuhr : 275 

CHAPTEE XXXI. 

Second Samnite War — L. Papirius Cursor — Affair of the Forks or Pass of Caudium — Battle 
of Lautulse — Q. Fabius, and the war with Etruria. — a.u.c. 428-450: 423-444, Nie- 
buhr • 284 

CHAPTEE XXXII. 

Internal History from 428 to 454 — Abolition of Personal Slavery for Debt— Dictatorship of 
C. Masnius — Censorship of Appius Claudius — Censorship of Q. Fabius and P. Decius 
— the Ogulnian Law , 312 

CHAPTEE XXXIII. 

Foreign History from 460 to 464 (443 to 456, Niebuhr) — Conquest of the iEquians — Third 
Samnite War — Coalition of the Etruscans, Samnites, and Gauls — Great battle of Sen- 
tinum, and death of P. Decius — Final victory of Q. Fabius over the Samnites — C. 
Pontius is led in triumph, and put to death in cold blood 328 

CHAPTEE XXXIV. 

Internal History from the passing of the Ogulnian Law to the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy 
— Secession to the Janiculum — Dictatorship of Q. Hortensius — Hortensian and Ma3- 
nian Laws — From a.tj.c. 454 to 474 350 

CHAPTEE XXXV. 

State of the East — Kingdoms of Alexander's Successors — Sicily — Greece — Kingdom of 
Epirus, and early fortunes of Pyrrhus 362 

CHAPTEE XXXVI. 

Kome and the Eoman People at the beginning of the War with the Tarentines and with 
Pyrrhus 380 

CHAPTEE XXXVII. 

Foreign History from 464 to 479 — Wars with the Etruscans, Gauls, and Tarentines — 
Fourth Samnite war — Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, in Italy — Battles of Heraclea, Asculum, 
and Beneventum 387 

CHAPTEE XXXVHI. 

General History from the departure of Pyrrhus from Italy to the beginning of the first 
Punic War — Final submission of Samnium — Conquest of Tarentum — Picentian and 
Volsinian Wars — Borne acquires the sovereignty of all Italy — Detached events and 
anecdotes relating to this Period — 479 to 489, a.u.c. 275 to 265, a.c 408 

CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
Constitution and power of Carthage 418 

CHAPTER XL. 

First Punic War— the Eomans invade Sicily — Submission of Hiero — the Eomans create a 
Navy — Naval victories of Mylas and Ecnomus — Expedition of M. Eegulus to Africa ; 
his successes, his arrogance in victory, his defeat and captivity— War in Sicily — Siege 
of Lilybseum and naval actions connected with it — Hamilcar Barca at Eircte and Eryx 
—Naval battle of the JSgates— Peace concluded.— A.r.o. 490 to 513— a.c. 264 to 241. . . . 424 



XVI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

PAGE 

State of Italy after the Eoman conquest — Political relations of the inhahitants, and dif- 
ferent tenures of land — Latin Colonies 448 

CHAPTER XLII. 

General History from the first to the second Punic War — Illyrian "War — Great Gaulish in- 
vasion — Muster of the forces of all Italy — Defeat of the Gauls — Eoman invasions of 
Cisalpine Gaul — M. Marcellus and C. Flahiinius. — a.u.c. 513 to 535 — a.c. 241 to 219 456 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Second Punic "War — Hannibal — March of Hannibal from Spain to Italy — Passage of the 
Alps — Battles of the Trebia, and of Thrasymenus — Q. Fabius Maximus Dictator — -Bat- 
tle of Canna?— a.tj.c. 535 to 538 470 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Progress of the war in Italy after the battle of Canna? — Revolt of Capua, and of the people 
of Southern Italy, to Hannibal — Great exertions of the Romans — Surprise of Tarcntum 
— Siege of Capua — Hannibal marches on Rome — Reduction and punishment of Capua 
—A.u.c. 538 to 543 500 

CHAPTER XLV. 

Progress of the war in Spain, Sicily, and Greece — Operations of the Scipios in Spain — 
Their defeat and death — Macedon and Greece — -Revolutions of Syracuse — -Marcellus in 
Sicily — Siege of Syracuse — Archimedes — Sack of Syracuse, and reduction of Sicily — 
Mutrnes, the Numidian, in Sicily — a.u.c. 538 to 543 512 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

State of Italy — Distress of the people — Twelve colonies refuse to support the war — 
Eighteen colonies offer all their resources to the Romans- — Events of the war — Death 
of Marcellus — Fabius recovers Tarentum — March of Hasdrubal into Italy — He reaches 
the coast of the Adriatic — Great March of C. Nero from Apulia to oppose him — Battle 
of the Metaurus, and death of Hasdrubal — a.u.c. 543 to a.u.c. 547 564 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

P. Cornelius Scipio — His operations in Spain — Siege and capture of New Carthage — Battle 
of Bascula — the Carthaginians evacuate the Spanish peninsula — Scipio returns to Rome, 
and is elected Consul— a.u.c. 543 to a.tj.c. 548 586 

Supplement 608 

Table of Consuls and Military Tribunes from the beginning of the Commonwealth to 

the taking of Rome by the Gauls 618 

Addenda 649 

Appendix 665 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY LEGENDS OF ROME. 



" The old songs of every people, ■which bear the impress of their character, and of which the 
beauties, whether few or many, must be genuine, because they arise only from feeling, have 
always been valued by men of masculine and comprehensive taste." — Sm J. Mackintosh, Hist, 
of England, vol. I. p. 86. 



THE LEGEND OF ^ENEAS. 

When the fatal horse was going to be brought within the walls of Troy, 1 and 
when Laocoon had been devoured by the two serpents sent by the how ^sneas weu over 
gods to punish hirn because he had tried to save his country ia*d ofthe Latin*. 
against the will of Fate, then JEneas and his father Anchises, with their wives, 2 
and many who followed their fortune, fled from the coming of the evil day. But 
they remembered to carry their gods with them, 3 who were to receive their 
worship in a happier land. They were guided in their flight from the city 4 by 
the god Hermes, and he built for them a ship to carry them over the sea. When 
they put to sea, the star of Venus, 5 the mother of vEneas, stood over their heads, 
and it shone by day as well as by night, till they came to the shores of the land 
of the west. But when they landed, the star vanished and was seen no more ; 
and by this sign, JEneas knew that he was come to that country, wherein fate 
had appointed him to dwell. 

The Trojans, when they had brought their gods on shore, began to sacrifice.* 
But the victim, a milk-white sow just ready to farrow, broke from 0f the sign wMch h9 
the priest and his ministers, and fled away. JEneas followed her ; X« he°shSSd mS 
for an oracle had told him, that a four-footed beast should guide Ms city - 
him to the spot where he was to build his city. So the sow went forwards till 
she came to a certain hill, about two miles and a half from the shore where they 
had purposed to sacrifice, and there she laid down and farrowed, and her litter 
was of thirty young ones. But when iEneas saw that the place was sandy and 
barren, 1 he doubted what he should do. Just at this time he heard a voice 

1 ArctinuSj 'IXjou vipais, quoted by Proclus, * Tabula Iliensis and Nsevius, quoted by Ser- 

Chrestomathia, p. 483. See Fynes Clinton, vius, JSn. I. 170. Edit. Lion. 1826. 

Fasti Hellen. Vol. I. p. 356. 5 Varro de Rebus divinis, II. quoted by Ser- 

a Nsevius, Fragm. Bell. Pun. I. 15-20. vius, J£n. I. 381. 

3 See the Tabula Iliensis, taken from Stesi- 6 Dionysius, I. 56. 

chorus. [Annali dell' Institute di Corrispond. 7 Q. Fabius, apud Servium, Virg. Ma. I. 

Archeolog. 1829, p. 232.] v. 8. 
1 



2 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap, S. 

which said, — " The thirty young of the sow are thirty years ; when thirty years 
are passed, thy children shall remove to a better land ; meantime do thou obey 
the gods, and build thy city in the place where they bid thee to 'build." So the 
Trojans built their city on the spot where the sow had farrowed. 

Now the land belonged to a people who were the children of the soil, 8 and their 
of his wars with the king was called Latinus. He received the strangers kindly, and 
people of the country. g ran ted to them seven hundred jugera of land, 9 seven jugera to 
each man, for that was a man's portion. But soon the children of the soil and 
the strangers quarrelled ; and the strangers plundered the lands round aoout 
them ; 10 and king Latinus called upon Turnus, the king of the Rutulians of Ardea, 
to help him against them. The quarrel became a war ; and the strangers took 
the city of king Latinus, and Latinus was killed ; and JEneas took his daughter 
Lavinia and married her, and became king over the children of the soil ; and 
they and the strangers became one people, and they were called by one name, 
Latins. 

But Turnus called to his aid Mezentius, king of the Etruscans of Caere. 11 There 
how he disappeared in was then another battle on the banks of the river Numicius, and 
wa/'wo r r8Wppe C d US a8 n a Turnus was killed, and ./Eneas plunged into the river and was 
eod - seen no more. However, his son Ascanius declared that he was 

not dead, but that the gods had taken him to be one of themselves ; 12 and his 
people built an altar to him on the banks of the Numicius, and worshipped him 
by the name of Jupiter Indiges, which means, "the God who was of that very 
land." 13 

THE LEGEND OF ASCANIUS. \ v 

' \ 

The war went on between Mezentius and Ascanius, the son of iErieas ; and 
how Ascanins dew Mezentius pressed hard upon the Latins, till at last Ascanius met 
pSjjrS 2b» S him man to man, and slew him 14 in single fight. At that time 
$Z Ascanius was very young, and there were only the first soft hairs 

of youth upon his cheeks ; so he was called lulus, or " the soft-haired," because, 
when he was only a youth, he had vanquished and slain his enemy, who was a 
grown man. At length the thirty years came to an end, which were foreshown 
by the litter of thirty young ones of the white sow. Ascanius then removed 
with his people to a high mountain, which looks over all the land on every side, 
and one side of it runs steep down into a lake : there he hewed out a place for 
his city on the side of the mountain, above the lake ; and as the city was long 
and narrow, owing to the steepness of the hill, he called it Alba Longa, which 
is, the " White Long City ;" and he called it white, because of the sign of the 
white sow. 15 

THE LEGEND OF ROMULUS. 

Numitor 16 was the eldest son of Procas, king of Alba Longa, and he had a 
now Romulus and younger brother called Amulius. When Procas died, Amulius 
mewed byo sL'woif seized by force on the kingdom, and left to Numitor only his share 
',"" ski r . of his father's private inheritance. After this he caused Numi- 

tor's only son to be slain, and made his daughter Silvia become one of the vir- 
gins who watched the ever-burning fire of the goddess Vesta. But the god 
Mamers, who is called also Mars, beheld the virgin and loved her, and it was 
found that she Avas going to become the mother of children. Then Amulius 
ordered that the children, when born, should be thrown into the river. It hap- 

• "Aborigines." — Cato, Origincs, apud Scr- " Cato, apud Servium, ^dEn. I. 287. 

vium, Ma. I. v. 6. 12 Senilis, Ma. IV. 620. Ma. XII. 794. 

"Cato, apud Servium, Ma. XI. v. 316.— But i: Livy, I. '_>. 

it should be observed that the MSS. ofScrvius u Cato. apud Servium, Ma. I. 267. 

give the number of .jugera variously. ls Servius, Ma. I. v. 270. 

10 Cato, apud Servium, Ma. I. 267, ct Ma. IV. w Livy, I. 8. Dionysius, I. 76, et seqq. Plu- 

620. tarch, iii Eomulo. 



Chap. I] EARLY LEGENDS. 3 

pened that the river at that time had flooded the country ; when, therefore, the 
two children in their basket were thrown into the river, the waters carried them 
as far as the foot of the Palatine Hill, and there the basket was upset, near the 
roots of a wild fig-tree, and the children thrown out upon the land. At this 
moment there came a she-wolf down to the water to drink, and when she saw 
the children, she carried them to her cave hard by, and gave them to suck ; and 
whilst they were there, a woodpecker came backwards and forwards to the cave, 
and brought them food. 11 At last one Faustulus, the king's herdsman, saw the 
wolf suckling the children ; and when he went up, the wolf left them and fled ; 18 
so he took them home to his wife Larentia, and they were bred up along with 
her own sons on the Palatine Hill ; and they were called Romulus and Remus. 19 
When Romulus and Remus grew up, the herdsmen of the Palatine Hill chanced 
to have a quarrel with the herdsmen of Numitor, who stalled their How it was found out 
cattle on the hill Aventinus. Numitor's herdsmen laid an ambush, whothe y were - 
and Remus fell into it, and was taken and carried off to Alba. But when the 
young man was brought before Numitor, he was struck with his noble air and 
bearing, and asked him who he was. And when Remus told him of his birth, 
and how he had been saved from death, together with his brother, Numitor 
marvelled, and thought whether this might not be his own daughter's child. In 
the-tnean while, Faustulus and Romulus hastened to Alba to deliver Remus ; 
and by the help of the young men of the Palatine Hill, who had been used to 
follow him and his brother, Romulus took the city, and Amulius was killed ; and 
Numitor was made king, and owned Romulus and Remus to be born of his own 
blood. 

The two brothers did not wish to live at Alba, but loved rather the hill on the 

banks of the Tiber, where they had been brought up. So they said, h<™ they disputed 

'that they would build a city there ; and they inquired of the gods namVto tL c.ty, e a nd 

J "* • • ^ of the sitru of the vul- 

by augury, to know which of them should give his name to the tures. 
city. They watched the heavens from morning till evening, and from evening 
till morning ; 20 and as the sun was rising, Remus saw six vultures. 21 This was 
told to Romulus ; but as they were telling him, behold there appeared to him 
twelve vultures. Then it was disputed again, which had seen the truest sign of 
the god's favor : but the most part gave their voices for Romulus. So he began 
to build his city on the Palatine Hill. This made Remus very angry ; and when 
he saw the ditch and the rampart which were drawn round the space where the 
city was to be, he scornfully leapt over them, 22 saying, " Shall such defences as 
these keep your city ?" As he did this, Celer, who had the charge of the build- 
ing, struck Remus with the spade which he held in his hand, and slew him ; and 
they buried him on the hill Remuria, by the banks of the Tiber, on the spot 
where he had wished to build his city. 

But Romulus found that his people were too few in numbers ; so he set apart 
a place of refuge, 23 to which any man might flee, and be safe from how Romuins opened 
his pursuers. So many fled thither from the countries round howhfs pJpie wrrled 
about ; those who had shed blood, and fled from the vengeance nei g hboring m p C e n op ie. 
of the avenger of blood ; those who were driven out from their own homes 
by their enemies, and even men of low degree who had run away from their 
lords. Thus the city became full of people ; but yet they wanted wives, and 
the nations round about would not give them their daughters in marriage. So 
Romulus gave out that he was going to keep a great festival, and there were 
to be sports and games to draw a multitude together. 24 The neighbors came to 
see the show, with their wives and their daughters : there came the people of 

17 Ovid, Fasti, III. 54. Servius, Ma., I. v. 273. 21 Livy. I. 7. 

18 Ennius, Annal. I. 78. » Ovid, Fasti, IV. 842. 

19 Gellius, Noct. Attic. VI. c. 7, quoted from 23 The famous Asylum. See Livy, I. 8. 
Messurius Sabinus. M Livy, I. 9. 

» Ennius, Annal. I. v. 106, 107. 



4 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. X 

Csenina, and of Crustumerium, and of Antemna, and a great multitude of the 
Sabines. But while they were looking at the games, the people of Romulus 
rushed out upon them, and carried off the women to be their wives. 

Upon this the people of Csenina first made war upon the people of Romu- 
how for this came the lus : 25 but they were beaten, and Romulus with his own hand 
fte^Mdrffteto^S slew thar king Acron. Next the people of Crustumerium, and 
ofthefeirTarpeia. G f Antemna, tried their fortune, but Romulus conquered both of 
them. Last of all came the Sabines with a great army, under Titus Tatius, 
their king. There is a hill near to the Tiber, which was divided from the Palatine 
Hill by a low and swampy valley ; and on this hill Romulus made a fortress, to 
keep off the enemy from his city. But when the fair Tarpeia, the daughter of 
the chief who had charge of the fortress, saw the Sabines draw near, and marked 
their bracelets and their collars of gold, she longed after these ornaments, and 
promised to betray the hill into their hands if they would give her those bright 
things which they wore upon their arms. 26 So she opened a gate, and let in the 
Sabines ; and they, as they came in, threw xipon her their bright shields which 
they bore on their arms, and crushed her to death. Thus the Sabines got the 
How the god janus fortress which was on the hill Saturnius ; and they and the Ro- 
sabines. eci e mans joined battle in the valley between the hill and the city of 

Romulus. 2 ' The Sabines began to get the better, and came up close to one of 
the gates of the city. The people of Romulus shut the gate, but it opened of 
its own accord ; once and again they shut it, and once and again it opened. But 
as the Sabines were rushing in, behold, there burst forth from the Temple of 
Janus, which was near the gate, a mighty stream of water, and it swept away the 
Sabines, and saved the city. For this it was ordered that the Temple of Janus 
should stand ever open in time of war, that the god might be ever ready, as on 
this day, to go out and give his aid to the people of Romulus. 

After this they fought again in the valley ; and the people of Romulus were 
how the women who beginning to flee, when Romulus prayed to Jove, the stayer of 
made peace between flight, that he might stay the people ; 28 and so their flight was 
husbands; and how the staved, and they turned again to the battle. And now the fight 

Romans and the Sa- J -, (1 ^ , ° ll J Lini_" 1 

bines lwed together, was fiercer than ever: when, on a sudden, the feabine women who 
had been carried off ran down from the hill Palatinus, and ran in between their 
husbands and their fathers, and prayed them to lay aside their quarrel. 29 So 
they made peace with one another, and the two people became as one : the Sa- 
bines with their king dwelt on the hill Saturnius, which is also called Capitolium, 
and on the hill Quirinalis ; and the people of Romulus with their king dwelt on 
the hill Palatinus. But the kings with their counsellors met in the valley between 
Saturnius and Palatinus, to consult about their common matters ; and the place 
where they met was called Comitium, which means " the place of meeting." 

Soon after this, Tatius was slain by the people of Laurentum, because some of 
his kinsmen had wronged them, and he would not do them justice. 30 So Romu- 
lus reigned by himself over both nations ; and his own people were called the 
Romans, for Roma was the name of the city on the hill Palatinus ; and the 
Sabines were called Q.uirites, for the name of their city on the hills Saturnius and 
Quirinalis was Quiritim. 81 

26 Livy, I. 10. . Amial. XII. 24. Yet Macrobius relates the 

-''■ Livy, 1. 11. wonder as having happened at one of the gates 

-' Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1. 0. Macrobius pf the Roman city, when the Bomans were at 

places the BCOne of this wonder at a gate war with Tatius; and it seemed needless to 

•• which stood at 1 1 1 » * foot of the hill Vimrna- destroy the consistency of the whole story by 

lis.'* it would be difficult to reconcile this the unseasonable introduction of a topographi- 

story with the other accounts of the limits of eal difficulty, 

the two cities of Romulus and Tatius: and cer- " Livy, [.12. 

tainly a gate at the foot of the Vimina] could M Livy, 1. 18. 

not "have existed in the walls of the eity of 30 Livy, I. 14. 

Romulus, according lo the historical account of 31 Perhaps 1 hardly ought to have embodied 

their direction and extent, as given by Taeitus, Niebuhr's eonjeeture iu the legend, for certain 



Chap. I] EARLY LEGENDS. 5 

The people were divided into three tribes ; 32 the Raranenses, and the Titienses, 
and the Luceres : the Ramnenses were called from Romulus, How Romulus ordered 
and the Titienses from Tatius ; and the Luceres were called from Ws poople - 
Lucumo, an Etruscan chief, who had come to help Romulus in his war with the 
Sabines, and dwelt on the hill called Cselius. In each tribe there were ten curiae, 
each of one hundred men ; 33 so all the men of the three tribes were three thou- 
sand, and these fought on foot, and were called^ a legion. There were also three 
hundred horsemen, and these were called Celerians, because their chief was that 
Celer who had slain Remus. There was besides a council of two hundred men, 
which was called a senate, that is, a council of elders. 

Romulus was a just king, and gentle to his people : if any were guilty of 
crimes, he did not put them to death, but made them pay a fine How he Taniah ed 8U d- 
of sheep or of oxen. 34 In his wars he was very successful, and 5K, aruwa^'wor 1 - 
enriched his people with the spoils of their enemies. At last, af- shil ' pcd a8 a gorl - 
ter he had reigned nearly forty years, it chanced that one day he called his people 
together in the field of Mars, near the Goats' Pool : 35 when, all on a sudden, there 
arose a dreadful storm, and all was as dark as night ; and the rain, and thunder 
and lightning, were so terrible, that all the people fled from the field, and ran to 
their several homes. At last the storm was over, and they came back to the field of 
Mars, but Romulus was nowhere to be found ; for Mars, his father, had carried 
him up to heaven in his chariot. 36 The people knew not at first what was become 
of him ; but when it was night, as one Proculus Julius was coming from Alba to 
the city, Romulus appeared to him in more than mortal beauty, and grown to 
more than mortal stature, and said to him, " Go, and tell my people that they 
weep not for me any more ; but bid them to be brave and warlike, and so shall 
they make my city the greatest in the earth." Then the people knew that Rom- 
ulus was become a god ; so they built a temple to him, and offered sacrifice to 
him, and worshipped him evermore by the name of the god Quirinus. 

THE LEGEND OP NUMA POMPILIUS. 

When Romulus was taken from the earth, there was no one found to reign in 
his place. 37 The Senators would choose no king, but they divided how for 01,0 whole 
themselves into tens ; and every ten was to have the power of »o ting, 
king for five days, one after the other. So a year passed away, and the people 
murmured, and said, that there must be a king chosen. 

Now the Romans and the Sabines each wished that the king should be one of 
them ; but at last it was agreed that the king should be a Sabine, How Numa p ompi ] iua 
but that the Romans should choose him. 38 So they chose Numa wasdi ° seiikin g- 
Pompilius ; for all men said that he was a just man, and wise, and holy. 

Some said that he had learnt his wisdom from Pythagoras, the famous 
philosopher of the Greeks ; 39 but others would not believe that 0{ llis wise anA iona 
he owed it to any foreign teacher. Before he would consent ^ ™hownh"mbythS 
to be king, he consulted the gods by augury, to know whether it nymph Egeiia - 
was their pleasure that he should reign. 40 And as he feared the gods at first, so 
did he even to the last. He appointed many to minister in sacred things, 41 such 
as the Pontifices, who were to see that all things relating to the gods were duly 
observed by all ; and the Augurs, who taught men the pleasure of the gods 
concerning things to come ; and the Flamens, who ministered in the temples ; 

ly no ancient writer now extant speaks of the 35 Livy, I. 16. 

town " Quirium." Yet it seems so probable a 3a "Quirinus 

conjecture, and gives so much consistency to Martis equis Acheronta fugit." 

the story, that I have ventured to adopt it. Horat. III. Carm. 3. 

32 Livy, I. 13. Varro de Lin. Lat. § 55. Ed. 37 Livy, I. 17. 
Miiller. Servius, Mn. V. 560. 38 Dionysius, II. 58. 

33 Paternus, quoted by Lydus, de Magistra- 39 Livy, I. 18. Dionysius, I. 59. 
tibus, c. 9. 40 Livy, I. 18. 

34 (Jicero de Eepublica, II. 9. 41 Livy, I. 19. 



6 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. L 

and the virgins of Vesta, who tended the ever-buming fire ; and the Salii, who 
honored the god of arras with solemn songs and dances through the city on 
certain days, and who kept the sacred shield which fell dojrfn from heaven. And 
in all that he did, he knew that he should please the gods ; for he did every thing 
by the direction of the nymph Egeria, who honored him so much that she took 
him to be her husband, and taught him in her sacred grove, by the spring that 
welled out from the rock, all that he was to do towards the gods and towaras 
men. 42 By her counsel he snared the gods Picus and Faunus in the grove on the 
hill Aventinus, and made them tell him how he might learn from Jupiter the 
knowledge of his will, and might get him to declare it either by lightning or by 
the flight of birds. 43 And when men doubted whether Egeria had really given 
him her counsel, she gave him a sign by which he might prove it to them. He 
called many of the Romans to supper, and set before them a homely meal in 
earthen dishes j 44 and then on a sudden he said, that now Egeria was come to 
visit him ; and straightway the dishes and the cups became of gold or precious 
stones, and the couches were covered with rare and costly coverings, and the 
meats and drinks were abundant and most delicious. But though Numa took so 
much care for the service of the gods, yet he forbade all costly sacrifices ; 45 neither 
did he suffer blood to be shed on the altars, nor any images of the gods to be 
made. 46 But he taught the people to offer in sacrifice nothing but the fruits of 
the earth, meal and cakes of flour, and roasted corn. 

For he loved husbandry, and he wished his people to live every man on his 
of hk goodie towards ow n inheritance in peace and in happiness. So the lands which 
Jhc-re r wert''no ™k Romulus had Avon in war, he divided out amongst the people, and 
his reign. gave a certain portion to every man. 41 He then ordered land- 

marks to be set on every portion ; 48 and Terminus, the god of landmarks, had them 
in his keeping, and he who moved a landmark was accursed. The craftsmen of 
the city, 49 who had no land, were divided according to their callings ;. and there 
were made of them nine companies. So all was peaceful and prosperous through- 
out the reign of king Numa; the gates of the temple of Janus were never opened, 
for the Romans had no wars and no enemies ; and Numa built a temple to Faith, 
and appointed a solemn worship for her ; 50 that men might learn not to lie or to 
deceive, but to speak and act in honesty. And when he had lived to the age of 
fourscore years, he died at last by a gentle decay, and he was buried under the 
hill Janiculum, on the other side of the Tiber ; and the books of his sacred laws 
and ordinances were buried near him in a separate tomb. 61 

THE LEGEND OF TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 

When Numa was dead, the Senators again for a while shared the kingly power 
How Tuih.8 Hostuius amongst themselves. But they soon chose for their king Tullus 
was chosen km g . Hostilius, Avhose father's father had come from Medullia, a city of 
the Latins, to Rome, and had fought with Romulus against the Sabines. 63 Tullus 
loved the poor, and he divided the lands which came to him, as king, amongst 
those who had no land. He also bade those who had no houses to settle them- 
selves on the hill Csclius, and there he dwelt himself in the midst of them. 

Tullus was a Avarlike king, and he soon Avas called to prove his valor ; for the 

or his war with the countrymen of the Alban border and of the Roman border plun- 

,,,;;;'„ dered one another. 58 Now Alba was governed by Caius Cluilius, 

ana the curiaui. Avho wag (j^ di ctator . m & Cluilius sent to Rome to complain of 

M Livv, I. 19, 20. 1 1\ id, Fasti, III. 276. 47 Cicero do Rep. II. 14. 

43 Ovid, Faatij III. 289, et Beqq. Plutarch, 48 Dionysius, 11.71. Plutarch, Numa, 16. 
Numa, 1.">. *' Plutarch, Numa, 17. 

44 Plutarch, Numa, l.">. DionysiuB, II. CO. ! '° Livv, I. 21. 

46 Cicero de Eepuh. II. 14. M Plutarch, Numa, 22. 

••Plutarch. Numa, 8. Varro, apud A.ugU8- n Dionysius, 111.1. 
tin. Civit. Dei, IV. 81. M Livy, 1. 22, et scqq. 



Chap. L] EARLY LEGENDS. 7 

the wrongs done to his people, and Tullus sent to Alba for the same purpose. 
So there was a war between the two nations, and Cluilius led his people against 
Rome, and lay encamped within five miles of the city, and there he died. Met- 
tius Fufetius was then chosen dictator in his room ; and as the Albans still lay 
in their camp, Tullus passed them by, and marched into the land of Alba. But 
when Mettius came after him, then, instead of giving battle, the two leaders 
agreed that a few in either army should fight in behalf of the rest, and that the 
event of this combat should decide the quarrel. So three twin brothers were 
chosen out of the Roman army, called the Horatii, and three twin brothers out 
of the Alban army, called the Curiatii. The combat took place in the sight of 
both armies ; and after a time all the Curiatii were wounded, and two of the 
Horatii were slain. Then the last Horatius pretended to fly, and the Curiatii 
each, as they were able, followed after him. But when Horatius saw that they 
were a great way off from one another, he turned suddenly and slew the fnst of 
them ; and the second in like manner, and then he easily overcame and slew the 
third. So the victory remained to the Romans. 

Then the Romans went home to Rome in triumph, 54 and Horatius went at the 
hea4 of the army, bearing his triple spoils. But as they were h„ w Homtms slew his 
drawing near to the Capenian gate, his sister came out to meet m e ^t'p"sl."i f upoi u u£ 
him. Now she had been betrothed in marriage to one of the &rtliedeed - 
Curiatii, and his cloak, which she had wrought with her own hands, was borne 
on the shoulders of her brother ; and she knew it, and cried out, and wept for 
him whom she had loved. At the sight of her tears Horatius was so wroth that 
he drew his sword, and stabbed his sister to the heart ; and he said, " So perish 
the Roman maiden who shall weep for her country's enemy." But men said 
that it was a dreadful deed and they dragged him before the two judges who 
judged when blood had been shed. For thus said the law, 

" The two men shall give judgment on the shedder of hlood. 
If he shall appeal from their judgment, let the appeal be tried. 
If their judgment be confirmed, cover his head. 
Hang him with a halter on the accursed tree ; 
Scourge him either within the sacred limit of the city or without." 

So they gave judgment on Horatius, and were going to give him over to be put 
to death. But he appealed, and the appeal was tried before all the Romans, and 
they would not condemn him because he had conquered for them their enemies, 
and because his father spoke for him, and said, that he judged the maiden to 
have been lawfully slain. Yet as blood had been shed, which required to be 
atoned for, the Romans gave a certain sum of money to offer sacrifices to atone 
for the pollution of blood. These sacrifices were duly performed ever afterwards 
by the members of the house of the Horatii. 

The Albans were now become bound to obey the Romans ; 55 and Tullus called 
upon them to aid in a war against the people of Yeii and Fidenee. of the fearful piiniBh 
But in the battle the Alban leader, Mettius Fufetius, stood aloof, ^J^ 
and gave no true aid to the Romans. So, when the Romans had Uon of Alba - 
won the battle, Tullus called the Albans together as if he were going to make a 
speech to them ; and they came to hear him, as was the custom, without their 
arms ; and the Roman soldiers gathered round them, and they could neither 
fight nor escape. Then Tullus took Mettius and bound him between two chari- 
ots, and drove the chariots different ways, and tore him asunder. After this he 
sent his people to Alba, and they destroyed the city, and made all the Albans 
come and live at Rome ; there they had the hill Ceelius for their dwelling-place, 
and became one people with the Romans. 

After this, Tullus made war upon the Sabines, and gained a victory over 

54 Livy, I. 26. M Livy, I. 27, et seqq. 



8 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. IL 

i" OW offln g e TulI h 8 'i ,flv " them. 56 But now, whether it were that Tullus had neglected the 
was killed by lightning, worship of the gods whilst he had been so busy in his wars, the 
signs of the wrath of heaven became manifest. A plague broke out among the 
people, and Tullus himself was at last stricken with a lingering disease. Then 
he bethought him of good and holy Nuina, and how, in his time, the gods had 
been so gracious to Rome, and had made known their will by signs whenever 
Numa inquired of them. So Tullus also tried to inquire of Jupiter, but the god 
was angry, and would not be inquired of, for Tullus did not consult him rightly ; 
so he sent his lightnings, and Tullus and all his house were burnt to ashes. This 
made the Romans know that they wanted a king who would follow the example 
of Numa ; so they chose his daughter's son, Ancus Marcius, to reign over them 
in the r<^>m of Tullus. 

THE STORY OF ANCUS MARCIUS. 

Ancient story does not tell much of Ancus Marcius. He published the reli- 
or the good reign of gious ceremonies which Numa had commanded, and had them 
Ancus Marcius. written out upon whited boards, and hung up round the forum, 

that all might know and observe them. 57 He had a war with the Latins and 
conquered them, and brought the people to Rome, and gave them the hill Aven- 
tinus to dwell on. 58 He divided the lands of the conquered Latins amongst all 
the Romans ; 59 and he gave up the forests near the sea which he had taken from 
the Latins, co be the public property of the Romans. He founded the colony 
at Ostia, by the mouth of the Tiber. 60 He built a fortress on the hill Janiculum, 
and joined the hill to the city by a wooden bridge over the river. 61 He secured 
the city in the low grounds between the hills by a great dyke, which was called 
the dyke at the Quirites. 62 And he built a prison under the hill Saturnius, 
towards the "forum, because, as the people grew in numbers, offenders against 
the laws became- more numerous also. 63 At last king Ancus died, after a reign 
of three-and-twenty years. 64 



CHAPTER II. 

THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME. 



Ek t(ov dpr}jxii'biv Tocp-qpiuiv Toiatira av r<s vofxi^mv jidXiara S &ir}\0ov, olx ipaprdvoi ' Kat oCre u$ 
7roir;ra( vftvi'/Kaat xtpi avruiv, im rb pti^ov koojiovvtcs. pdXXov tiotcu'oji', ovts (if Xoyoypdfoi ^vtiOscrav em 
to Kpoa-ayioydTCpov rfj dtpodoti rj dXrjBluTcpov. oVro ivt^zXiyKTa kui t« voXXd bird ^fxirou aiirijiv (Itti'otgjj 
fT( tu fivQuiSes iKi£vtK7]K6Ta, evprjoSat ie r\yqadptvai Ik twv evKpaieaTdruiv crjficiwi', ojj iraXaid elvai. diro- 
XpuvTui. — ThDOTDIDESj I. 21. 

I have given the stories of the early kings and founders of Rome, in their 
own proper form ; not wishing any one to mistake them for real history, but 
thinking them far too famous and too striking to be omitted. But what is the 
real history, in the place of which we have so long admited the tales of Romulus 
and Numa? This is a question which cannot be satisfactorily answered : I shall 

60 Livy, I. 31. 01 Liw, I. 33. 

67 Livy, I. 82. Dionysius, 111. >6. "'-' Livy, I. 33. 
** Cicero (ie Repub. J I. is. Livy, I. 33. M Livy, I. 83. 

68 Cicero de Repub. II. 18. M Cicero de Repub. J2. 18. Livysays, "twen- 
w Cicero, ib. Livy, 1. 88. Dionys. ill. 44. ty-four years." 1.35. 



OSap. II.] EARLY HISTORY. 9 

content myself here with giving the few points that seem sufficiently established ; 
referring those who desire to go deeply into the whole question, to that immortal 
work of Niebuhr, which has left other writers nothing else to do, except either 
to copy or to abridge it. 

The first question in the history of every people is, What was their race and 
language ? the next, What was the earliest form of their society, their social and 
political organization ? Let us see how far we can answer these questions with 
respect to Rome. 

The language of the Romans was not called Roman, but Latin. Politically, 
Rome and Latium were clearly distinguished, but their language L^g^ f the Re- 
appears to have been the same. This language is different from mans - 
the Etruscan, and from the Oscan ; the Romans, therefore, are so far marked 
out as distinct from the great nations of central Italy, whether Etruscans, Umbri- 
ans, Sabines, or Samnites. 

On the other hand, the connection of the Latin language with the Greek is 
manifest. ' Many common words, which no nation ever derives Partly conne cted with 
from the literature of another, are the same in Greek and Latin"; that of Greece ' 
the declensions of the nouns and verbs are, to a great degree, similar. *t is 
probable that the Latins belonged to that great race which, in very early times, 
overspread both Greece and Italy, under the various names of Pelasgians, Tyrse- 
nians, and Siculians. It may be believed, that the Hellenians were anciently a 
people of this same race, but that some peculiar circumstances gave to them a 
distinct and superior character, and raised them so far above their brethren, that 
in after ages they disclaimed all connection with them. 1 

But in the Latin language there is another element besides that whjflk it has in 
common with the Greek. This element belongs to the languages'i^lPI^ that f the 
of central Italy, and may be called Oscan. Further, Niebuhr has^JEjH* '. 
remarked, that whilst the terms relating to agriculture and domestic life are 
mostly derived from the Greek part of the language, those relating to arms and 
war are mostly Oscan. 2 It seems, then, not only that the Latins were a mixed 
people, partly Pelasgian and partly Oscan ; but also that they arose out of a 
conquest of the Pelasgians by the Oscans : so that the latter were the ruling 
class of the united nation ; the former were its subjects. 

The Latin language, then, may afford us a clue to the origin of the Latin peo- 
ple, and so far to that of the Romans. But it does not explain Differences between the 

■ l 11 . rv . 1 -it-* it* I'll Romans and the other 

the difference between the Romans and Latins, to which the pecu- Latins. 
liar fates of the Roman people owe their origin. We must inquire, then, what 
the Romans were, which the other Latins were not ; and as language cannot aid 
us here, Ave must have recourse to other assistance, to geography and national 

1 The Pelasgians, in the opinion, of Heroclo- The word " scutum" was, in the first edition 
tus, were a barbarian race, and spoke a barba- of this work, introduced inadvertently into the 
rian language. — I. 57, 58. This merely means list of Latin military terms, unconnected with 
that they did not speak Greek. No one doubts Greek ; as it is evidently of the same family 
the connection between Greek and Latin ; yet with okvtos : but yet there are so many words 
Plautus, speaking of one of his own comedies, of the same family in the other languages of the 
the story of which was borrowed from Phile- Indo-Germanic stock, that the connection be- 
mon, says, longs rather to the general resemblance sub- 

" Philemo scripsit, Plautus vertit barbare."— sisting between all those languages, than to the 
Trinummus, Prolog, v. 19. closer likeness which may subsist between any 
That is, '' translated into Latin." The discov- two of them towards one another. And this 
ery of affinities in languages, when they are not more distant relationship exists, I doubt not, 
so close as to constitute merely a difference of between the Oscan and even the Etruscan lan- 
dialect, belongs only to philologers. Who, till guages, and the other branches of the Indo- 
very lately, suspected that Sanskrit and English Germanic family ; and so far Greek, as well as 
had any connection with each other? Sanskrit, Persian, or German, may be rightly 

2 He instances, on the one hand, Domus, used as an instrument to enable us to doci- 
Ager, Aratrum, Vinum, Oleum, Lac, Bos, Sus, pher the Etruscan inscriptions. Lanzi's fault 
Ovis ; while on the other hand, Duellum, En- consisted in assuming too close a resemblance 
sis, Hasta, Sagitta, &c, are quite different from between Greek and Etruscan; in supposing 
the corresponding Greek terms. See Niebuhr, that they were sisters, rather than distant 
Eom. Gesch. Vol. I. p. 82. Ed. 1827. cousins. 



10 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. II 

traditions. And thus, at the same time, we shall arrive at an answer to the 
second question in Roman history, What was the earliest form of civil society at 
Rome ? 

If we look at the map, we shall see that Rome lies at the farthest extremity 
Distinct geographical of Latium, divided from Etruria only by the Tiber, and having the 
position of 'Rome. Sabines close on the north, between the Tiber and the Anio. No 
other Latin town, so far as we know, was built on the Tiber; 3 some were clus- 
tered on and round the Alban hills, others lined the coast of the Mediterranean, 
but from all these Rome, by its position, stood aloof. 

Tradition reports that as Rome was thus apart from the rest of the Latin 
intermixture of Sabine cities, and so near a neighbor to the Etruscans and Sabines, so its 

and Etruscan mstitu- .. . ° _ - <* l • 

tion» and people. population was in part formed out ot one of these nations, and 
many of its rites and institutions borrowed from the other. Tradition describes 
the very first founders of the city as the shepherds and herdsmen of the banks of 
the Tiber, and tells how their numbers were presently swelled by strangers and 
outcasts from all the countries round about. It speaks of a threefold division of 
the Roman people, in the very earliest age of its history ; the tribes of the Ram- 
nenses, Titienses, and Luceres. It distinctly acknowledges the Titienses to have 
been Sabines ; and in some of its guesses at the origin of the Luceres, it connects 
their name with that of the Etruscan Lucumones, 4 and thus supposes them to 
have been composed of Etruscans. 

We know that for all points of detail, and for keeping a correct account of 
time, tradition is worthless. It is very possible that all Etruscan rites and usages 
came in with the Tarquinii, and were falsely carried back to an earlier period. 
But the mixture of the Sabines with the original people of the Palatine Hill can- 
not be doubted ; and the stories of the asylum, and of the violence done to the 
Sabine women, seem to show that the first settlers of the Palatine were a mixed 
race, in which other blood was largely mingled with that of the Latins. We 
may conceive of this earlier people of Mamers, as of the Mamertini of a more 
historical period : that they were a band of resolute adventurers from various 
parts, practised in arms, and little scrupulous how they used them. Thus- th'e 
origin of the highest Roman nobility may have greatly resembled that forger 
band of adventurers who followed the standard of William the Norman, and were 
the founders of the nobility of England. 

The people or citizens of Rome were divided into the thi*ee tribes of the Ram- 
Division of the Roman nenses, Titienses, and Luceres, 5 to whatever races Ave may suppose 
people mto three tnbus. t neni to belong, or at whatever time and under whatever circum- 
stances they may have become united. Each of these tribes was divided into 
ten smaller bodies called curiae ; so that the whole people consisted of thirty 
curiae : these same divisions were in war represented by the thirty centuries 
which made up the legion, just as the three tribes were represented by the 
three centuries of horsemen ; but that the soldiers of each century were exactly 
a hundred, is apparently as unfounded a conclusion, as it would be if we 
were to argue in the same way as to the military force of one of our English 
hundreds. 

I have said that each tribe was divided into ten curios ; it would be more cor- 

3 I had forgotten what may be the single ° These in Livy's first book are called merely 

exception ..f Picana, which, according to Fes- " Centurise equitum," ch. 18. But in the tenth 

tus, stun 1 .,u the road to < >stia, at the eleventh Imnk, ch. *'<. they appear as " Antiques tribus." 

milestone from Borne: that is, according to Sir Both expressions come to the same thing, tor 

W. Gel! and others, at tin- spot now called the three centuries of horsemen, as appears 

Tenuta di DragonceHa. But Westphal places bj the storj of Tarquiniua Prisons and the 

Fieana at Trapnusa, which is at some distance augur, Attus Navius, were supposed to rep- 

from the Tiber ; so that, according to him, the resent the three tribes, and their number was 

Btatement in the textwould be absolutely correct, fixed upon that principle: just as the thirty 

* So Junius Grneehaniis, as quoted by Varro, centuries of foot Boldiors represented the thirty 

de L. L., V. sec. 55; and so also Cicero, dc Be- curiae. 
publica, II. 8. 



Chap. II.] EARLY HISTORY. 1 1 

rect to say, that the union of ten curiae formed the tribe. For the Tribes made np of cu 
state grew out of the junction of certain original elements; and Tim ' curiffi0f house8 - 
these were neither the tribes, nor even the curias, but the gentes or houses which 
made up the curiae. The first element of the whole system was the gens or 
house, a union of several families who were bound together by the joint perform- 
ance of certain religious rites. Actually, where a system of houses has existed 
within historical memory, the several families who composed a house Avere not 
necessarily related to one another ; they were not really cousins more or less 
distant, all descended from a common ancestor. But there is no reason to doubt 
that in the original idea of a house, the bond of union between its several families 
was truly sameness of blood : such was likely to be the earliest acknowledged 
tie ; although afterwards, as names are apt to outlive their meanings, an artificial 
bond may have succeeded to the natural one ; and a house, instead of consisting 
of families of real relations, was made up sometimes of families of strangers, 
whom it was proposed to bind together by a fictitious tie, in the hope that law, 
. and custom, and religion, might together rival the force of nature. 

Thus the state being made up of families, and every family consisting from the 
earliest times of members and dependents, the original inhabitants The houses and their 
of Rome belonged all to one of two classes : they were either cUento - 
members of a family ; and if so, members of a house, of a curia, of a tribe, and 
so, lastly, of the state : or they were dependents on a family ; and, if so, then- 
relation went no further than the immediate aggregate of families, that is, the 
house : with the curia, with the tribe, and with the state, they had no connection. 

These members of families were the original citizens of Rome ; these depend- 
ents on families were the original clients. 

The idea of clientship is that of a wholly private relation ; the clients were 
something to their respective patrons, but to the state they were 

D i JT ' J The commons or pleba. 

nothing. But wherever states composed in this manner, of a 
body of houses with their clients, had been long established, there grew up 
amidst or close beside them, created in most instances by conquest, a population 
of a very distinct kind. Strangers might come to live in the land, or more com- 
monly the inhabitants of a neighboring district might be conquered, and united 
with their conquerors as a subject people. Now this population had no connec- 
tion with the houses separately, but only with a state composed of those houses : 
this was wholly a political, not a domestic relation ; it united personal and pri- 
vate liberty with political subjection. This inferior population possessed property, 
regulated their own municipal as well as domestic affairs, and as free men fought 
in the armies of what was now their common country. But, strictly, they were 
not its citizens ; they could not intermarry with the houses, they could not belong 
to the state, for they belonged to no house, and therefore to no curia, and no 
tribe ; consequently they had no share in the state's government, nor in the state's 
property. What the state conquered in Avar became the property of the state, 
and therefore they had no claim to it ; with the state demesne, with whatever, in 
short, belonged to the state in its aggregate capacity, these, as being its neighbors 
merely, and not its members, had no concern. 

Such an inferior population, free personally, but subject politically, not slaves, 
yet not citizens, were the original Plebs, the commons of Rome. 

The mass of the Roman commons were conquered Latins. 6 These, besides 
receiving grants of a portion of their former lands, to be held by, TheiraetUcmeil tontho 
them as Roman citizens, had also the hill Aventinus assigned as ATentineHiU ' 
a residence to those of them who removed to Rome. The Aventine was without 
the Avails, although so near to them : thus the commons were, even in the nature 
of their abode, like the Pfalburger of the middle ages, — men not admitted to 
live within the city, but enjoying its protection against foreign enemies. 

6 See Niebuhr's chapter " Die Gemeinde und die plebeischen Tribus." 



12 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. Ill 

It will be understood at once, that whatever is said of the people in these 
Members of the houses early times, refers only to the full citizens, that is, to the mem- 
we re the o n i y chinas. bers of the b 0USeS- The assembly of the people was the assembly 
of the curiae ; that is, the great council of the members of the houses ; while the 
senate, consisting of two hundred senators, chosen in equal numbers from the 
two higher tribes of the Ramnenses and Titienses, was their smaller or ordinary 
council. 

The power of the king was as varied and ill-defined as in the feudal monarch- 
The idne's power over ies of the middle ao-es. Over the commons he was absolute ; 

the citizens, and over , . 1 i l • 11 

the commons. but over the real people, that is, over the houses, his power was 

absolute only in war, and without the city. Within the walls every citizen was 
allowed to appeal from the king, or his judges, to the sentence of his peers ; that 
is, to the great council of the curiae. The king had his demesne lands, 1 and in 
war would receive his portion of the conquered land, as well as of the spoil of 
movables. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE CITY OF ROME, ITS TEEEITORY, AND ITS SCENERY. 



Muros, arcemquc procul, ac rara dornorum 



Tecta videut. 

Hoe ne'mus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem, 

Quis Deus incerturn est, habitat Deus." 

Viegil, Ma. VIII. 

If it is hard to carry back our ideas of Rome from its actual state to the 
Early state of the city period of its highest splendor, it is yet harder to go back in 
" fRome - fancy to a time still more distant, a time earlier than the begin- 

ning of its authentic history, before man's art had completely rescued the very 
soil of the future city from the dominion of nature. Here also it is vain to 
attempt accuracy in the details, or to be certain that the several features in our 
description all existed at the same period. It is enough if we can image to our- 
selves some likeness of the original state of Rome, before the undertaking of 
those great works which are ascribed to the later kings. 

The Pomoerium of the original city on the Palatine, as described by Tacitus, 1 

The original Pom**- included not only the hill itself, but some portion of the ground 

immediately below it ; it did not, however, reach as far as any of 

the other hills. The valley between the Palatine and the Aventine, afterwards 

the site of the Circus Maximus, was in the earliest times covered with water ; 

' Cicero de Republics, V. 3. timius Severus, at tbc Janus Quadrifons '* (this 
1 Tacitus, Axmal. XII. 24. — It is evident, by must not be confounded with the Arch of Scy- 
the minuteness of his description, that the eon- eras on the Via Sacra, just under the Capitol), 
secrated limits of the original city had been ""and passed through the valley of the circus, 
carefully preserved by tradition; and this is bo as to include the Ara Maxima, as far as the 
exactly one of the points on which, as we know Ara Consi, at the fool of the hill. It then pro- 
by our own experience with regard to parish eeeded from the Septizonium (just opposite 
boundaries, a tradition kept up byyearly cere- the church of S. Gregorio, at the foot <>t' the 
monies may safely bo trusted. The exact line Palatine), till it came under the baths - 
of. this original PomoBiium is thus marked by fan (or Titus), which were the Curias Vcteres. 
Bunsen in his description of Borne, Vol. I. Prom thence it passed on to the top of the 
p. L87 : "It set out from the Forum Boarium, Velio, on which the Arch of Titus qow stands, 
the site of wliich is fixed by the Arab, of Sep- and where Tacitus places the Sacellum Larium. 



Chap. III.] CITY OF ROME, ETC. 13 

so also was the greater part of the valley between the Palatine and the Capito- 
line, the ground afterwards occupied by the Roman forum. 

But the city of the Palatine Hill grew in process of time, so as to become a 
city of seven hills. Not the seven famous hills of imperial or Tbe OTiginal BeTen 
republican Rome, but seven spots more or less elevated, and all hiUs - 
belonging to three only of the later seven hills, that is, to the Palatine, the Caelian, 
and the Esquiline. These first seven hills of Rome were known by the names of 
Palatium, Velia, Cermalus, Ceelius, Fagutal, Oppius, and Cispius. 2 Of this town 
the Aventine formed a suburb ; and the dyke of the Quirites, ascribed in the story 
to Ancus Marcius, ran across the valley from the edge of the Aventine to that 
of the Caelian Hill near the Porta Capena. 3 

At this time Rome, though already a city on seven hills, was distinct from the 
Sabine city on the Capitoline, Quirinal, and Viminal Hills. The They did not include 

. . J , , , f, , , , , , ,.,. all the seven hills of the 

two cities, although united under one government, had still a sep- later city. 
arate existence ; they were not completely blended into one till that second 
period in Roman history which we shall soon have to consider, the reigns of the 
later kings. 

The territory of the original Rome during its first period, the true Ager 
Romanus, could be gone round in a single day. 4 It did not ex- 
tend beyond the Tiber at all, nor probably oeyond the Anio ; and, 
on the east and south, where it had most room to spread, its limit 'vas between 
five and six miles from the city. This Ager Romanus was the exclusive property 
of the Roman people, that is, of the houses ; it did not include the lands con- 
quered from the Latins, and given back to them again when the Latins became the 
plebs or commons of Rome. According to the augurs, 5 the Ager Romanus 
was a peculiar district in a religious sense ; auspices could be taken within its 
bounds, which could be taken nowhere without them. 

And now what was Rome, and what was the country around it, which have 
both acquired an interest such as can cease only when earth s^ry of ffie neig]l _ 
itself shall perish ? The hills of Rome are such as we rarely borhoodof Rome - 
see in England, low in height, but with steep and rocky sides. 6 In early times 
the natural wood still remained in patches amidst the buildings, as at this day 

It followed nearly the line of the Via Sacra, as inal HiUs, near the church of S. Francesco di 
far as the eastern end of the Forurn Romanum. Paola, where a miserable sort of square is still 
But Tacitus does not mention it as going on to called Piazza Suburra) may have joined in the 
join the Forum Boarium, because in the earli- festival of the inhabitants of these seven hills 
est times this valley was either a lake or a or heights, although they were not themselves 
swamp, and the Pomoeriuin could not descend "Montani" (see Varro de L. L., VI. 24. Ed. 
below the edge of the Palatine Hill. Nibby, in Muller), to show that they belonged to the city 
his work on the waUs of Rome, places the of the Palatine, and not to the ISabine city of 
Curiae Veteres on the Palatine, and the Sacel- the Capitoline Hill. For the exact situations of 
lum Larium between the Arch of Titus and the the other seven spots, see Bunsen, description 
Forum on the Via Nova. The position of the of Rome, Vol. I. p. 141. Velia was the ascent 
Curiae Veteres is certainly doubtful. Niebuhr on the northeast side of the Palatine, where the 
himself (Vol. I. p. 283. Note 735. Eng. Tr.) Arch of Titus now stands. Cermalus, or Ger- 
thinks that the Pomcerium can scarcely be car- mains, was on the northwest side of the Pala- 
ried so far as the foot of the Esquiline^ and the tine, just above the Velabrum: Fagutal is 
authority for identifying the Curiae * Veteres thought to have been the ground near the 
Vith the site of the Baths of- Titus or Trajan is Porta Esquilina, between the Arch of Galli- 
not decisive ; for it only appears that Biondo, enus and the Sette Sale. Oppius and Cispius 
writing in 1440, caUs the ruins of the Baths were also parts of the Esquiline ; the former is 
"Curia Vecchia," and says that in old legal marked by the present church of S. Maria Mag- 
instruments they were commonly so called, giore, and the latter lay between that church 
(Beschreibung Roms, Vol. III. part 2, p. 222.) and the baths of Diocletian. 
Now considering the general use of the word 3 See Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. 403. Ed. 2d. and 
Curia, and that the name is in the singular num- Bunsen. Beschreibung Roms, Vol. I. p. 620. 
ber, it by no means follows that Biondo's Curia 4 See Strabo, Lib. V. p. 253. Ed. Xyland, 
Vetus must be the Curiae Veteres of Tacitus. and compare Livy, I. 23. " Fossa Cluilia, ab 
2 For the account of this old Septimontium. Urbe baud plus quinque millia." And II. 39. 
see Festus, under the word " Septimontio." " Ad Fossas Cluilias V. ab Urbe M. P. castris 
Festus adds an eighth name, Suburra. Niebuhr positis, populatur hide Agrum Bomcmum. 
conjectures that the inhabitants of the Pagus B See Varro de L. L., V. 33. Ed. Muller. 
Sucusanus (which was the same district as the 6 The substance of this description, taken 
Suburra, and lay under the Esquiline and Vim- from my journals and recollections of my visit 



14 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. IIL 

it grows here and there on the green sides of the Monte Testacco. Across the 
Tiber the ground rises to a greater height than that of the Roman hills, but its 
summit is a level unbroken line, while the heights, which opposite to Rome 
itself rise immediately from the river, under the names of Janiculus and Vati- 
canus, then sweep away to some distance from it, and returned in their highest 
and boldest form at the Monte Mario, just above the Milvian bridge and the 
Flaminian road. Thus to the west the view is immediately bounded ; but to 
the north and northeast the eye ranges over the low ground of the Campagna 
to the nearest line of the Apennines, which closes up, as with a gigantic wall, 
all the Sabine, Latin, and Volscian lowlands, while over if are still distinctly to 
be seen the high summits of the central Apennines, covered with snow, even at 
this day, for more than six months in the year. South and southwest lies the 
wide plain of the Campagna ; its level line succeeded by the equally level line 
of the sea, which can only be distinguished from it by the brighter light re- 
flected from its waters. Eastward, after ten miles of plain, the view is bounded 
by the Alban hills, a cluster of high, bold points rising _ out of the Campagna, 
like Arran from the sea, on the highest of which, at nearly the same height with 
the summit of Helvellyn, 7 stood the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the scene of the 
common worship of all the people of the Latin name. Immediately under this 
highest point lies the crater-like basin of the Alban lake ; and on its nearer rim 
might be seen the trees of the grove of Ferentia, where the Latins held the 
great civil assemblies of their nation. Further to the north, on the edge of the 
Alban hills looking towards Rome, was the town and citadel of Tusculum ; and 
beyond this, a lower summit, crowned with the walls and towers of Labicum, 
seems to connect the Alban hills with the line of the Apennines just at the spot 
where the citadel of Prseneste, high upon the mountain side, marks the opening 
into the country of the Hernicans, and into the valleys of the streams that feed 
the Liris. 

Returning nearer to Rome, the lowland country of the Campagna is broken 
character of the Cam- D y l° n g green swelling ridges, the ground rising and falling, as 
pRgna ' in the heath country of Surrey and Berkshire. The streams are 

dull and sluggish, but the hill sides above them constantly break away into 
little rocky cliffs, where on every ledge the wild fig now strikes out its branches, 
and tufts of broom are clustering, but which in old times formed the natural 
strength of the citadels of the numerous cities of Latium. Except in these nar- 
row dells, the present aspect of the country is all bare and desolate, with no 
trees nor any human habitation. But ancientty, in the time of the early kings of 
Rome, it was full of independent cities, and in its population and the careful cul- 
tivation of its little garden-like farms, must have resembled the most flourishing 
parts of Lombardy or the Netherlands. 

Such was Rome, and such its neighborhood ; such also, as far as we can dis- 
cover, was the earliest form of its society, and such the legends which fill up the 
place of its lost history. Even for the second period, on which we are now 
going to enter, we have no certain history ; but a series of stories as beautiful as 
they are unreal, and a few isolated political institutions, which we cannot con- , 
fidently connect with their causes or their authors. As before, then, I must first 
give the stories in their oldest and most genuine form ; and then offer, in meagre 
contrast, all that can be collected or conjectured of the real history. 

to Rome in 1827, was inserted some time since 7 The height of Monte Cavo is variously given 

in the History of Rome published by the So- at 2938 or 2965 French feet. See Bunsen, 

ciety for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Vol. I. p. 40. Helvellyn is reckoned at 8055 

I am obliged to mention this, lest I might he English feet, by Col. Mudge; by Mr. Otlev, in 

suspected of having borrowed from another his Guide to the Lakes, it is estimated at 

work without acknowledgment what was in 3070. 
fact furnished to that work by myself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

STOEIES OF THE L^fER KINGS. 



" Quis novus hie nostris successit sedibus bospes ? 
Quein sese ore" ferens, quam forti pectore et armis ?" 

Virgil, Mn. IV. 



STORT OF L. TARQUINIUS PRISCU9. 

In the days of Ancus Marcius there came to Rome from Tarquinii, a city of 
Etruria, a wealthy Etruscan and his wife. 1 The father of this stranger was a 
Greek, 2 a citizen of Corinth, who left his native land because it WiheMrfhrf Ta*<gdn- 
was oppressed by a tyrant, and found a home at Tarquinii. to Rome. 
There he married a noble Etruscan lady, and by her he had two sons. But his 
son found, that for his father's sake he was still looked upon as a stranger ; so 
he left Tarquinii, and went with his wife Tanaquil to Rome, for there, it was said, 
strangers were held in more honor. Now as he came near to the gates of Rome, 
as he was sitting in his chariot with Tanaquil his wife, an eagle came and plucked 
the cap from his head, and bore it aloft into the air ; and then flew down again 
and placed it upon his head, as it had been before. So Tanaquil was glad at 
this sight, and she told her husband, for she was skilled in augury, that this was 
a sign of the favor of the gods, and she bade him be of good cheer, for that he 
would surely rise to greatness. 

Now when the stranger came to Rome, they called him Lucius Tarquinius ; 3 
and he was a brave man and wise in council; and his riches won onus favor with king 
the good word of the multitude ; and he became known to the Ancu8 - 
king. He served the king well in peace and war, so that Ancus held him in 
great honor, and when he died he named him by his will to be the guardian of 
his children. 

But Tarquinius was in great favor with the people, and when he desired to be 
kinuf, thev resolved to choose him rather than the son of Ancus. „,_ - , 

O ' J ii« j Of nia deeds in war. 

So he began to reign, and he did great works, both in war and 
peace. He made war on the Latins, and took from them a great spoil. 4 Then 
he made war on the Sabines, and he conquered them in two battles, and took 
from them the town of Collatia, and gave it to Egerius, his brother's son, who°" 
had come with him from Tarquinii. Lastly, there was another war with the 
Latins, and Tarquinius went round to their cities, and took them one after 
another ; for none dared to go out to meet him in open battle. These were his 
acts in war. 

He also did great works in peace ; 5 for he made vast drains to carry off the 
water from between the Palatine and the Aventine, and from be- ^„. 

i t-» i .- it r-t „.,, , , . ., Of ma works in peace. 

tween the Palatine and the Capitohne Hills. And in the space 
between the Palatine and the Aventine, after he had drained it, he formed the 
Circus, or great race-course, for chariot and for horse races. Then in the space 
between the Palatine and the Capitoline he made a forum or market-place, and 
divided out the ground around it for shops or stalls, and made a covered walk 
round it. Next he set about building a wall of stone to go round the city ; and 

1 Livy, I. 34. s Cicero, Livy, and Dionysius, in locis citatis. 

2 Livy, ibid. Dionys. III. 46-48. Cicero de 4 Livy, I. 35-38. 

Ecpublica, II. 19. 6 Livy, I. 38. 35. Dionysius, III. 67, 68. 



16 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. IV 

he laid the foundations of a great temple on the Capitoline Hill, which was to be 
the temple of the gods of Rome. He also added a hundred new senators to the 
senate, and doubled the number of the horsemen in the centuries of the Ram- 
nenses, Titienses, and Luceres, for he wanted to strengthen his force of horse- 
men ; and when he had done so, his horse gained him great victories over his 
enemies. 

Now he first had it in his mind to make three new centuries of horsemen, and 
of the famous au-ur to call them after his own name. But Attus Navius, who was 
Attusxavius. ' greatly skilled in 6 augury, forbade him. ' Then the king mocked 
at his art, and said, " Come now, thou augur, tell me by thy auguries, whether 
the thing which I now have in my mind may be done or not." And Attus 
Navius asked counsel of the gods by augury, and he answered, "It may." 
Then the king said, " It was in my mind that thou shouldst cut in two this 
whetstone with this razor. Take them, and do it, and fulfil thy augury if thou 
canst." But Attus took the razor and the whetstone, and he cut, and cut the 
whetstone asunder. So the king obeyed his counsels, and made no new cen- 
turies ; and in all things afterwards he consulted the gods by augury, and obeyed 
their bidding. 

Tarquinius reigned long and prospered greatly ; and there was a young man 
_„_..,. brought up in his household, of whose birth some told wonderful 

How Tarquinius choso , -i j • -i , -t it r -it i . lfl 

servius Tuiiius to be his tales, ana said that he was the son of a god; but others said 8 
murdered by iho sons that his mother was a slave, and his father was one of the king's 
clients. But he served the king well, and was in favor with the 
people, and the king promised him his daughter in marriage. The young man 
was called Servius Tullius. But when the sons of king Ancus saw that Servius 
was so loved by king Tarquinius, they resolved to slay the king, lest he should 
make this stranger his heir, and so they should lose the crown forever. So they 9 
set on two shepherds to do the deed, and these went to the king's palace, and 
pretended to be quarrelling with each other, and both called on the king to do 
them right. The king sent for them to hear their story ; and while he was hear- 
ing one of them speak, the other struck him on the head with his hatchet, and 
then both of them fled. But Tanaquil, the king's wife, pretended that he was 
not dead, but only stunned by the blow ; and she said that he had appointed 
Servius Tullius to rule in his name, till he should be well again. So Servius 
went forth in royal state, and judged causes amidst the people, and acted in all 
things as if he were king, till after a while it was known that the king was dead, 
and Servius was suffered to reign in his place. Then the sons of Ancus saw that 
there was no hope left for them ; and they fled from Rome, and lived the rest of 
their days in a foreign land. 

THE STORY OF SERVIUS TULLIUS. 

" Long live the Commons' King, Kong James." 

Lady of the Lake. 

Servius Tullius was a just and good king; 10 he loved the commons, and he di- 
iw king servius en- vided among them the lands which had been conquered in war, 
larked the cuy. an( j ^e mat i e many wise and good laws, to maintain the cause of 

the poor, and to stop the oppression of the rich. He made war with the Etrus- 
cans," and conquered them. He added the Quirinal and the Viminal Hills 13 to 
the city, and he brought many new citizens to live on the Esquiline ; and there 
he lived himself amongst them. He also raised a great mound of earth to join 
the Esquiline and the Quirinal and the Viminal Hills together, and to cover them 
from the attacks of an enemy. 

8 Livy I. 36. Dionysius, -III. 70, 71. Ci- 9 Livy, I. 40. 

cero de Divinat. I. 17, § 32. w Dionysius, IV. 13-15. 40. 

7 Dionysius, IV. 2. Ovid, Fasti, VI. 627. » Livy, I. 42. 

8 Cicero de Eepub. II. 21. u Livy, I. 43. 



Chap. IV.] STORIES OF THE LATER KINGS. 17 

He built a temple 13 of Diana on the Aventine, where the Latins, and the Sabines, 
and the Romans, should offer their common sacrifices ; and the Romans were the 
chief in rank amongst all who worshipped at the temple. 

He made a new order of things for the whole 14 people ; for he divided the peo- 
ple of the city into four tribes, and the people of the country into onus good 1™: a „d 
six-and-twenty. Then he divided all the people into classes, accord- X^^diisL'nd 
ing to the value of their possessions ; and the classes he divided ceniaries - 
into centuries ; and the centuries of the several classes furnished themselves with 
arms, each according to their rank and order : the centuries of the rich classes 
had good and full armor, the poorer centuries had but darts and slings. And 
when he had done all these works, he called all the people together in their cen- 
turies, and asked if they would have him for their king ; and the people answered 
that he should be their king. But the nobles hated him, because he was so loved 
by the commons : for he had made a law that there should be no king after him, 
but two men chosen by the people to govern them year by year. Some even said 
that it was in his mind to give up his own kingly power, that so he might see 
with his own eyes the fruit of all the good laws that he had made, and might 
behold the people wealthy, and free, and happy. 

~Now king Servius had no son, 15 but he had two daughters ; and he gave them 
in marriage to the two sons of king Tarquinius.' These daughters Ho w he married his 
were of very unlike natures, and so were their husbands : for Aruns t l *„ «S B of "Sag tS- 
Tarquinius was of a meek and gentle spirit, but his brother Lucius v™™- 
was proud and full of evil ; and the younger Tullia, who was the wife of Aruns, 
was more -full of evil than Ins-brother Lucius ; and the elder Tullia, who was the 
wife of Lucius, was as good and genfle~as his 'brother Aruns. So the evil could 
not bear the good, but longed to be joined to the evil that was like itself; and 
Lucius slew his wife secretly, and the younger Tullia slew her husband, and then 
they were married to one another, that they might work all the wickedness of their 
hearts, according to the will of fate. 

^ Then Lucius plotted with the nobles, 16 who hated the good king; and he joined 
himself to^the sworn brotherhoods of the young nobles, in which h ow Lucius T arqu>n- 
they bound themselves to stand by each other inliheir deeds of and P cai t i Se l d a ii*m s to h bS 
violence and oppression. When aTTwas ready, he waited fot the murderea - 
seasorTof the harvest, when the commons, 17 who loved the king, were in the fields 
getting in their corn. Then he went suddenty to the forum with a band of armed 
men, and seated himself on the king's throne before the doors of the senate-house, 
where he was wont to judge the people. And they ran to the king, and told him 
that Lucius was sitting on his throne. Upon this the old man 18 went in haste to 
the forum, and when he saw Lucius he asked him wherefore he had dared to sit on 
the king's seat. And Lucius answered that it was his father's throne, and that 
he had more right in it than Servius. Then he seized the old man, and threw 
him down the steps of the senate-house to the ground ; and he went into the sen- 
ate-house, and called together the senators, as if he were already king. Servius 
meanwhile arose, and began to make his way home to his house ; but when he 
was come near to the Esquiline'Hill, some whom Lucius had sent after him over- 
took him and slew him, and left him in his blood in the middle of the way. 

Then the wicked Tullia 19 mounted her chariot, and drove into the forum, noth- 
ing ashamed to go amidst the multitude of men, and she called How the wicked Tui- 
Lucius out from the senate-house, and said to him, " Hail to thee, ov er d her°fa h therVrSad 
king Tarquinius !" But Lucius bade her go home ; and as she was body- 
going home, the body of her father was lying in the way. The driver of the char.- 
iot^stopped short, and showed to Tullia where her father lay in his blood. But 

13 Livy, I. 45. • * Livy, I. 46. Dionysius, IV. 30. 

14 Dionysius, IV. 16-20. Livy, 1. 43. Cicero " Dionysius, IV. 38. 
de Republic^, II. 22. l8 Livy, I. 48. 

16 Livy, 1. 46. M Livy, I. 48. 

2 



18 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap IV. 

she bade him drive on, for the furies of her wickedness were upon her, and the 
chariot rolled over the body ; and she went to her home with her father's blood 
upon the wheels of her chariot. Thus Lucius Tarquinius and the wicked Tullia 
reigned in the place of the good king Servius. 

THE STORY OF LUCIUS TARQUINIUS THE TYRANT. 

T6pavvo; vdixaid tc Kivci irdrpta, Kal |3tdrat ywcuKas, ktc'ivU rt dicptrovs. — Hebodotus, III. 80. 

■ Superbos 

Tarquini fasces. — Hokace, Carm. I. 12. 

Lucius Tarquinius gained his power wickedly, and no less wickedly did he ex- 
of tin- T a rq U i„iu S ercise it. He kept a guard 20 of armed men about him, and he 
and his great power. ru \ e( { a \\ things at his own will: many were they whom he spoiled 
of their goods, many were they whom he banished, and many also whom he slew. 
He despised the senate, and made no new senators in the place of those whom 
he slew, or who died in the course of nature, wishing that the senators might be- 
come fewer and fewer, till there should be none of them left. And he made friends 
of the chief men among the Latins, and gave his daughter in marriage to Octa- 
vius Mamilius of Tusculum ; and he became very powerful amongst the Latins, 
insomuch that' when Turnus Herdonius of Aricia had dared to speak against him 
in the great assembly of the Latins, Tarquinius accused him of plotting his death, 
and procured false witnesses to confirm his charge ; so that the Latins judged 
him to be guilty, and ordered him to be drowned. After this they were so afraid 
of Tarquinius, that they made a league with him, and followed him in his wars 
wherever he chose to lead them. The Hernicans 21 also joined this league, and so 
did Ecetra and Antium, cities of the Volscians. 

Then Tarquinius made war upon the rest of the Volscians, and he took 22 Suessa 
of his bunding, and Pometia, in the lowlands of the Volscians, and the tithe of the spoil 
poLdto^his^newte'm. w as forty talents of silver. So he set himself to raise mighty works 
ple - in Rome ; and he finished what his father had begun ; the great 

drains to drain the low grounds of the city, and the temple on the Capitoline Hill. 
Now the ground on which he was going to build his temple, was taken up with 
many holy places of the gods of the Sabines, which had been founded in the days 
of king Tatius. But Tarquinius consulted the gods by augury whether he might 
not take away these holy places, to make room for his own new temple. The gods 
allowed him to take away all the rest, except only the holy places of the god of 
Youth, 23 and of Terminus the god of boundaries, which they would not suffer him 
to move. But the augurs satd that this was a happy omen, for that it showed 
how the youth of the city should never pass away, nor its boundaries be moved by 
the conquests of an enemy. A human head was also found, as they were digging 
the foundations of the temple, and this too was a sign that the Capitoline Hill 
should be the head of all the earth. So Tarquinius built a mighty temple, and 
consecrated it to Jupiter, 24 and to Juno, and to Minerva, the greatest of the gods 
of the Etruscans. 

At this time there came a strange woman 25 to the king, and offered him nine 
or the Strang woman books of the prophecies of the Sibyl for a certain price. When the 
oftns sibyl to the Hog. king refused them, the woman went and burnt three of the books, 
and came back and offered the six at the same price which she had asked for the 
nine ; but they mocked at her, and would not take the books. Then she went away, 
and burnt three more, and fame back and asked still the same price for the remain- 
ing three. At this the king was astonished, and asked of the augurs what he should 

30 Livy, 1. 49-52. 23 Dionysius, III. 69. He tells the story of the 

SI DionysiuB, IV. 49. elder Tarquinius. 

33 Livy. I. 58. 55, 50. '-' Dionysius, IV. 61. 

•" Dionysius, IV. 62. A. Gellius, I. 19. 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 19 

do. They said that he had done wrong in refusing the gift of the gods, and bade 
him by all means to buy the books that were left. So \\e bought them ; and the 
woman who sold them was seen no more from that day forwards. Then the books 
were put into a chest of stone, and were kept under ground in the Capitol, and 
two men 26 were appointed to keep them, and were called the two men of the sacred 
books. 

Now Gabii 27 would not submit to Tarquinius, like the other cities of the Latins ; 
so he made war against it ; and the war was long, and Tarquinius how Tarquinius won 

o ' , . _, _ ° . . iij Gabii through the trea- 

knew not how to end it. So his son Sextus larquinius pretended cheryofhiesonsextus. 
that his father hated him, and fled to Gabii : and the people of Gabii believed 
him and trusted him, till at last he betrayed them into his father's power. A 
treaty was then made with them, and he gave them the right of becoming citizens 
of Rome, 28 and the Romans had the right of becoming citizens of Gabii, and there 
was a firm league between the two people. 

Thus Tarquinius was a great and mighty king ; but he grievously oppressed the 
poor, and he took away all the good laws of king Servius, and let How he oppressed his 

, .-, .-i ,iiiT it* iii r people, and made them 

the rich oppress the poor, as they had done before the days ot woi uke slaves. 
Servius. He made the people labor at his great works : he made them build his 
temple, and dig and construct his drains ; he laid such burdens 29 on them, that 
many slew themselves for very misery ; for in the days of Tarquinius the tyrant 
it was happier to die than to live. 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS OF ROME, AND OF THE GREATNESS 
OF THE MONARCHY. 



'Eiri jitya tjXSev f/ (3a<ri\da laxvog.- — ThTTCYD. II. 97. 
'A-irocpavCi ovrs roils a'XXouj ovrc aurouj 'ASrjvaiovs irepl tCHv otytTcpwv Tvpdvvuiv aKpi/Se; oiSiv \iyovras. 
— Thuotd. VI. 54. 



The stories of the two Tarquinii and of Servius Tullius are so much more disap- 
pointing than those of the earlier kings, inasmuch as they seem at The accounts even 01 
first to wear a more historical character, and as they really contain historical. 
much that is undoubtedly true ; but yet, when examined, they are found not to 
be history, nor can any one attach what is real in them to any of the real per- 
sons by whom it was effected. The great drains or cloacee of Rome exist to this 
hour, to vouch for their own reality ; yet of the Tarquinii, by whom they are said 
to have been made, nothing is certainly known. So also the constitution of the 
classes and centuries is as real as Magna Charta or the Bill of Rights; yet its 
pretended author is scarcely a more historical personage than King Arthur ; we 
do not even know his name or race, whether he were Servius Tullius, or Mas- 
tarna, 1 a Latin or an Etruscan ; the son of a slave reared in the palace of the 
Roman king, or a military adventurer who settled at Rome together with his com- 
panions in arms, and was received with honor for his valor. Still less can we trust 

28 See Livy, III. 10, and VI. 37. Dionysius Etruscan histories, quoted by the Emperor Clan- 
gives " Ten," which was the later number. Gel- dius in his speech upon admitting the Gauls to 
bus gives " Fifteen." the Roman franchise. This speech was engraved 

27 Livy, I. 53, 54. on a brass plate, and was dug up at Lyons about 

28 Dionysius, IV. 58. two centuries since, and is now preserved in that 

29 Cassius Hemina, quoted by Servius, Ma. city. It was printed by Brotier at the end of 
XII. 603. his edition of Tacitus, and has been also pub- 

1 This is the name by which he was called in the lished in the collections of inscriptions. 



20 HISTORY OF ROME. ' [Chap. V. 

the pretended chronology of the common story. The three last reigns, according 
to Livy, occupied a spaqp of 107 years; yet the king, who at the end of this 
period is expelled in mature hut not in declining age, is the son of the king who 
ascends the throne a grown man in the vigor of life at the beginning of it : 
Servius marries the daughter of Tarquinius, a short time before he is made king, 
yet immediately after his accession he is the father of two grown-up daughters, 
whom he marries to the brothers of his own wife : the sons of Ancus Marcius 
wait patiently eight-and-thirty years, and then murder Tarquinius to obtain a 
throne which they had seen him so long quietly occupy. Still then we are, in 
a manner, upon enchanted ground ; the unreal and the real are strangely mixed 
up together ; but although some real elements exist, yet the general picture be- 
fore us is a mere fantasy : single trees and buildings may be copied from nature, 
but their grouping is ideal, and they are placed in the midst of fairy palaces and 
fairy beings, whose originals this earth has never witnessed. 

The reigns of the later Roman kings contain three points which require to be 
Three points connect- treated historically. 1st, The foreign dominion and greatness of 
rei^ h ra i« teueafed tne monarchy. 2d, The change introduced in the religion of 
hjslorieaiiy. Rome. And 3d, The changes effected in the constitution, espe- 

cially the famous system of the classes and centuries, usually ascribed to Servius 
Tullius. 

1st. The dominion and greatness of the monarchy are attested by two suffi- 
i. The greatness of cient witnesses ; the great works completed at this period, and still 
l^atworks^newaiis existing; and the famous treaty with Carthage, concluded under 
of servius Tuiii Us . t j-, e first consuls of the Commonwealth, and preserved to us by 
Polybius. Under the last kings the city of Rome reached the limits which it 
retained through the whole period of the Commonwealth, and the most flourish- 
ing times of the empire. What are called the walls of Servius Tullius continued 
to be the walls of Rome for nearly eight hundred years, down to the Emperor 
Aurelian. They enclosed all those well-known seven hills, whose fame has so 
utterly eclipsed the seven hills already described of the smaller and more ancient 
city. They followed 2 the outside edge of the Quirinal, Capitoline, Aventine, and 
Ceelian Hills, passing directly across the low grounds between the hills, and thus 
running parallel to the Tiber between the Capitoline and the Aventine, without 
going 3 down to the very banks. From the outer or southern side of the Cselian 
they passed round by the eastern side of the hill to the southern side of the Es- 
quiline ; and here, upon some of the highest ground in Rome, was raised a great 
rampart or mound of earth with towers on the top of it, stretching across from 
the southern side of the Esquiline to the northern side of the Quirinal. For the 
Esquiline and Quirinal Hills, as well as the Viminal, which lies between them, are 
not isolated like the four others, but are like so many promontories running out 
parallel to one another from one common base, 4 and the rampart passing along 

s See the account of the walls of Servius in extremely doubtful. See Varro de L. L., V. § 

Bunsen's Rome, vol. i., p. 623 et seqq., with the 146. 153. Ed. Muller. 

accompanying map, plate I. in the volume of 4 The hack of a man's hand when slightly 

plates. bent, and held with the fingers open, presents 

3 It is on this point that the German topog- an exact image of this part of Rome. _ The fln- 

raphers of Rome differ from Nibby, and from gers represent the Esquiline, Viminal, ami 

all the common plans of ancient Rome, which Quirinal, and aline drawn across the hand just 

make the walls go quite down to the river. Their upon the knuckles would show the rampart of 

reasons are, 1st. the description of the depart- Servius Tullius. The ground on the outside 

ure of the 800 Fabii, who arc made to leave the of the rampart falls for some way like the sur- 

city by the Porta Carmentalis; hut if the walls face of the hand down to the wrist, and the 

came close down to Hie river, they must have later wall of Aurelian passed over the wrist 

re entered the city again to cross by the Pons instead of over the knuckles, at the bottom of 

Sublicius: and 2d, Varro's statement, that one the slope instead of the top of it. 

end of the Circus Maximus abutted upon the This comparison was suggested to me merely 

city wall : and that the fish-market was just en by a view et' the ground. It is a. strong pre- 

the outside of the wall. The first argument Bumptioninfavorof its exactness, that the same 

seems to me valid ; the second cannot be insisted resemblance struck Brocchialso. Speaking of 

on, because the text of Varro in both places is the l'incian, Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 21 

the highest part of this base formed an artificial boundary, where none was marked 
out by nature. The circuit of these walls is estimated at about seven Roman miles. 

The line of the mound or rampart may still be distinctly traced, and the course 
and extent of the walls can be sufficiently ascertained ; but very few remains are. 
left of the actual building. But the masonry with which the bank of the Tiber 
was built up, a work ascribed to the elder Tarquinius, and resembling the works 
of the Babylonian kings along the banks of the Euphrates, is still visible. So 
also are the massy substructions of the Capitoline temple, which were made in 
order to form a level surface for the building to stand on, upon one of the two 
summits of the Capitoline Hill. Above all, enough is still to be Tlie cloaca Maxima . 
seen of the great Cloaca or drain, to assure us that the accounts 
left us of it are not exaggerated. The foundations of this work were laid about 
forty feet under ground, its branches were carried under a great part of the city, 
and brought at last into one grand trunk which ran down into the Tiber exactly 
to the west of the Palatine Hill. It thus drained the waters of the low grounds 
on both sides of the Palatine ; of the Velabrum, between the Palatine and the 
Aventine ; and of the site of the forum between the Palatine and the Capitoline. 
The stone employed in the Cloaca is in itself a mark of the great antiquity of the 
work; it is 5 not the peperino of Gabii and the Alban hills, which was the 
common building stone in the time of the Commonwealth ; much less the tra- 
vertine, or limestone of the neighborhood of Tibur, the material used in the great 
works of the early emperors ; but it is the stone found in Rome itself, a mass of 
volcanic materials coarsely cemented together, which afterwards was supplanted 
by the finer quality of the peperino. Such a work as the Cloaca proves the 
greatness of the power which effected it, as well as the character of its govern- 
ment. It was wrought by taskwork, like the great works of Egypt ; and stories 
.were long current of the misery and degradation which it brought upon the 
people during its progress. But this taskwork for these vast objects shows a 
strong and despotic government, which had at its command the whole resources 
of the people ; and such a government could hardly have existed, unless it had 
been based upon some considerable extent of dominion. ^ 

What the Cloaca seems to imply, we find conveyed in express terms in the 
treaty with Carthage. 6 As this treaty was concluded in the very m .„ „ „ 

J o tit f • i • Treaty with Carthage. 

first year of the Commonwealth, the state ot things to which it 
refers must clearly be that of the latest period of the monarchy. It appears 
then that the whole coast 1 of Latium was at this time subject to the Roman 
dominion: Ardea Antium, Circeii, and Terracina, s are expressly mentioned as the 

Hills, lie adds ; "Pr darns una sensibile ima- for an uncertain state of relations between Rome 

gine non saprei meglio parag^.narle die alle dita and Latium, such as may well be supposed to 

di una mano raffigurando la^palma il mentovato have followed the expulsion of -Tarquinius ; a 

piano a cui tutte si attaccano." state in which the Romans could not know what 

Suolo di Roma, p. 84. Latin cities would remain faithful to the new 

B It is the "Tufa litoide" of Brocchi; one government, and what would take part with 

of the volcanic formations which is found in the exiled king. On the other hand there is 

many places in Rome. Brocchi is positive that no authority for extending the limits of Latium 

this is the stone employed in the Cloaca ; and beyond Terracina. The name Campania, it is 

the masses of it, he adds, taken from the older true, did not exist so early, but Thucydides 

<palls of Servius, are still to be seen in the pres- calls Cuma a city of Opicia, not of Latium ; and 

ent walls not far from the Porta S. Lorenzo. the Volscians or Auruneans must have already 

Suolo di Roma, p. 112. occupied the country on the Liris, and between 

6 Polybius, III. 22. See Niebuhr, vol". I. p. that river and Terracina, although their con- 
556, ed. 2d. quests of Terracina itself as well as of Antium 

7 Niebuhr supposes that the coast eastward took place some years later. For the annals 
of Terracina was also included at this time speak of Cora and Pometia revolting to the 
under the name of Latium, because the treaty Aurunci as early as the year 251, which shows 
speaks of a part of Latium which was not sub- that they must at that time have been powerful 
ject to Rome, and because the name of Cam- in the neighborhood of Latium ; not to mention 
pania was not yet in existence. But if Polybius the alleged Volscian conquests of the last king 
has translated' his original correctly, the expres- Tarquinius in the lowlands even of Latium 
sion lav tivcs ixr) iiaiv v-jrr/icooi would rather seem proper. 

to provide for the case of a Latin city's revolt- 8 A fourth name is added in the MSS. of 
ing from Rome and becoming independent, and Polybius, 'Apivrtvuv. The editors have gener- 



22 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. V. 

subject allies (tWvjxooi) of Rome. Of these, Circeii is said in the common story 
to have been a Roman colony founded by the last Tarquinius ; but we read of 
it no less than of the others as independent, and making peace or war with Rome, 
during the Commonwealth down to a much later period. Now it is scarcely 
conceivable that the Romans could thus have been masters of the whole coast 
of Latium, without some corresponding dominion in the interior ; and we may 
well believe that Rome was at this time the acknowledged head of the Latin 
cities, and exercised a power over them more resembling the sovereignty of 
Athens over her allies than the modern supremacy of Lacedcemon. On the right 
bank of the Tiber the Romans seem to have possessed nothing on the coast ; but 
the stories of Etruscan conquests which we find in the common accounts of Ser- 
rius Tullius, are so far justified by better testimony as to make it probable that 
in the direction of Veii the Roman dominion 9 had reached beyond the Tiber, and 
that the territory thus gained from the Etruscans formed a very considerable 
part of the whole territory of Rome. It is well known that the number of local 
tribes established by the later kings was thirty ; whereas a few years after the 
beginning of the Commonwealth we find them reduced to twenty. Now, as even 
the common account of the war with Porsenna describes the Romans as giving 
up to the Veientians a portion of territory formerly conquered from them, it 
becomes a very probable conjecture that the Etruscans, soon after the expulsion 
of the kings, recovered all the country which the kings had taken from them; 
and that this was so considerable in extent, that by its loss the actual territory 
of the Roman people was reduced by one third from what it had been before. 

It may thus be considered certain that Rome under its last kings Avas the seat 
probable connection of °f a great monarchy, extending over the whole of Latium on the 
some with Etruria. one gj^ anc [ p 0Ssess i n g some considerable territory in Etruria 
on the other. But how this dominion was gained it is vain to inquire. There, 
are accounts which represent all the three last kings of Rome, Servius Tullius no 
less than the two Tarquins, as of Etruscan origin. Without attempting to make 
out their history as individuals, it is probable that the later kings were either by 
birth or long intercourse closely connected with Etruria, inasmuch as at some 
early period of the Roman history the religion and usages of the Etruscans gave 
a deep and lasting coloring to those of Rome ; and yet it could not have been at 
the very origin of the Roman people, as the Etruscan language has left no traces 
of itself in the Latin ; whereas if the Romans had been in part of Etruscan origin, 
their lano-uao-e, no less than their institutions, would have contained some Etruscan 

ally adopted Ursini's correction, Anvpivrivrnv : quinii he regards as the decline of the power 

Niebuhr proposes 'Apucrtv&v, observing that of the city Tarquinii, and the restoration of the 

Alicia was a much more important place than independence of the Latin states, Rome being 

Laurentnm, and that Arieian merchant vessels one of this number, which had been hitherto 

arc mentioned by Dionysius, VII. 6. Yet in subjection to it. — Etrusker, Vol. I. p. 115, 

Laurentnm appears as one of the thirty Latin et seqq. 

States which concluded the treaty with Sp. Cas- I need not say that this is contrary to the 

s4'<; and Larentum and Laurentnm are but opinion of Niebuhr, who believes the Tarquinii 

different forms of the same word, as appears in to have been Latins, and not Etruscans. But 

the name of the wife of Faustnlus, who is called 1 should agree with Miiller, in regarding the 

both Larentia and Laurentia. reigns of tin- two Tarquinii as a period during 

,J Muller in his very able work on the Etrus- which an Etruscan dynasty ruled in R< 

(in- believes rather that the later reigns of the troducing Etruscan rites, arts, and insti 

Roman kin-.- represent a period in which an It is wholly another question whether these 

Etruscan dynasty from Tarquinii ruled in Rome, princes regarded Rome as their capita] or Tar- 

vii l extended it- power far over Latinm; so quinii; but the probability is. that they were 

that it was a dominion of Etruscans over Latins sings of Rome, and they may very possibly 

rather than tin- contrary, lie considers this have used the help of their Latin subjects even 

dominion to have been interrupted by the reign to make conquests for them in Etruria : ; 

of Ber. Tullius, or Mostarna, an Etruscan chief the Norman k'hilts of England soon found that 

from VoUiuii, of a party wholly opposed to that England was more than Normandy, and Henry 

of the princes or Lucumones of Tarquinii; and I. conquered Normandy from his brother, 

then to have been restored and exeroiBod more chiefly by the helpof English men and money. 

■■illy than ever, in the time described by And yet we retain the marks of the Norman 
die Roman writers as the reign of Tarquinius conquest impressed on every part of our insti- 
the tyrant. Finally, the expulsion of the Tar- tutions down to this very hour. 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 23 

elements. The Etruscan influence, however 1 introduced, produced some effects 
that were lasting, and others that were only temporary ; it affected the religion 
of Rome down to the very final extinction of Paganism ; and the state of the 
Roman magistrates, 10 their lictors, their ivory chairs, and their triumphal robes, are 
all said to have been derived from Etruria. A temporary effect of Etruscan influ- 
ence may perhaps be traced in the overthrow of the free constitution ascribed to 
Servius Tullius, in the degradation of the Roman commons under the last king, 
and in the endeavors of the patricians to keep them so degraded during all the 
first periods of the commonwealth. It is well known that the government in the 
cities of Etruria was an exclusive aristocracy, and that the commons, if in so 
wretched a condition they may be called by that honorable name, were like the 
mass of the people amongst the Sclavonic nations, the mere serfs or slaves of the 
nobility. This is a marked distinction between the Etruscans, and the Sabine 
and Latin nations of Italy ; and, as in the constitution of Servius Tullius a Latin 
spirit is discernible, so the tyranny which, whether in the shape of a monarchy 
or an aristocracy, suspended that constitution for nearly two centuries, tended 
certainly to make Rome resemble the cities of Etruria, and may possibly be 
traced originally to that same revolution which expelled the Sabine gods from 
the capitol, and changed forever the simple religion of the infancy of Rome. 

II. It is a remarkable story 11 that towards the end of the sixth century of Rome, 
the reliofious books of Numa were accidentally brought to light m ... 

o " •— ' •— ' II Chancres uj religion 

bv the discover? of his tomb under the Janiculum. They were introduced"!!! tie time of 

i .t-v'.-it it-* tti Til- l l the later kinj^a. 

read by A. Petuhus, the Praetor Urbanus, and by him ordered 
to be burned in the comitium, because their contents tended to overthrow the 
religious rites then observed in Rome. We cannot but connect with this story 
what is told of Tarquinius the elder, how he cleared away the holy places of the 
Sabine gods from the Capitoline Hill, to make room for his new temple ; and the 
statement which Augustine quotes from Varro, 12 and which is found also in Plu- 
tarch, that during the first hundred and seventy years after the foundation of the 
city, the Romans had no images of their gods. All these accounts represent a 
change effected in the Roman religion; and the term of 170 years, given by 
Varro and Plutarch, fixes this change to the reigns of the later kings. It is 
said 13 also, that Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three deities to whom the Capit- 
oline temple was dedicated, were the very powers whose worship, according to 
the Etruscan religion, was essential to every city ; there could be no city without 
three gates duly consecrated, and three temples to these divinities. But here 
again we gain a glimpse of something real, but cannot make it out distinctly. 
Images of the gods belong rather to the religion of the Greeks than of the 
Etruscans ; and the Gi'eek mythology, as well as Grecian art, had been familiar 
in the southern Etruscan cities from a very early period, whether derived from 
the Tyrrhenians, or borrowed directly from Hellas or the Hellenic colonies. 
Grecian deities and Greek ceremonies may have been introduced, in part, along 
with such as were purely Etruscan. But the science of the Haruspices, and 
especially the attention to signs in the sky, to thunder and lightning, seems to 
have been conducted according to the Etruscan ritual ; perhaps also from the 
same source came that belief in the punishment of the wicked after death, to 
which Polybius ascribes so strong a moral influence over the minds of the 
Romans, even in his own days. And Etruscan rites and ordinances must have been 
widety prevalent in the Roman commonwealth, when, as some writers asserted, 
the Roman nobility 14 were taught habitually the Etruscan language, and when 

10 Livy, I- 8. Dionysius, III. 62. Etruscee disciplinse aiunt, apud conditores 

11 Livy, XL. 29. Etruscaruro. urbiura non putatas justas urbes, 

12 Varro, Fragments, p. 46. Edit. Dordrecht, in quibus non tres portse essent dedicatee et 
Plutarch, Numa, c. 8. votivte, et tot templa, Jovis, Junonis, Minervse, 

13 Servius, on Virgil, Mn. I. v. 422. Mira- u Livy, IX. 36. Habeo auctores, vulgo turn 
tur molem ^Eneas, &c. "Miratur" non sim- (in the middle of the fifth century of Rome), 
plicitur dictum volunt, quoniam prudentes Romanos pueros sicut nunc Graxis ita Etruscis 



24 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. Y. 

the senate 15 provided by a special decree for the perpetual cultivation of the 
Etruscan discipline by young men of the highest nobility in Etruria ; lest a 
science so important to the commonwealth should be corrupted by falling into 
the hands of low and mercenary persons. 

III. Nothing is more familiar to our ears than the name of the classes and 
centuries of Servius Tullius ; nothing is more difficult, even after 
■Katun introduced by the the immortal labor of Niebuhr, than to answer all the questions 
which naturally arise connected with this part of the Roman 
history. But first of all, in considering the changes effected in the Roman con- 
stitution during the later period of the monarchy, we find another threefold divi- 
sion -of them presenting itself. We have, 1st, the enlargement of the older 
constitution, on the same principles, in the addition to the number of senators 
and of the centuries of the knights, commonly ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus. 
2nd, we have the establishment of a new constitution on different principles, in 
the famous classes and centuries of Servius Tullius. And, 3rd, we have the 
overthrow, to speak generally, of this new constitution, and the return to the 
older state of things, modified by the great increase of the king's power, in the 
revolution effected by Tarquinius Superbus, and in his subsequent despotism. 

I. The old constitution was enlarged upon the same principles, in the increase 
The alterations effected °f the number of senators, and of the centuries of the knights, 
by the eider Tarquinius. j t j-, as ^ een already shown that the older constitution was an 
oligarchy, as far as the clients and commons were concerned ; it is no less true, 
that it was democratical, as far as regarded the relations of the citizens, or mem- 
bers of the houses, to each other. Both these characters, with a slight modifica- 
tion, were preserved in the changes made by Tarquinius Priscus. He doubled, 16 
it is said, the actual number of senators, or rather of patrician houses ; Avhich 
involved a corresponding increase in the numbers of the senate ; but the houses 
thus ennobled, to use a modern term, were distinguished from the old ones by the 
titles of the lesser houses ; and their senators did not vote till after the senators 
of the greater houses. According to the same system the king proposed to 
double the number of the tribes, that is to divide his newly created houses into 
three tribes, to stand beside the three tribes of the old houses, the Ramnenses, 
Titienses, and Luceres. Now as the military divisions of the old commonwealths 
went along with the civil divisions, the tribes of the commonwealth were the 
centuries of the army; and if three new tribes were added, it involved also the 
addition of three new centuries of knights or horsemen ; and it is in this form 
that the proposed change is represented in the common stories. But here it is 
said that the interest of the old citizens, taking the shape of a religious objection, 
was strong enough to force the king to modify his project. No new tribes were 
created, and consequently no new centuries , 7 but the new houses were enrolled 
in the three old centuries, so as to form a second division in each, and thus to 

Uteris erudiri solitos. Livy rather believes that of the commonwealth, not an order; besides, 

a knowledge of the Etruscan language was a the passage in the treatise de Legibus seems to 

peculiar accomplishment of the Fabius who decide the question, II. 9, § 21, "Etruriseque 

went on the enterprise, namely, thatof penetra- principes diseiplinam docento;" that is. •• l.i : 

ting through the Ciminian Forest, and exploring them instruct the government in their disci- 

Etruria. But the story of this enterprise comes pline, when any occasion arises tor consulting 

evidently from the Fabian Family Memoirs, and them." Valerius Maxiraus, I. 1, § -_. 

its authenticity is most Buspicious. Whereas believe borrowed his story from Cicero, and 

the statement of the writers whom Livy refers misunderstood his meaning. 

to, is extremely unsuspicious and probal I0 Duplicavit ilium pristinum Patrumnnme 

15 See the famous passage of Cicero, de Di- rum: el antiques Patres "majorum gentiiun" 

v'matioiie, I. 41. § '.'-2. I agree with Miillerthat appellavit, quos priores sententiam rogabat, a 

the "Principumfilii" here spoken of aroEtrus- Beadscitos "minorum." Cicero, de Republica, 

cans, and no< Romans. The term "Principes" 11.20. 

to express the Lucumones of Etruria is common n Neque turn Tarquinius de equitnm cen- 

enough: I doubt whether it is ever used to turiis quidquam mutavit: numero alteram 

express the Roman patricians, or any class of tantum adjecit. . . . "Posteriores" modo 

1 Borne. "Principes oivitatis" is used Bub iisdem nominibus qniadditierantappellati 

to express the most distinguiflned individuals sunt. Livy, I. 36. 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 25 

continue inferior in dignity to the old houses in every relation of the common- 
wealth. It may be fairly supposed, that these second centuries in the army 
were also second tribes and second curiae in the civil divisions of the state ; and 
that the members of the new houses voted after those of the old ones no less in 
tire great council, the comitia of the curies, than in the smaller councils of the 
senate. 

The causes which led to this enlargement of the old constitution may be readily 
conceived. Whether Tarquinius was a Latin or an Etruscan, all . 

T- . . , . , Then object. 

the stories agree in representing him as a foreigner, who gained, 
the throne by his wealth and personal reputation. The mere growth of the 
Roman state would, in the natural course of things, have multiplied new families, 
which had risen to wealth, and were in their former country of noble blood ; but 
which were excluded from the curias, that is, from the rights of citizenship at 
Rome ; the time was come to open to them the doors of the commonwealth ; 
and a foreign king, ambitious of adding to the strength of his kingdom, if it were 
but for the sake of his own greatness, was not likely to refuse or put off the 
opportunity. Beyond this we are involved in endless disputes and difficulties ; 
who the Luceres were, and whether Tarquinius had any particular reasons for 
raising them to a level with the old tribes, we never can determine. That there 
were only four vestal virgins before, 18 and that Tarquinius made them six, would 
certainly seem to show, that a third part of the state had hitherto been below 
the other two-thirds, at least in matters of religion ; for it was always acknowl- 
edged that the six vestal virgins represented the three tribes of the Ramnenses, 
Titienses, and Luceres, two for each tribe. But in the additions made to the 
senate and to the centuries, the new citizens must have been more than a third 
of the old ones ; and indeed here the story supposes that in military matters, at 
any rate, the Luceres were already on an equality with the Ramnenses and 
Titienses. It is enough, therefore, to say, that there had arisen at Rome so great 
a number of distinguished families, of whatever origin, or from whatever causes, 
that an extension of the rights of citizenship became natural and almost necessary : 
but as these were still only a small part of the whole population, the change went 
no further than to admit them into the aristocracy ; leaving the character and 
privileges of the aristocracy itself, with regard to the mass of the population, 
precisely the same as they had been before. 

II. ■ But a far greater change was effected soon afterwards ; no less than the 
establishment of a new constitution, on totally different principles, constitution of servius 
This constitution is no doubt historical, however uncertain may TuUius - 
be the accounts which relate to its reputed author. " The good king Servius 
and his just laws," were the objects of the same fond regret amongst' the Roman 
commons, when suffering under the tyranny of the aristocracy, as the laws of 
the good king Edward the Confessor amongst the English after the Norman 
conquest ; and imagination magnified, perhaps, the merit of the one no less than 
of the other : 3'et the constitution of Servius was a great work, and well deserves 
to be examined and explained. 

Servius, like Tarquinius, is represented as a foreigner, and is said also, like him, 
to have ascended the throne to the exclusion of the sons of the 

1 . 1 ■ a !■ ■» • i t ■ /> n it His object in forming it. 

late king. According to the account which Livy follo\wed, he 

was acknowledged 19 by the senate, but not by the people ; and this, which 

■ 1B See Dionysius, III. 67 ; and compare Livy, Poprdum de se ipse consuluit, jussusque reg- 
X. 6. nare, legem de imperio suo curiatam tulit." De 
10 Primus injussu Populi, voluntate Patrum Bepublica, II. 21. If indeed there existed a 
regnavit. Livy, I. 41. Dionysius, confusing genuine "Lex Eegia curiata de imperio" of 
as usual the curias and the commons, and sup- the reign of Servius~Tullius, then it must belong 
posing that the most aristocratical body in the to a later period of his reign, when having es- 
state must needs be the senate, represents him tablished his power by means of his new con- 
as chosen by the people in their curia?, but not stitution, the curias would have had no choice, 
confirmed by the senate. Cicero says, " Non but to acknowledge him ; and this according to 
commisit se' Patribus, sed, Tarquini'o sepulto, Livy's narrative was the case ; for he says that 



26 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chat. V. 

seemed contradictory so long as the people, populus, and the commons, plebs, 
were confounded together, is in itself consistent and probable, when it is under- 
stood that the people, who would not acknowledge Servius, were the houses 
assembled in their great council of the curiae, and that these were likely to be 
far less manageable by the king whom they disliked, than the smaller council of 
their representatives assembled in the senate. Now supposing that the king, 
whoever he may have been, was unwelcome to what was then the people, that 
is, to the only body of men who enjoyed civil lights ; it was absolutely necessary 
for him, unless he would maintain his power as a mere tyrant, through the help- 
of a foreign paid guard, to create a new and different people out of the large 
mass of inhabitants of Rome who had no political existence, but who were free, 
and in many instances wealthy and of noble origin ; who therefore, although now 
without rights, were in every respect well fitted to receive them. 

The principle of an aristocracy is equality within its own body, ascendency 
He establishes thirty over all the rest of the community. Opposed to this is the 
tnbes tor the commons. S y S t erQj which, rejecting these extremes of equality and inequality, 
subjects no part of the community to another, but gives a portion of power to 
all ; not an equal portion, however, but one graduated according to a certain 
standard, which standard has generally been property. Accordingly, this system 
has both to do away with distinctions, and to create them ; to do away, as it has 
generally happened, with distinctions of birth, and to create distinctions of prop- 
erty. Thus at Rome, in the first instance, the tribes or divisions of the people 
took a different form. The old three tribes of Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres, 
had been divisions of birth, real or supposed : each was made up of the houses 
of the curiee, and no man could belong to the tribe without first belonging to a 
curia, and to a house ; nor could any stranger become a member of a house 
except by the rite of adoption, by which he was made as one of the same race, 
and therefore a lawful worshipper of the same gods. Each of these tribes had 
its portion of the Ager Romanus, the old territory of Rome. But now as many 
others had become Romans in the course of time, without belonging to either of 
these three tribes, that is, had cxmie to live under the Roman kings, many in 
Rome itself, and had received grants of land from the kings beyond the limits of 
the old Ager Romanus, a new ^division was made including all these ; and the 
whole city and territory' 20 of Rome, except the Capitol, were divided into thirty 

after the institution of the Comitia Centuriata, of the tribes. On the whole I agree with Nie- 

Scrvius " ausus est ferre ad populum, 'vellent buhr in preferring the statement of Fabius, 

jubcrcntne se regnarel' tantoque consensu preserved by Dionysins, IV. 15, that the coun- 

quanto haud quisquam alius ante, rex est de- try tribes in the Servian constitution were six 

claratus," I. 46. On the other hand Livy, or and twenty! But the great difficulty relates to 

the annalist whom he followed, may have added three points ; the Capitol, the Aventinc, and the 

the circumstance " voluntate Patrum regnavit," Ager Romanus. The four city tribes or regions, 

because he could not conceive how Servius for tribe as a local division is synonymous with 

could have reigned without the consent of either region, included neither the Capitol, nor the 

senate or curias. But if we adopt the Etruscan Aventinc. This we know from that curious 

story, and suppose that the king whom the account preserved by Varro of the situation of 

called Servius Tullius haugained his the twenty-four Argean chapels in these regions; 

power in the first instance as the leader of an a passage which has been considered ana cor- 

army, which after various adventures in Etrnria reeled both by Muller and Bunsen, and may bo 

i <lri\ -w ..lit from t Ucuee, and had taken now read in an intelligible form either in Mul- 

possessi< ftheGaelian Hill in Rome, it is very ler's edition of Varro, I. § 45-54 ; or in Bnnsen's 

conceivable that he may liave reigned at first and Platner's Beschreibung Roms, Vol. I. pp. 

independently of the consent of any part ofthe 688 -702. But there is this farther perplexity, 

old Roman people, whether Senate or Durghers ; thai the chapels of the Argei are Baid by Varro 

and thai be maj only have asked for that con- to have been distributed through twenty 

sent after his creation of a new Roman people, parts of the city; and yet the wooden figures 

formed perhaps in part oat of his own soldiers, called Argei, which were everi year tun 

when he would wish to reign according to all the Pontifioes into the 'fiber, are h\ Varro bim- 

the old Legal forms, and to be no Longer king Belf, according to the Mss. said to 

by the choice of a pari of his subjects only, bul twenty-four, and by Dionysins thirty. [Antiqq. 

with the approbation of all. Rom. [.88.] Bunsen adopts this latter number, 

20 Every reader who is acquainted with the. and supposes that the three - 

subject knows the difficulties whioh beset the Line Temple, and the tl 

whole question respecting the original number the Quinnal, w( re Lnc?"»ded in tho reckoning. 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KESTGS, ETC. 27 

tribes, four for the city, and twenty-six for the country, containing all the Romans 
who were not members of the houses, and classing them according to the local 
situation of their property. These thirty tribes corresponded to the thirty curiae 
of the houses; for the houses were used to assemble, not in a threefold division, 
according to their tribes, but divided into thirty, according to their curiae : and 
the commons were to meet and settle all their own affairs in the assembly of 
their tribes, as the houses met and settled theirs in the assembly of their curiae. 

Thus then were two bodies existing alongside of each other, analogous to the 
house of lords and the house of commons of our own ancient ^he centuries, a military 
constitution, two estates distinct from and independent of each ^burghe™ 01 ^ b tho 
other, but with no means as yet provided for converting them commons - 
into states-general or a parliament. Nor could they have acted together as jointly 
legislating for the whole nation ; for the curias still regarded themselves as form- 
ing exclusively the Roman people, and would not allow the commons, as such, 
to claim any part in the highest acts of national sovereignty. There was one 
relation, however, in which the people and the commons felt that they belonged 
to one common country, in which they were accustomed to act together, and in 
which therefore it was practicable to unite them into one great body. This was 
when they marched out to war against a foreign enemy ; then, arrayed in the 
same army, and fighting under the same standard, in\he same cause, the houses 
and the commons, if not equally citizens of Rome, felt that they were alike 
Romans. It has ever been the case, that the distinctions of peace 21 vanish amidst 
the dangers of war ; arms and courage, and brotherhood in perils, confer of 
necessity power and dignity. Thus we hear of armies 22 on their return home 
from war stopping before they entered the city walls to try, in their military 
character, all offences or cases of misconduct which had occurred since they had 
taken the field : whereas when once they had entered the walls, civil relations 
were resumed, and all trials were conducted according to other forms, and before 
other judges. This will explain the peculiar constitution of the comitia of cen- 
turies, which was a device for uniting the people and the commons into a national 
and sovereign assembly in their capacity of soldiers, without shocking those 
prejudices which as yet placed a barrier between them as soon as they returned 
to the relations of peace. 

But in order to do this with effect, and to secure in this great assembly a 

This appears to me unsatisfactory, but I can session or occupation was not property, the 
offer nothing better. However, the exclusion patricians might possess land in a tribe without* 
of the Capitol from the four city tribes is con- becoming members of it. But if the Ager 
sittent enough ; for the Capitol as the citadel of Eomanus had formed a tribe, then wo might 
Rome, and the seat of the three protecting gods be led to suppose that the patricians must 
of the city, was reserved exclusively for the have been members of this tribe, and so the 
patricians, or old citizens, and no plebeian might tribes would cease to be an exclusively pie- 
dwell on it : whereas in the other parts of the beian body, which Niebuhr, rightly, as 1 think, 
city both orders dwelt promiscuously, till the supposes them to have been in the outset. It 
famous Icilian law appropriated the Aventine is possible, however, that the whole territory, 
to the plebeians alone, as the Capitol was appro- not excepting even the Ager Eomanus, might 
priated to the patricians. It will be remem- locally have been included within the tribes, 
bered that the Eupatridte at Athens were inasmuch as no district would be wholly .without 
distinguished in the old state of things by the plebeian lands ; and yet the patricians thein- 
title ol kiit a&Tv oiKovvrts, and the aarv in the selves, as belonging to a different political body, 
earliest times would be the Acropolis of a later might have had nothing to do with the tribe 
age. With regard to the. Aventine, it must I politically: just as the estates of our peers are 
couceive have been included in one of the geographically included within some county, 
country tribes ; nor is this to be wondered at, and yet no peer may be elected as knight of the 
as the Aventine was still considered properly shire, nor even vote at any election. 
as a suburb, although it was included within ' n "For he to-day who sheds his blood with 
the walls. It is not to be supposed that the me 

whole of the land in the country tribes was the Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 

property of the plebeians ; much of it undoubt- This day shall gentle his condition." 

edly remained as domain land, and as such Henry V. 

became "possessed," in the Roman sense of ' n This was the case at Argos. riv OpdavWoi' 

the term, by the patricians ; as appears in the avaxoipno-avres h ru Xapdbpy obircp rag euro orpa- 

account of the state of the Aventine Hill, before rids Sixas irplv hiivai xpivovatv, ijpijavro 'Xtvay. 

the passing of the Lex-Icilia. But as such pos- Thucyd. V. 60. 



28 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. V. 

change in the organiza- preponderance to the commons, a change in the military organi- 
tionoftheamiy. zation and tactic of the army became indispensable. In all aris- 

tocracies in an early stage of society, the ruling order or class has fought on 
horseback 23 or in chariots ; their subjects or dependents have fought on foot. 
The cavalry service under these circumstances has been cultivated, that of the 
infantry neglected ; the mounted noble has been well armed and carefully trained 
in warlike exercises, whilst his followers on foot have been ill armed and ill dis- 
ciplined, and quite incapable of acting with equal effect. The first great step 
then towards raising the importance of the infantry, or, in other words, of the 
commons of the state, was to train them to resist cavalry, to form them into 
thick masses instead of a thin extended line, to arm them with the pike instead 
of the sword or the javelin. Thus the phalanx order of battle was one of the 
earliest improvements in the art of war ; and at the time we are now speaking of, 
this order was in general use in Greece, and must have been well known, if only 
through the Greek colonies, in Italy also. 24 Its introduction into the Roman 
army would be sure to make the infantry from henceforward more important 
than the cavalry ; that is, it would enable the commons to assert a greater right 
in Rome than would be claimed by the houses, inasmuch as they could render 
better service. Again, the phalanx order of battle furnished a ready means for 
giving importance to a great number of the less wealthy commons, who could 
not supply themselves with complete armor ; while, on the other hand, it sug- 
gested a natural distinction between them and their richer fellows, and thus 
established property as the standard of political power, the only one which can 
in the outset compete effectually with the more aristocratical standard of birth ; 
although in a later stage of society it becomes itself aristocratical, unless it be 
duly tempered by the mixture of a third standard, education and intelligence. In 
a deep phalanx, the foremost ranks needed to be completely armed, but those in 
the rear could neither reach or be reached by the enemy, and only served to add 
weight to the charge of the whole body. These points being remembered, we 
may now proceed to the details of the great comitia of Servius. 

He found the houses, that is to say, the nobility or citizens of Rome, for I can- 
Details of the institution not too often remind the reader that in this early period of Roman 
6iffra K 'ia ntU a'n'd S ' plebeian history these three terms were synonymous, divided into three cen- 
centuries of knights. tuiies of knights or horsemen, each of which, in consequence of 
the accession to its numbers made by the last king, contained within itself two 
centuries, a first and a second. The old citizens, anxious in all things to keep up 
the old form of the state, had then prevented what were really six centuries from 
being acknowledged as such in name ; but the present change extended to the 
name as well as the reality ; and the three double centuries of the Ramnenses, 
Titienses, and Luceres, became now 25 the six votes (sex suffragia) of the new 
united assembly. To these, which contained all the members of the houses, 
there were how added twelve new centuries 26 of knights, formed, as usual in the 
Greek states, from the richest members of the community, continuing, like the 
centuries below them, to belong to the thirty tribes of the commons. 

It remained to organize the foot soldiers of the state. Accordingly, all those 

Th nta ri88ofinfenby. °f the commons whose property was sufficient to qualify them 

"" ' for serving even in the hindmost ranks of the phalanx, were 

- 3 Homer's battles are a sufficient example of ™7s apxaiois °t>x l>Kn?x 0V > &<"■' l" T0 <s lirnevviv 

tl'is: it explains also the name of linens apphed to Hvat t/> laxvv. 

thethree.hundred Spartans of the king's gnard, ' J * Again, LfSer. Tullius was an Etruscan, he 

and retained Long otter the reality had ceased, would have introduced the tactic of Lis own 

and theguard uo longer consisted of cavalry country, in arming the Roman infantry with 

or chariots, but of infantry. See Thucydides, the long Bpear and shield: for these were the 

V. 72. See also Aristotle, Politics, IV. L8. h weapons used bythe Etruscans as well as by 

fiiv •?•■ dpx'K (iroXtrsla fyivero) h r&v Imrtuv. rnv the Greeks. See Diodorus Sioulus, XXIII. 1.* 

yup laxyv Kill ri)v lirepu\iif '•' T0 <5 iirizcvatv b ie6Ac- J'ran'in. Mai. 

uof uxcv ' avev /tfv yiip <rvvTd£tu>i lixpncrrov rd bie\t- '"'' Fist us in Sex Sutlrairia. 

tik&v, al <5t ncpl t&v toiovtov fjiieuplai Kai ra^eu iv '" Livy, 1. 43. Cicero dc Republ. II. 22. 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 29 

divided 2,1 into four classes. Of these, the first class contained all whose property 
amounted to or exceeded one hundred thousand pounds weight of copper. The 
soldiers of this class were required to provide themselves with the complete arms 
used in the front ranks of the phalanx ; the greaves, the coat of mail, the helmet 
and the round shield, all of brass ; the sword, and the peculiar weapon of the 
heavy-armed infantry, the long pike. And as these were to bear the brunt of 
every battle, and were the flower of the state's soldiers, so their weight in the 
great military assembly was to be in proportion ; they formed eighty centuries ; 
forty of younger men, between the ages of fifteen and forty-five years 28 complete ; 
and forty of elders, between forty-five and sixty : the first to serve in the field, 
the second to defend the city. The second class contained those whose property 
fell short of one hundred thousand pounds of copper, and exceeded^or amounted 
to seventy-five thousand. They formed twenty centuries, ten of younger men, 
and ten of elders ; and they were allowed to dispense with the coat of mail, and 
to bear the larere oblona: wooden shield called scutum, instead of the round brazen 
shield, clipeus, of the first ranks of the phalanx. The third class contained a 
like number of centuries, equally divided into those of the younger men and 
elders ; its qualification was property between fifty thousand pounds of copper, 
and seventy-five thousand ; and the soldiers of this class were allowed to lay 
aside the greaves as well as the coat of mail. The fourth class, again, contained 
twenty centuries ; the lowest point of its qualification was twenty-five thousand 
pounds of copper, and its soldiers were required to provide no defensive armor, 
but to go to battle merely with the pike and a javelin. These four classes com- 
posed the phalanx ; but a fifth class, divided into thirty centuries, and consisting 
of those whose property was between twenty-five thousand pounds of copper, 
and twelve thousand five hundred, formed the regular light-armed infantry of 
the army, and were required to provide themselves with darts and slings. 

The poorest citizens, 29 whose property fell short of twelve thousand five hundred 
pounds, were considered, in a manner, as supernumeraries in this ^ Acce n S i and veiati, 
division. Those who had more than one thousand five hundred and the ProIetarii - 
pounds of copper, were still reckoned amongst the tax-payers, Assidui, and were 
formed into two centuries, called the Accensi and Veiati. They followed the army, 
but without bearing arms, being only required to step into the places of those who 
fell ; and, in the mean time, acting as orderlies to the centurions and decurions. 
Below these came one century of the Proletarii, whose property was between 
one thousand five hundred pounds and three hundred and seventy-five. These 
paid no taxes, and in ordinary times had no military duty ; but on great emer- 
gencies arms were furnished them by the government, and they were called out 
as an extraordinary levy. One century more included all whose property was 
less than three hundred and seventy-five pounds, and who were called Capite 
Censi ; and from these last no military service was at any time required, as we 
are told, till a late period of the republic. 

Three centuries of a different character from all the rest remain to be described, 
centuries defined, not by the amount of their property, but by T he FaM, comicines, 
the nature of their occupation ; those of carpenters and smiths, and Tubicines - 
Fabrorum ; of horn-blowers, Cornicines ; and of trumpeters, Tubicines, or, as 
Cicero calls them, Liticines. The first of these was attached to the centuries of 
the first class, the other two to the fourth. The nature of their callings so con- 
nected them with the service of the army, that this peculiar distinction was 
granted to them. 

The position held in the comitia by the patricians' clients is involved in great 

27 See, for all tliis account of the census, Livy, buhr's quotations, if, indeed, any could suspect 
I. 43, and Dionysius, IV. 16-19. it ; and having been fully satisfied with his 

28 See Niebuhr, vol. I. p. 459. Ed.' 2. results, I have thought it best to refer to his 
23 See Niebuhr, p. 465, and the authorities work, rather than to the original writers, as the 

there quoted. I have gone over the ground combined view of the several facts belongs to 
myself, and have verified the accuracy of Nie- him, and not to them. 



30 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. V. 

obscurity. We know that they had votes, and probably they must have been 
enrolled in the classes according to the amount of their property, without reference 
to its nature : at the same time, Niebuhr thinks that they did not serve in the 
regular infantry along with the plebeians. It would seem from the story of the 
three hundred* Fabii, and from the adventures related of Caius Marcius, 80 that 
the clients followed their lords to the field at their bidding, and formed a sort 
of feudal force quite distinct from the national army of the commons, like the 
retainers of the nobles in the middle ages, as distinguished from the free burghers 
of the cities. 

Such is the account transmitted to us of the constitution of the comitia of 
centuries. As their whole organization was military, so they were accustomed 
to meet 31 without the city, in the Field of Mars ; they were called together, not 
by lictors, hire the comitia of the curise, but by the blast of the horn ; and their 
very name was, " the Army of the City," " Exercitus Urbanus." 32 

It is quite plain that this constitution tended to give the chief power in the state 
. . to the body of the commons, and especially to the richer class 

sonn ■ destroyed, and among them, who fought in the first ranks of the phalanx. For 
wherever there is a well-armed and well-disciplined infantry, it 
constitutes the main force of an army ; and it is a true observation of Aristotle, 33 
that in the ancient commonwealth the chief power was apt to be possessed by that 
class of the people whose military services were most important ; thus, Avhen the 
navy of Athens became its great support and strength, the government became 
democratical ; because the ships were chiefly manned by citizens of the poorer 
classes. But we know that for a very long period after the time of Servius, the 
commons at Rome, far from being the dominant part of the nation, were excluded 
from the highest offices in the state, and were grievously oppressed, both indi- 
vidually and as a body. Nay, further, whenever we find any details given of the 
proceedings of the comitia, or of the construction of the army, we perceive a state 
of things very different from that prescribed by the constitution of Servius. 
Hence have arisen the difficulties connected with it ; for, as it was never fully 
carried into effect, but overthrown within a very few years after its formation, 
and only gradually and in part restored ; as thus the constitution with which 
the oldest annalists, and even the law-books which they copied, were familiar, 
was not the original constitution of Servius, but one bearing its name, while in 
reality it greatly differed from it ; there is a constant confusion between the two, 
and what is ascribed to the one may often be true only when understood of the 
other. 

Other good and popular institutions were ascribed to the reign of Servius. 
„ . . . , As he had made the commons an order in the state, so he cravB 

Sen-ins appoints judges i • i ~ , . , 11 • mm 

fortheoonumonsont ot them judges out of their own body to try all civil 34 causes; 
whereas before they had no jurisdiction, but referred all their 
suits either to the king or to the houses. These judges were, as Niebuhr thinks, 
the centumviri, the hundred men, of a later period, elected three from each 
tribe, so that in the time of Servius their number would probably have been 
ninety. 

To give a further organization to the commons, he is said also to have instituted 
The festivals of the p„. the festivals called Paganalia and Compitalia. In the tribes in the 
ga,udiua„dCo„,pi.a.i a . coun try, many strongholds on high ground, pagi, 35 had been fixed 

30 Dionysius, VII. 19, 20. cians as formerly, irtpi r« av^6\aia, IV. 43. The 

31 A. Gellius, XV. 27, quoted from Ltelius Ephori, in like manner, at Sparta were judges in 
Felix. ras tu>v cniupoXalujv SUm. Axistot. l'olit. ill. 1. 

*> Varro, do L. L., VI. 98. Ed. Bekker. 

M Politics, V. 4. VI. r I'M. Bekker. » It does not appear from Dionysius' account 

84 Dionysius calls these causes UtcariKd, as whether there were ono or more "pagi in every 

opposed to rii h t6 Kotvbv <pipovr,i, IV. 85; but tribe. It would be most natural to suppose 

afterwards he expresses himself more freely, that there was hut one, as otherwise the nnm- 

when he calls these laws, laws which hindered bers of the peoplo would have been taken 

the commons from being wronged by the patri- according to a different division than that into 



Chap. V.] HISTORY OF THE LATER KINGS, ETC. 31 

upon as a general refuge for the inhabitants and their cattle in case of invasion. 
Here they all met once a year, to keep festival, and every man, woman, and child 
paid on these occasions a certain sum, which, being collected by the prjests, gave 
the amount of the whole population. And for the same purpose, 36 every one living 
in the city paid a certain sum at the temple of Juno Lucina for every birth in 
his family, another sum at the temple of Venus Libitina for every death, and a 
third at the temple of Youth for every son who came to the age of military 
service. The Compitalia 37 in the city answered to the Paganalia in the country, 
and were a yearly festival in honor of the Lares or guardian spirits, celebrated at 
all the compita, or places where several streets met. - 

Other laws and measures are ascribed to Servius, which seem to be the fond 
invention of a later period, when the commons, suffering under a other laws ascribed to 
cruel and unjust system, and wishing its overthrow,' gladly be- ServlU8 - 
lieved that the deliverance which they longed for had been once given them 
by their good king, and that they were only reclaiming old rights, not demanding 
new ones. Servius, it is said, 38 drove out the patricians from their unjust occu- 
pation of the public land, and ordered that the property only, and not the person, 
of a debtor should be liable for the payment of his debt. 

Further, to complete the notion of a patriot king, it was said that he had drawn 
out a scheme' of popular government, by which two magistrates, chosen every year, 
were to exercise the supreme power, and that he himself proposed to lay down 
his kingly rule to make way for them. It can hardly be doubted that these two 
magistrates were intended to be chosen the one from the houses and the other 
from the commons, to be the representatives of their respective orders. 

III. But the following tyranny swept away the institutions of Servius, and much 
more prevented the growth of that society, for which alone his in- The constitution of 

. . ,° „ n i l r ,i . c Servius succeeded by 

stitutions were fitted. No man can tell how much or the story ot a tyranny. 
the murder of the old king and of the impiety of the wicked Tullia is historical ; 
but it is certain that the houses, or rather a strong faction among them, supported 
Tarquinius in his usurpation : nor can we doubt the statement that the aristocrat- 
ical brotherhoods or societies served him more zealously than the legal assembly 
of the curiae ; because these societies are ever to be met with in the history of 
the ancient commonwealths, as pledged to one another for the interests of their 
order, and ready to support those interests by any crime. Like Sylla, in after 
times, he crushed the liberties of the commons, doing away with the laws 39 of 

tribes ; which does not seem probable. The S7 Dionysius, IV. 14. What Dionysius here 

pagus was in a manner the town of the tribe, calls the Compitalia, and which he says were 

or rather would have become so, had this state kept a few days after the Saturnalia, are not 

of things continued. Dionysius connects pagus marked in the calendars, because, though the 

with the Greek ndyos, which is likely enough ; seasons at which they fell was fixed, the day 

although afterwards the word merely signified was not so : they were amongst the " concep- 

a district or canton, whether in a plain country, tivse Ferke," or festivals announced every year 

or in ahilly. Nor do Varro's words (L. L. V. p. by the magistrates, of which the precise day in 

49. Edit. Dordr. 1619), " Ferise non populi sed some instances varied. (Macrobius, Saturnal. 

montanorum modo, ut Paganalibus, qui suntali- I. 16.) They must not be confounded with the 

cujus pagi," imply that the Pagani were monta- festival of the Lares Prsestites oil the first of 

ni: for the whole passage, when rightly stopped, May. The Lares were the spirits of the dead, 

and as Miiller has now printed it, runs thus : — Sai/ioves, who watched over their living pos- 

" Dies Septimontium, nominatus ab his septem terity; thence Dionysius calls them ripwes, be- 

montibus in queis sita nrbs est, ferise non populi cause the heroes were deified men, like Hesiod's 

sed montanorum _ modo : ut Paganalibus, qui &ni[ioveg, whom he caUs (piXaxes dvnrSiv aiBpiAxwv. 

sunt alicujus pagi." "Montani" refers to the The name of Lares is Etruscan, Lar is prince or 

inhabitants of the seven hills (the seven hills mighty one. Yet as spirits, and belonging t6 

of old Rome, existing before the time of Ser- the invisible world, they were called also the 

vius) ; and Varro says that the Septimontium children of Mania (Macrobius, Saturnal. I. 7), 

was a festival kept not by the whole people, but a horrible goddess, whose name was given to 

by the inhabitants of those hills only ; just as, frightful masks, the terror of children. Mania 

at the Paganalia, the inhabitants of the pagus is clearly connected with the Dii Manes, who 

alone shared in the festival. See Festus, in were also the spirits of a man's departed ances- 

Septimontio, "Septimontio ut ait Antistius tors. 

Labeo, hisce montibus Ferise," &c. 38 Dionysius, IV. 9. 

* Dionysius, IV. 15. * Dionysius, IV. 43. 



32 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VI. 

Servius, and, as we are told, destroying the tables on which they were written ; 
abolishing the whole system of the census, and consequently the arrangement of 
the classes, and with them the organization of the phalanx ; and forbidding even 
the religious meetings of the Paganalia and Compitalia, in order to undo all that 
had been done to give the commons strength and union. Further, it is expressly 
said, 40 that he formed his military force out of a small portion of the people, and 
employed the great bulk of them in servile works, in the building of the Circus 
and the Capitoline Temple, and the completion of the great drain or cloaca ; so 
that in his wars his army consisted of his allies, the Latins and Hernicans, in a 
much greater proportion than of Romans. His enmity to the commons was all in 
the spirit of Sylla ; and the members of the aristocratical societies, who were his 
ready tools in every act of confiscation, or legal murder, or mere assassination, 
were faithfully represented* by the agents of Sylla's proscription, by L. Catilina 
and his patrician associates. But in what followed, Tarquinius showed himself, 
like Critias or Appius Claudius, a mere vulgar tyrant, who preferred himself to 
his order, when the two came into competition, and far inferior to Sylla, the most 
sincere of aristocrats, who, having secured the ascendancy of his order, was con- 
tent to resign his own personal power, who was followed therefore by the noblest 
as well as by the vilest of his countrymen, by Pompeius and Catulus no less than 
by Catilina. Thus Tarquinius became hated by all that was good and noble 
amongst the houses, as well as by the commons ; and both orders cordially joined 
to effect his overthrow. But the evil of his tyranny survived him ; it was not so 
easy to restore what he had destroyed as to expel him and his family : the com- 
mons no longer stood beside the patricians as an equal order, free, wealthy, well 
armed, and well organized ; they were now poor, ill armed, and with no bonds of 
union ; they therefore naturally sunk beneath the power of the nobility, and the 
revolution which drove out the Tarquins established at Rome not a free common- 
wealth, but an exclusive and tyrannical aristocracy. 



CHAPTER VI, 

MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES OF THE STATE OF THE ROMANS UNDER THEIR KINGS. 



" Ad nos vix tenuis famse perlabitur aura." 

Vikgil, Mn. VII. 



The last chapter was long, yet the view which can be derived from it is imper- 
fect. Questions must suggest themselves, as I said before, to which it contains 
no answers. Yet it seemed better to draw the attention first to one main point, 
and to state that point as fully as possible, reserving to another place much that 
was needed to complete the picture. For instance, the account of the classes of 
Servius leads naturally to questions as to the wealth of the Romans, its sources, 
its distribution, and its amount : the division of the people into centuries excites 
a curiosity as to their numbers : the mention of the change of the Roman worship, 
and the introduction of Etruscan rites, dispose us to ask, how these rites affected 
the moral character of the people ; what that character was, and from whence 
derived. Again, when we read of the great works of the later kings, we think 
what advance or what style of the arts was displayed in them; and the laws of 
king Servius written on tables, with the poetical and uncertain nature of the story 
of his reign, make us consider what was the state of the human mind, and what 

40 Dionyaius, IV. 44. 



Chap. VI] MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 33 

use had as yet been made of the great invention of letters. It is to these points, 
so far as I am able, that the following chapter will be devoted. 

I. Niebuhr has almost exhausted the subject of the Roman copper money. He 
has 1 shown its originally low value, owing to the great abundance Q f the wealth of the 
of the metal ; that as it afterwards became scarce, a reduction in *?Tin'^. u, ThVir e copI 
the weight of the coin followed naturally, not as a fraudulent de- por raoney - 
preciation of it, but because a small portion of it was now as valuable as a large 
mass had been before. The plenty of copper in early times is owing to this, that 
where it is found, it exists often in immense quantities, and even in large masses 
of pure metal on the surface of the soil. Thus the Copper Indians of North 
America found it in such abundance on their hills that they used it for all domes- 
tic purposes ; but the supply thus easily obtained soon became exhausted : and as 
the Indians have no knowledge of mining, the metal is now comparatively scarce. 
The small value of copper at Rome is shown not only by the size of the coins, the 
as having been at first a full pound in weight,' but also by the price of the war- 
horse, according to the regulation of Servius Tullius, namely, ten thousand 2 pounds 
of copper. This statement, connected as it is with the other details of the census, 
seems original and authentic ; nor considering the great abundance of cattle, and 
other circumstances, is it inconsistent with the account in Plutarch's life of Pub- 
licola, that an ox, in the beginning of the commonwealth, was worth one hundred, 
oboli, and a sheep worth ten ; nor with the provisions of the Aternian law, which 
fixed the price of the one at one hundred ases and the other at ten. 

The sources of wealth amongst the Romans, under their later kings, were agri- 
culture, and also, in a large proportion, foreign commerce. Agri- Their pri ncipa: sour- 
culture, indeed, strictly speaking, could scarcely be called a source cesofwealth - 
of wealth ; for the portions of land assigned to each man, even if from the begin- 
ning they were as much as seven jugera, were not large enough to allow of the 
growth of much superfluous produce. The ager publicus, or undivided public 
land, was indeed of considerable extent, and this, as being enjoyed exclusively by 
the patricians, might have been a source of great profit. But in the earliest times 
it seems probable that the greatest part of this land was kept as pasture ; s and only 
the small portions of two jugera, allotted by the houses to their clients, to be held 
during pleasure, were appropriated to tillage. The low prices of sheep and oxen 
show that cattle must have been abundant ; the earliest revenue, according to 
Pliny, was derived from pasture ; that is, the patricians paid so much to the state 

1 Vol. I. p. 474, et seqq. Ed. 2. See also Miil- licola. Was it from TiniEeus, from whom Pliny 

ler, Etrusker, 1. 4. § 13. learnt that Servius Tullius was the first person 

* " Ad equos emendds dena millia seris ex pub- who stamped money at Eome? And it so, at 
lico data." Livy, I. 43. It has been doubted what did he reckon the as ? Polyhius reckoned 
whether this sum he meant as the price of one the light as of his time at half an oholus, which 
horse or two : Niehuhr supposes that it includes would make the denarius, as it was already 
the purchase of a slave to act as groom, and also equivalent to sixteen ases, equal to eight oboli, 
of a horse for him. And this seems confirmed or a drachm, and one-third. (II. 15.) By a com- 
in some degree by Festus, who says that the Eo- parison with the Aternian law, one would sup- 
mans used two horses in battle, to have a fresh pose that the obolus was meant to be equivalent 
one to mount when the first one was tired ; and to the as ; if so, copper had so risen in value, 
that the money given to furnish these two hors- that although the as of half an ounce weight was 
es was called Pararium. Festus in " Pararium," equal to half an obolus, the as, when it weighed 
and " Paribus equis." Yet I find in Von Eau- twenty-four times as much, that is, a full pound, 
mcr's account of the prices of Things in the mid- had only been worth twice as much ; a diminu- 
dle ages (Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, V. p. tion in value of twelve hundred per cent. 
43fi, et seqq.-), that in the year 1097, at the siege 3 " Diu," says Pliny, XVIII. 3. " pascua solum 
of Antioch, an ox was sold cheap at five shil- vectigal fuerant." Varro says, " Quos agros non 
lings ; and in 1225, at Verona, the average price colebant propter silvas, aut id genus ubi pecus 
of a horse was twenty-five pounds. This is posset pasci, et z>ossidebant, ab usu suoSaltus 
reckoning by the Italian lira or pound, divided nominarunt." De L. L. V. § 36. " Possidere," 
into twenty solidi or shillings ; but the value as Niebuhr's readers well know, is the proper 
of both the pound and the shilling differed so term for the occupation of the public land. And 
much in different times and places, that the the Scholiast on Thu.cydides, 1. 139, rightly con- 
comparison cannot be depended on without fur- siders yrjs aopiarou to be equivalent to oh aireipo- 
ther examination. We should like to know from nivrjs, because undivided land was commonly left 
what Greek writer Plutarch borrowed his state- in pasture. 
ment of the price of an ox in the time of Pub- 
3 



34 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VI. 

for their enjoyment of the ager publicus, which was left unenclosed as pasture 
ground ; and all accounts speak of the great quantities of cattle reared in Italy 
from time immemorial. Cattle then may have been a source of wealth ; but com- 
merce must have been so in a still greater degree. The early foundation of Ostia 
at the mouth of the Tiber, ascribed to Ancus Marcius, could have had no object, 
unless the Romans had been engaged in foreign trade ; and the treaty with Car- 
thage, already alluded to, proves the same thing directly and undeniably. In this 
treaty the Romans are allowed to trade with Sardinia, with Sicily, and with Af- 
rica westward of the Fair Headland, that is, with Carthage itself, and all the coast 
westward to the Pillars of Hercules ; and it is much more according to the com- 
mon course of things that this treaty should have been made to regulate a trade 
already in activity, than to call it for the first time into existence. By this com- 
merce great fortunes were sure to be made, because there were as yet so many 
new markets 4 open to the enterprising trader, and none, perhaps, where the de- 
mand for his goods had been so steadily and abundantly supplied as to destroy the 
profit of his traffic. But although much wealth must thus have been brought into 
Rome, it is another question how widely it was distributed. Was foreign trade 
open to every Roman, or was it confined to the patricians and their clients, and in 
a still larger proportion to the king ? The king had large domains of his own, 5 
partly arable, partly pasture, and partly planted with vines and olives ; hence he 
was in a condition to traffic with foreign countries, and much of the Roman com- 
merce was, probably, carried on by the government for its own direct benefit, as 
was the case in Judsea, in the reign of Solomon. The patricians also, we may be 
sure, exported, like the Russian nobility, the skins and wool of the numerous herds 
and flocks which they fed upon their public land, and were the owners of trading 
ships, as it was not till three centuries afterwards that a law 6 was passed with the 
avowed object of restraining senators, a term then become equivalent with patri- 
cians, from possessing ships of a large burden. Nor can we suppose that the new 
plebeian centuries of knights, who had been chosen from the richest of the com- 
mons, were excluded from those commercial dealings which their order in later 
times almost monopolized. All these classes, then, might, and probably did, be- 
come wealthy ; but it may be doubted whether the plebeian landholders had the 
same opportunities open to them. Agriculture was to them the business of their 
lives ; if their estates were ill cultivated, they were liable to be degraded from 
their order ; nor had they the capital which could enable them to enter with 
advantage upon foreign trade. It is possible, indeed, that foreign trade may have 
been one of the privileges of the higher classes, as it is at this day in Russia ; 7 but 
surely Niebuhr is not warranted by the passage which he quotes from Dionysius, 
in asserting that the plebeians were excluded from commerce as well as from 
handicraft occupations ; retail trade, 8 which is all that Dionysius speaks of, was 

4 Thus Herodotus speaks of tlie enormous pro- the term fp.tr6pij>v. but I think that it is tpm6puv 

fits made by a Samiau ship which accidentally which he uses in an improper sense, and not 

found its way to Tartessus ; observing, rh he ip- KdKv^ov. Cicero distinguishes between tliem in 

irdmov touto rjv aKi'iparov tovtov t&v xpdvov. IV. 1">2. a well-known passage. " Sordidi etiam putandi 

* Cicero dc Republics, V. 2. These were the qui mercantur a mercatoribus quod statim ven- 
Greek reptvri, which the kings always had as- dant ; Udirii\ot) opificesque onincs (x t -ip iiT£ X , ' ai ) 
signed to them. See Ilcrodot. IV. 161. in sordida arte versautur. * * * Mercatura 

* By Caius Flaminius, a short time before the autem, si tenuis est, sordida putanda est : sin 
second Punic war. See Livy, XXI. 63. magna et copiosa multa undique apportans, mnl- 

' Of the "Merchants of the three Guilds," tisqne sine vanitate impertiens, non est admo- 
only those of the first guild, possessing a capital dum vituperanda." De Orrieiis, II. prope tincm. 
of at least fifty thousand francs (something Cicero wrote at a time when all trade was con- 
more than two thousand pounds'), are allowed sidered degrading to a senator, and his language 
to own merchant ships, and to carry on foreign breathes the spirit of modern aristocracy . Yet 
trade. Those of the second <ruild may only trade even he distinguishes between the merchant and 
within the Russian empire; those of the third the petty trader or shopkeeper. The plebeians 

fuild may only carry on retail trades. See were excluded from following the latter callings 

elmitzler, Statistique de l'Empire de RuBSJe, \<\ positive institution; from the former they 

p. 117 ; might have been virtually excluded by their pov- 

B Ovtc KantiXov ovtc xtipaTixvyv (3iov Iymv, IX, erty. 

25. It is true that Dionysius had just before used Since writing the above note, I sec that Nie- 



Chap. VI] MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 35 

considered by the ancients in a very different light from the wholesale dealings of 
the merchant with foreign countries. 

Beyond this we have scarcely the means of proceeding. Setting aside the 
tyranny ascribed to Tarquinius, and remembering that it was his policy to deprive 
the commons of their lately acquired citizenship, and to treat them like subjects 
rather than members of the state, the picture given of the wealth and greatness 
of Judaea under Solomon, may convey some idea of the state of Rome under its 
later kings. Powerful amongst surrounding nations, exposed to no hostile inva- 
sions, with a flourishing agriculture, and an active commerce, the country was 
great and prosperous ; and the king was enabled to execute public works of the 
highest magnificence, and to invest himself with a splendor unknown in the ear- 
lier times of the monarchy. The last Tarquinius was guilty of individual acts of 
oppression, we may be sure, towards the patricians no less than the plebeians ; but 
it was these last whom he labored on system to depress and degrade, and whom 
he employed, as Solomon did the Canaanites, 9 in all the servile and laborious 
part of his undertakings. Still the citizens or patricians themselves found that 
the splendor of his government had its burdens for them also ; as the great 
majority of the Israelites, amid, all the peace and prosperity of Solomon's reign, 
and although exempted from all servile labor, and serving only in honorable 
offices, 10 yet complained that they had endured a grievous yoke, and took the first 
opportunity to relieve themselves from it by banishing the house of Solomon from 
among them forever. 

Of the population of Rome under its later kings nothing can be known with cer- 
tainty, unless we consider as historical the pretended return of the po 
census taken by Servius Tullius, eighty-four thousand seven hun- 
dred. Nor is it possible to estimate the numbers of the army from the account 
of the centuries. We are expressly told that the centuries were very unequal in 
the number of men contained in them ; and even with regard to the centuries of 
the first class, we know not whether they consisted of any fixed number. It is 
possible that the century in the Roman army, like the ragts in the Athenian, 
bore two different senses ; the Athenian heavy-armed infantry were divided into 
ten Tafsis, but the number contained in each of these must necessarily have been 
indefinite. We read, however, of ragsig and ragia^oi in particular expeditions, by 
which, apparently, we are to understand certain drafts from the larger rogeig with 
their commanders, and the numbers here would be fixed according to the force 
required for the expedition. So the centuriae" of the different classes must have 
each furnished their contingents for actual service on a certain fixed proportion, 
and these contingents from the centuries would be called centuries themselves ; 
but we do not know either their actual force, or their force comparatively with one 
another ; a century of the fifth class, consisting of light-armed soldiers, must have 
contained many more men than a century of heavy-armed soldiers of the first 
class. 

II. It is difficult to form a clear idea of the moral character of the Roman peo- 
ple under its kings, because we cannot be sure that the pictures Momi ( and p°i'«j«ji 
handed down to us of that period were not copied from the man- SK. e 
ners of a later time, and thus represent, in fact, the state of the commonwealth 
rather than that of the monarchy. Thus the simple habits of Lucretia seem cop- 
ied from the matrons of the republic in the time of its early poverty, and cannot 
safely be ascribed to the princesses of the magnificent house of the Tarquinii. 
Again, Ave can scarcely tell how far we may carry back the- origin of those char- 

buhr has himself tacitly corrected his mistake 10 1 Kings, v. 22. Compare xii. 4-16. 
in the second volume, p. 450, 2d Ed. by trans- n I propose to reserve all consideration of the 
lating KdTrt)\ov in this same passage of Diony- numbers and constitution of the early Eoman 
sius, " wer Kramhandel erwahlte," instead legion for the next volume, when we shall for 
of "Handel." "Kramhandel" is "retail the first time have any historical accounts in de- 
trade." tail of the military operations of the Eoman ar- 
* 1 Kings, ix. 20, 21. mies. 



36 HISTORY OF HOME. [Chap. VI. 

acteristic points in the late? Roman manners, the absolute authority possessed by 
the head of a family over his -wife and children. But it is probable that they are 
of great antiquity ; for the absolute power of a father over his sons extended only 
to those who were born in that peculiar form of marriage called Connubium, a 
connection which anciently could only subsist between persons of the same order, 
and which was solemnized by a peculiar ceremony called Confarreatio ; a cere- 
mony so sacred, that a marriage thus contracted could only be dissolved by cer- 
tain unwonted and horrible rites, purposely ordered, as it seems, to discourage 
the practice of divorce. All these usages point to a very great antiquity, and 
indicate the early severity of the Roman domestic manners, and the habits of obe- 
dience which every citizen learned under his father's roof. This severity, however, 
did not imply an equal purity ; connubium could only be contracted with one wife, 
but the practice of concubinage was tolerated, although the condition of a concu- 
bine is marked as disreputable by a law so old as to be ascribed to Numa. 12 And 
the indecency of some parts of the ancient religious worship, and the license 
allowed at particular festivals, at marriages, and in the festal meetings of men 
amongst themselves, belong so much to an agricultural people, as well as to hu- 
man nature in general, that these, too, may be safely presumed to be coeval with 
the very origin of the Roman nation. 

But the most striking point in the character of the Romans, and that which has 
Their love of institu- s0 permanently influenced the condition of mankind, was their love 
nons aud law. £ institutions and of order, their reverence for law, their habit of 

considering the individual as living only for that society of which he was a mem- 
ber. This character, the very opposite to that of the barbarian and the savage, 
belongs, apparently, to that race to which the Greeks and Romans both belong, by 
whatever name, Pelasgian, Tyrrhenian, or Sikelian, we choose to distinguish it. It 
has, indeed, marked the Teutonic race, but in a less degree : the Kelts have been 
strangers to it, nor do we find it developed amongst the nations of Asia : but it 
strongly characterizes the Dorians in Greece, and the Romans ; nor is it wanting 
among the Ionians, although in these last it was modified by that individual freedom 
which arose naturally from the surpassing vigor of their intellect, the destined well- 
spring of wisdom to the whole world. But in Rome, as at Lacedsemon, as there was 
much less activity of reason, so the tendency to regulate and to organize was much 
more predominant. Accordingly, we find traces of this character in the very ear- 
liest traditions of Roman story. Even in Romulus, his institutions go hand in hand 
with his deeds in arms ; and the wrath of the gods darkened the last years of the 
warlike Tullus, because he had neglected the rites and ordinances established by 
Numa. Numa and Servius, whose memory was cherished most fondly, were 
known only as lawgivers ; Ancus, like Romulus, is the founder of institutions as 
well as the conqueror, and one particular branch of law is ascribed to him as its 
author, the ceremonial to be observed before going to war. The two Tarquinii 
are represented as of foreign origin, and the character of their reigns is foreign 
also. They are great warriors and great kings ; they extend the dominion of 
Rome ; they enlarge the city, and embellish it with great and magnificent works ; 
but they add nothing to its institutions ; and it was the crime of the last Tarquin- 
ius to undo those good regulations which his predecessor had appointed. 

It is allowed, on all hands, that the works of art executed in Rome under the 
later kino-s, whether architecture 13 or sculpture, 14 were of Etruscan 

Of (be stale ol the aria. . . p ' _, ',, ' . _, 

origin ; but what is meant by " Etruscan, and how tar Etruscan 

B Pellex aram Junonis ne tangito . . . si tan- been Etruscan. (Pliny. XXXV. 12.) MGcali 

get, Junoni orinibns demissis agnum foeminam supposes the temple here meant to have been 

i',' .lit". Festus in •• Pellex." the one vowed by A. Postumius, dictator at the 

" [ntentus perficiendo templo, &bris undique battle of the lake Regillus (Tacitus, Annul. II. 

ex Etrurifl aocitis, &c Ldvy, I. 56. 49), described as a temple, "Libcro, Libersaqae 

" Before the ornamenting of the temple of et Cereri, juxta Circum Maximum." At any 
Ceresal Rome, near 1&e Circus Maximns, by two rate, the two Greek artists must belong to a 
Greeks, DamophUus and Gorgasus, all works of period later than the foundation of the cap- 
painting or sculpture, according to Varro, had ltol. 



Chap. VI] MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES, ETC. 37 

art was itself derived from Greece, is a question which has been warmly disputed. 
The statue of Jupiter 15 in the capitol, and the four-horsed chariot on the summit 
of the temple, together with most of the statues of the gods, were at this period 
wrought in clay ; bronze was not generally employed till a later age. There is 
no mention of any paintings in Rome itself earlier than the time of the common- 
wealth ; but Pliny speaks of some frescoes at Ardea and at Caere, which he con- 
sidered to be older than the very foundation of the city, and which in his own age 
preserved the freshness of their coloring, and in his judgment were works of remark- 
able merit. The Capitoline Temple 16 itself was built nearly in the form of a square, 
each side being about two hundred feet in length ; its front faced southwards, 
towards the Forum and the Palatine, and had a triple row of pillars before it, while 
a double row inclosed the sides of the temple. These, it is probable, were not of 
marble, but made either of the stone of Rome itself, like the cloaca, or possibly 
from the quarries of Gabii or Alba. , 

The end of the reign of the last king of Rome falls less than twenty years be- 
fore the battle of Marathon. The age of the Greek heroic poetry Lan-ua^e and intei- 

■1 » ■• ■ /■ i , • e a ■ -1 lectual character of the 

was long since past ; the evils of the iron age, 01 that imperiect civil- Romans. 
ization, when legal oppression has succeeded to the mere violence of the plun- 
derer and the conqueror, had been bewailed by Hesiod three centuries earlier ; 
Theognis had mourned over the sinking importance of noble birth, and the grow- 
ing influence of riches ; the old aristocracies had been overthrown by single ty- 
rants, and these, again, had everywhere yielded to the power of aristocracies under 
a mitigated form, which in some instances admitted a mixture of popular freedom. 
Alcseus and Sappho had been dead for more than half a century ; Simonides was 
in the vigor of life ; and prose history had already been attempted by Hecatseus 
of Miletus. Of the works of these last, indeed, only fragments have descended to 
us ; but their entire writings, together with those of many other earlier poets, scat- 
tered up and down through a period of more than two hundred j^ears, existed till 
the general wreck of ancient literature, and furnished abundant monuments of the 
vigor of the Greek mind, long before the period when history began faithfully to 
record particular events. But of the Roman mind under the kings, Cicero knew 
no more than we do. He had seen no works of that period, whether of historians 
or of poets ; he had never heard the name of a single individual whose genius had 
made it famous, and had preserved its memory, together with his own. A cer- 
tain number of laws ascribed to the kings, and preserved, whether on tables of 
wood or brass, in the capitol, or in the collection of the jurist Papirius, were almost 
the sole monuments which could illustrate the spirit of the early ages of the Ro- 

15 Pliny, XXXV. 12, quotes Varro, as saying term of the Etruscans, properly so called, the 
" Turrianum a Fregellis accitum, eui locaret conquerors of the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, or of 
Tarquinius Priscus effigiem Jovis in capitolio these Tyrrheno-Peiasgians themselves, who 
dicandam." He had just before said that all the must have held Agylla at least, if not other places 
images of this period were Etruscan ; how, then, on the coast, down to the time of the last sings 
do we find the statue of Jupiter himself ascribed of Kome ; or, again, how much of Etruscan art 
to an artist of Fregellse, a Volscian town on the was introduced directly into Italy from Greece 
Livis, with which the Eomans in Tarquinius' itself, as is indicated in the story of Demaratus 
reign are not known to have had any connec- coming from Corinth to Tarquinii, with the art- 
tion? Besides, " Turrianus" is apparently only ists Euchir and Eugrammus, "Cunning hand" 
another form of " Tyrrhenus," and seems to and "Cunning carver?" The paintings at Ar- 
mark the artist as an Etruscan. Are we, then, dea and Caere, mentioned by Pliny, both occur 
to read Fregcnse instead of Fregellas, or are we in towns of Pelasgian origin ; and the arts may 
to suppose the artist's fame to have been so emi- have thus been cultivated to a certain degree in 
nent that the people of Fregellee had first invi- Italy, even before the beginning of any commu- 
ted him thither from his own country, and the nicatioh with Greece. But the vases and other 
Eoman king afterwards brought him from Fre- monuments now found in Etruscan towns, in 
gclke to Kome ? In this manner, Polycrates of the ruins of Tarquinii, for instance, and of Vulci, 
Samos sent for Democedes, the physician, from belong to a later period, and are either actually 
Athens: and the Athenians had invited him of Greek workmanship, or were executed by 
from JEgina, where he had first settled after Etruscans to whom Greek art was familiar. See 
leaving his own country, Croton. Herodotus, M. Bunsen's " Discours," in the 6th volume of 
III. 131. the Annals of the Antiquarian Institute of Eome, 

But the question still returns, What is meant p. 40, &c. 
by Etruscan art ? Are we to understand this w Dionysius, IV. 61. 



38 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VL 

man people. But even these, to judge from the few extracts with which we are 
acquainted, must have been modernized in their language ; for the Latin of a law 
ascribed to Servius Tullius, is perfectly intelligible, and not more ancient in its 
forms than that of the fifth century of Rome ; whereas the few genuine monu- 
ments of the earliest times, the Hymns of the Salii, and of the Brotherhood of 
Husbandry, Fratres Arvales, required to be interpreted to the Romans of Cicero's 
time, like a foreign language ; and of the hymn of the Fratres Arvales we can 
ourselves judge, for it has been accidentally preserved to our days, and the mean- 
ing of nearly half of it is only to be guessed at. This agrees with what Polybius 
says of the language of the treaty between Rome and Carthage, concluded in the 
first year of the commonwealth ; it was so unlike the Latin of his own time, the 
end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century of Rome, that even those 
who understood it best found some things in it which, with their best attention, 
they could scarcely explain. Thus, although verses were undoubtedly made and 
sung in the times of the kings, at funerals and at feasts, in commemoration of the 
worthy deeds of the noblest of the Romans ; and although some of the actual sto- 
ries of the kings may, perhaps, have come down from this source, yet it does not 
appear that they were ever wiitten, and thus they were altered from one genera- 
tion to another, nor can any one tell at what time they attained to their present 
shape. Traces of a period much later than that of the kings may be discerned in 
them ; and I see no reason to differ from the opinion of Niebuhr, who thinks that 
as we now have them they are not earlier than the restoration of the city after 
the invasion of the Gauls. 

If this be so, there rests a veil not to be removed, not only on the particular 
history of the early Romans, but on that which we should much more desire to 
know, and which in the case of Greece stands forth in such full light, the nature 
and power of their genius ; what they thought, what they hated, and what they 
loved. Yet although the legends of the early Roman story are neither historical, 
nor yet coeval with the subjects which they celebrate, still their fame is so great, 
and their beauty and interest so surpassing, that it would be unpardonable to sacri- 
fice them altogether to the spirit of inquiry and of fact, and to exclude them from 
the plae«e which they have so long held in Roman history. Nor shall I complain 
of my readers, if they pass over with indifference these attempts of mine to put 
together the meagre fragments of our knowledge, and to present them with an 
outline of the times of the kings, at once incomplete and without spirit ; while 
they read with eager interest the immortal story of the fall of Tarquinius, and the 
wars with Porsenna and the Latins, as it has been handed down to us in the rich 
coloring of the old heroic lays of Rome. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE STOEY OF THE BANISHING OF KING TAEQUINIUS AND HIS HOUSE, AND OP 
THEIE ATTEMPTS TO GET THEMSELVES BROUGHT BACK AGAIN. 



" Vis et Tarquinios reges, animamque superbam 
Ultoris Bruti, fascesque videre receptos ?" 

Viegil, iEn. VI. 

While king Tarquinius was at the height of his greatness, it chanced upon a time, 
that from the altar 1 in the court of his palace there crawled out a How id..? Tarquinius, 
snake, which devoured the offering's laid on the altar. So the kino* gy *» his P diace, sent 

,,. , .. °. .. « 1 i-, ° two of his sons with 

thought it not enough to consult the soothsayers of the iwuscans Lucius Brutus to con. 

O o *> suit the oracle of Del- 

whom he had with him, but he sent two of his own sons to Del- phi- 
phi, to ask counsel of the oracle of the Greeks ; for the oracle of Delphi* was fa- 
mous in all lands. So his sons Titus and Aruns went to Delphi, and they took with 
them their cousin Lucius Junius, whom men call Brutus, that is, the Dullard ; for he 
seemed to be wholly without wit, and he would eat wild figs with honey. 3 This 
Lucius was not really dull, but very subtle; and it was for fear of his uncle's 
cruelty, that he made himself as one without sense ; for he was very rich, and he 
feared lest king Tarquinius should kill him for the sake of his inheritance. So when 
he went to Delphi he carried with him a staff of horn, and the staff was hollow, and 
it was filled within with gold, and he gave the staff to the oracle 4 as a likeness 
of himself ; for though he seemed dull, and of no account to look upon, yet he had 
a golden wit within. When the three young men had performed the king's bid- 
ding, they asked the oracle for themselves, and they said, " Lord Apollo, tell 
us which of us shall be king in Rome ?" Then there came a voice from the sanc- 
tuary and said, " Whichever of you shall first kiss his mother." So the sons of 
Tarquinius agreed to draw lots between themselves, which of them should first 
kiss their mother, when they should have returned to Rome ; and they said they 
would keep the oracle secret from their brother Sextus, lest he should be king 
rather than they. But Lucius understood the mind of the oracle better ; so as 
they all went down from the temple, he stumbled as if by chance, and fell with 
his face to the earth, and kissed the earth ; for he said, " The earth is the true 
mother of us all." 

Now when they came back to Rome, king Tarquinius was at war with the peo- 
ple of Ardea ; 5 and as the city was strong, his army lay a long How.atthesieg-eofAr. 
while before it, till it should be forced to yield through famine. aL^\i R Tbo , uf in i!hl 
So the Romans had leisure for feasting and for diverting them- 3'L° f LucmiTwas 
selves : and once Titus and Aruns 6 were supping with their brother 3udsed the wonhiest - 

1 Ovid, Pasti, II. 711. ing them when just taken out of it, i. e. with the 
Ecce, nefas visu, mediis altaribus anguis honey clinging all about them. Compare Plau- 
Exit, et extinctis ignibus exta rapit. tus, Mere. I. 2, 28, "Eesinam ex melle devora- 

2 Livy, 1.56, maxime inclitum in terris oracu- to," where the sense of the preposition can hard- 
lum. _ The story of the last of the Roman kings ly be distinguished from that of " cum." Grossi 
sending to consult the oracle at Delphi, is in it- and grossuh are imperfect and unripe figs ; ei- 
self nothing improbable. We read of the Agyl- ther those of the wild fig which never come to 
Iseans of Agylla or Caere doing the same thing perfection, or the young fruit of the cultivated 
at an earlier period. Herodotus, I. 167. These fig gathered before its time. 

were Tyrrhenians, or Pelasgians ; and there was 4 Per ambages ef&giem ingenii sui. Livy, L 

a suificient mixture of the same race in the Eo- 56. 

man people, to give them a natural connection 6 Livy, I. 57. This is one of the iacongrui- 

with the religion of Greece. ties of the story. Ardea, in the first year of the 

3 A. Postumius Albinus, cotemporary with' commonwealth, is mentioned as one of the de- 
Cato the censor, quoted by Macrobius, Satur- pendent allies of Eome. See the famous treaty 
nalia, II. 16. Grossulos ex melle edebat. " Ex with Carthage, as given by Polybius, III. 22. 
melle," dipping them into the honey, and eat- 6 Livy, I. 57. 



40 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIL 

Sextus, and their cousin Tarquinius of Collatia was supping with them. And 
they disputed about their wives, whose wife of them all was the worthiest lady. 
Then said Tarquinius of Collatia, " Let us go and see with our own eyes what our 
wives are doing, so shall we know which is the worthiest." Upon this they all 
mounted their horses, and rode first to Rome ; and there they found the wives of 
Titus, and of Aruns, and of Sextus, feasting and making merry. They then rode 
on to Collatia, and it was late in the night, but they found Lucretia, the wife of 
Tarquinius of Collatia, neither feasting nor yet sleeping, but she was sitting with all 
her handmaids around her, and all were working at the loom. So when they saw 
this, they all said, " Lucretia is the worthiest lady." And she entertained her 
husband and his kinsmen, and after that they rode back to the camp before 
Ardea. 

But a spirit of wicked passion 7 seized upon Sextus, and a few days afterwards 
or the wicked deed of be went alone to Collatia, and Lucretia received him hospitably, 

Sextus Tarquinius a-... - > i • . • i • i i i 

S ai U5 t Lucretia. tor ne was her husband s kinsman. At midnight he arose and went 

to her chamber, and he said that if she yielded not to him, he would slay her and 
one of her slaves with her, and would say to her husband that he had slain her in her 
adultery. So when Sextus had accomplished his wicked purpose, he went back 
again to the camp. 

Then Lucretia 8 sent in haste to Rome, to pray that her father Spurius Lucretius 
how Lneretia, having tow would come to her; and she sent to Ardea to summon her husband. 
Kj UKaS^E Her father brought along with him Publius Valerius, and her hus- 
band brought with him Lucius Junius, whom men call Brutus. 
When they arrived, they asked earnestly, " Is all well ?" Then she told them 
of the wicked deed of Sextus, and she said, " If ye be men, avenge it." And 
they all swore to her that they would avenge it. Then she said again, " I am 
not guilty ; yet must I too share in the punishment of this deed, lest any should 
think that they may be false to their husbands and live." And she drew a knife 
from her bosom, and stabbed herself to the heart. 

At that sight 9 her husband and her father cried aloud ; but Lucius drew the 
_ . • , knife from the wound, and held it up, and said, " Bv this blood 

How her father and her _ . . r . .•> . 

husband and Lucius B™- j swear, that I will visit this deed upon kmo- larquinius, and all 

tns excittd the people to . . . in i ? 1 i • • 

J ri «P s i 't tin- Tarquinius his accursed race ; neither shall any man hereafter be king in 
Rome, lest he do the like wickedness." And he gave the knife 
to her husband, and to her father, and to Publius Valerius. They marvelled to 
hear such words from him whom men called dull ; but they swore also, and they 
took up the body of Lucretia, and carried it down into the forum ; and they said, 
"Behold the deeds of the wicked family of Tarquinius." All the people of 
Collatia were moved, and the men took up arms, and they set a guard at the gates, 
that none might go out to carry the tidings to Tarquinius, and they followed 
Lucius to Rome. There, too, all the people came together, and the crier summoned 
them to assemble before the tribune of the Celeres, for Lucius held that office. 10 
And Lucius spoke to them of all the tyranny of Tarquinius and his sons, and 
of the wicked deed of Sextus. And the people in their curiae took back from 
Tarquinius the sovereign power, which they had given him, and they banished 
him and all his family. Then the younger men followed Lucius to Ardea, to 
win over the army there to join them ; and the city was left in the charge of 
Spurius Lucretius. But the wicked Tullia fled in haste from her house, and all, 

1 Livy, I. 58. with Gravis ; this would show a connexion be- 

8 Livy, I. 58. tweeti tin' word ami the Greek fiapvs. It is 

9 Livy, I. 59. very possible that its early signification, as a 

10 The feribune of the Celeres was to the king cognomen, may have differed very litfle from 
what theroaster of the horse was afterwards to thai of Severus. When the signification of 
the dictator. It is hardly accessary to point "dulness" came to be more confirmed, the 
•uttho extravagance of the story, in represent- story of Brutus 1 pretended idiotcy would be 
ing Brutus, though a reputed idiot, ye1 invested invented t<> explain the bet of so wise a man 
witli Mich an important office, cestus BttjB being called by such a name. 

that Brutus, in old Latin, was synonymous 



Chap. VII] THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 41 

both men and women, cursed her as she passed, and prayed that the furies of 
her father's blood might visit her with vengeance. 

Meanwhile 11 king Tarquinius set out with speed to Rome to put down the 
tumult. But Lucius turned aside from the road, that he might ftbe driving o.,t of king 
not meet him, and came to the camp ; and the soldiers joyfully yeSy m Zgtstrate s W were 
received him, and they drove out the sons of Tarquinius. King «™ omted in his ,oom - 
Tarquinius came to Rome, but the gates were shut, and they declared to him, 
from the walls, the sentence of banishment which had been passed against him 
and his family. So he yielded to his fortune, and went to live at Caere with 
his sons Titus and Aruns. His other son, Sextus, 12 went to Gabii, and the people 
there, remembering how he had betrayed them to his father, slew him. Then 
the army left the camp before Ardea, and went back to Rome. And all men 
said, " Let us follow the good laws of the good king Servius ; and let us meet in 
our centuries, according as he directed, 13 and let us choose two men year by year 
to govern us, instead of a king." Then the people met in their centuries in the 
Field of Mars, and they chose two men to rule over them, Lucius Junius, 
whom men called Brutus, and Lucius Tarquinius of Collatia. 

But the people 14 were afraid of Lucius Tarquinius for his name's sake, for it seem- 
ed as though a Tarquinius was still king over them. So they prayed How Lucius Tnrquiri i U3 , 
him to depart from Rome, and he went and took all his goods w a ^i™?oufahShi3 
with him, and settled himself at Lavinium. Then the senate nam6 ' B sake - 
and the people decreed that all the house of the Tarquinii should be banished, 
even though they were not of the king's family. And the people met again in 
their centuries, and chose Publius Valerius to rule over them together with 
Brutus, in the room of Lucius Tarquinius of Collatia. 

Now at this time 15 many of the laws of the good king Servius were restored, 
which Tarquinius the tyrant had overthrown. For the commons The laws of the good king 
again chose their own judges, to try all causes between a man SenriuB ies ? 0Md - 
and his neighbor ; and they had again their meetings and their sacrifices in the 
city and in the country, every man in his own tribe and in his own district. And 
lest there should seem to be two kings instead oT one, it was ordered that one 
only of the two should bear rule at one time, and that the lictors, with their 
rods and axes, should walk before him alone. And the two were to bear rule 
month by month. 

Then king Tarquinius 16 sent to Rome, to ask for all the goods that had belonged 
to him ; and the senate, after a while, decreed that the goods 
should be given back. But those whom he had sent to Rome Romans plotted to "bring 

, , „ °, . , . , ± . . x , j. back king Tarquinius. 

to ask tor his goods, had meetings with many young men 01 
noble birth, and a plot was laid to bring back king Tarquinius. So the young 
men wrote letters to Tarquinius, pledging to him their faith, and among them 
were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of Brutus. But a slave happened to overhear 
them talking together, and when he knew that the letters were to be given to 
the messengers of Tarquinius, he went and told all that he had heard to Brutus 
and to Publius Valerius. Then they came and seized the young men and their 
letters, and so the plot was broken up. 

After this there was a strange and piteous sight to behold. Brutus and 
Publius 17 sat on their iudgment-seats in the Forum, and the young ; 

, i j_ i % i mi -r-i i i i t i How Lucius Brutus sat in 

men were brought betore them, lhen Brutus bade the lictors to judgment upon Ms own 

bind his own two sons, Titus and Tiberius, together with the others, 

and to scourge them with rods, according to the law. And after they had been 

11 Livy, I. 60. 13 Consules inde eomitiis centuriatis — ex com- 

12 Livy, I. 60. Dionysius makes Sextus live ruentariis Ser. Tullii creati sunt. Livy, I. 60. 
till the battle by the lake Eegillus, and describes w Livy, II. 2. 

him as killed there. When the stories differ, 15 Dionysius, V. 2. 

I have generally followed Livy, as the writer 16 Livy, II. 3, 4. 

of the best taste, and likely to give the oldest " Livy, II. 5. 
and most poetical version of them. 



42 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIL 

scourged, the lictors struck off their heads with their axes, hefore the eyes of 
their father ; and Brutus neither stirred from his seat, nor turned away his eyes 
from the sight, yet men saw as they looked on him that his heart was grievino- 
inwardly 18 over his children. Then "they marvelled at him, because he had loved 
justice more than his own blood, and had not spared his own children when 
they had been false to their country, and had offended against the law. 

When 19 king Tarquinius found that the plot was broken up, he persuaded the 
Ho*- the people of veil people of Veii and the people of Tarquinii, cities of the Etruscans, 
upon th'eXmanvind how to try to bring him back to Rome by force of arms. So they 
Lucius Brutus was siai„. assemb i ed ^ arm [ eS) and Tarquinius led them within the 
Roman border. Brutus and Publius led the Romans out to meet them, and it 
chanced that Brutus with the Roman horsemen, and Aruns,, the son. of king 
Tarquinius, with the Etruscan horse, met each other in advance of the main 
battles. Aruns seeing Brutus in his kingly robe, and with the lictors of a king 
around him, levelled his spear, and spurred his horse against him. Brutus met 
him, and each ran his spear through the body of the other, and they both fell 
dead. Then the horsemen on both parts fought, and afterwards the main battles, 
and the Veientians were beaten, but the Tarquinians beat the Romans, and the 
battle was neither won nor lost ; but in the night there came a voice out of the 
wood that was hard by, and it said, ". One man more 20 has fallen on the part of 
the Etruscans than on the part of the Romans ; the Romans are to conquer in 
the war." At this the Etruscans were afraid, and believing the voice, they 
immediately marched home to their own country, while the Romans took up 
Brutus, and carried him home and buried him ; and Publius made an oration in 
his praise, and all the matrons of Rome mourned for him for a whole year, 
because he had avenged Lucretia well. 

When Brutus was dead, 21 Publius ruled over the people himself ; and he began 
How Pubiius Valerius was to build a great and strong house on the top of the hill Velia, 
IKowh.e y cUa e reS e hS- which looks down upon the Forum. 22 This made the people say, 
" Publius wants to become a king, and is building a house in a 
strong place, as if for a citadel where he may live with his guards, and oppress 
us." But he called the people together, and when he went down to them, the 
lictors who walked before him lowered the rods and the axes which they bore, to 
show that he owned the people to be greater than himself. He complained that 
they had mistrusted him, and he said that he would not build his house on the 
top of the hill Velia, but at the bottom of it, and his house should be no strong- 
hold. And he called on them to make a law, 23 that whoever should try to make 
himself king should be accursed, and whosoever would might slay him. Also, 
that if a magistrate were going to scourge or kill any citizen, he might carry his 
cause before the people, and they should judge him. When these laws were 
passed, all men said, "Publius is a lover of the people, and seeks their good :" 
and he was called Poplicola, which means, " the people's friend," from that day 
forward. 

Then Publius called the people together 24 in their centuries, and they chose 
Spurius Lucretius, the father of Lucretia, to be their magistrate for the year in 
the room of Brutus. But he was an old man, and his strength was so much 
gone, that after a few days he died. They then chose in his room Marcus 
Horatius. 25 

Now Publius and Marcus cast lots which should dedicate the temple to Jupiter 

18 Emincnte animo patrio inter publico pcenas Palatine, up which the Via Sacra passes. The 

ministerium. Livy, II. 5. arch of Titus is on the Velian Llill. 

18 Livy, II. 6. 2a Livy, II. 8. 

: " Uno plus Etruscorum cccidisse in acie; 2< Livv, II. 8. 

Tincere bcllo Eomanum. Livy, II. 7. _ " The treaty with Carthage makes M. Ilora- 

31 Eivy, II. 7. _ | tins the colleague of Brutus: another proof of 

98 It is the rising ground just under the the irreconcilftblenesa of the common story 

with the real but lost history. 



Chap. VII.] THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 43 

on the hill of the Capitol, which king Tarquinius had built ; and Q( ^ dedicatin „ o{ the 
the lot fell to -Marcus, to the great discontent of the friends of tempieon the cSpitoi by 
Publius. 26 So when Marcus was going to begin the dedication, 
and had his hand on the door-post of the temple, and was speaking the set 
words of prayer, there came a man running to tell him that his son was 
dead. But he said, " Then let them carry him out and bury him ;" and he 
neither wept, nor lamented, for the words of lamentation ought not to be 
spoken when men are praying to the blessed gods, and dedicating a temple 
to their honor. So Mareus honored the gods above his son, and dedicated the 
temple on the hill of the Capitol ; and his name was recorded on the front of 
the temple. 

But when king Tarquinius found that the Veientians and Tarquinians were not 
able to restore him to his kingdom, he went to Clusium, 21 a city in HowkmgPorsemmmade 
the farthest part of Etruria, beyond the Ciminian forest, and be- ™L upo them e f a °Cback 
sought Lars Porsenna, 28 the king of Clusium, to aid him. So Por- ^ "*"****- 
senna raised a great army, and marched against Rome, and attacked the Romans on 
the hill Janiculum, the hill on the outside of the city beyond the Tiber ; and he 
drove them down from the hill into the city. There was a wooden bridge over 
the Tiber at the bottom of the hill, and the Etruscans followed close upon the 
Romans to win the bridge, but a single man, named Horatius ofthe worthy deed OIHo . 
Codes, stood fast upon the bridge, and faced the Etruscans; 29 ratius Codea - 
two others then resolved to stay with him, Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius ; 
and these three men stopped the Etruscans, while the Romans, who had fled 
over the river, were busy in cutting away the bridge. When it was nearly all 
cut away, Horatius made his two companions leave him, and pass over the 
bridge into the city. Then he stood alone on the bridge, and defied all the arm} 7 
of the Etruscans ; and they showered their javelins upon him, and he caught 
them on his shield, and stood yet unhurt. But just as they were rushing on 
him to drive him from his post by main force, the last beams of the bridge were 
cut away, and it all fell with a mighty crash into the river ; and while the 
Etruscans wondered, and stopped in their course, Horatius turned and prayed 
to the god of the river, " father 30 Tiber, I pray thee to receive these arms, 
and me who bear them, and to let thy waters befriend and save me." Then he 
leapt into the river; and though the darts fell thick around him, yet they did 
not hit him, and he swam aqross to the city safe and sound. 31 For this the 
Romans set up his statue in 'the comitium, and gave him as much land as he 
could drive the plough .round in the space of a whole day. 

But the Etruscans still lay before the city, and the Romans suffered much 
from hunger. Then a young man of noble blood, Caius Mucius 33 Ho w cams Mud™ sought 
by name, went to the senate, and offered to go to the camp of i h D e d H w K^j 
the Etruscans, and to slay king Porsenna. So he crossed the own hand " the fire - 
river and made his way into the camp, and there he saw a man sitting on a high 
place, and wearing a scarlet robe, and many coming and going about him ; and 
saying to himself, " This must be king Porsenna," he went up to his seat amidst 
the crowd, and when he came near to the man he drew a dagger from under 
his garment, and stabbed him. But it was the king's scribe whom he had slain, 
who was the king's chief officer ; so he was seized and brought before the king, 

26 Livy, II. 8. It is vain to attempt to write a history of these 

27 Livy, II. 9. events ; and none can doubt that the poetical 

28 "Lars," like "Iucumo," is not an indi- story, which alone I am wishing to preserve, 
vidua! name, but expresses the rank of the per- was that given by Livy. 

son, like aVaf. Micali connects it with the Teu- 32 " Adolescens nobilis," Livy, II. 12. Nie- 

tonic word "Lord." buhr doubts whether the old story called him 

29 Livy, II. 10. by any other name than Caius. Mucius, he 

30 "Tiberine pater, te sancte precor, hsec thinks, was a later addition : because the Mucii 
arma et hunc inilitem propitio flumine acci- had the same cognomen or Scffivola; and he 
pias." Livy, II. 10. considers it inconsistent, because the Mucii 

n Polybius says that he was killed, VI. 55. were plebeians. 



44 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIL 

and the guards threatened 33 him with sharp torments, unless he would answer 
all their questions. But he said, " See now, how little I care for your torments;" 
and he thrust his right hand into the fire that was burning there on the altar, 
and he did not move it till it was quite consumed. Then king Porsenna mar- 
velled at his courage, and said, " Go thy way, for thou hast harmed thyself 
more than me ; and thou art a brave man, and I send thee back to Rome unhurt 
and free." But Caius answered, " For this thou shalt get more of my secret 
than thy tortures could have forced from me. Three hundred noble youths of 
Rome have bound themselves by oath to take thy life. Mine was the first 
adventure ; but the others will each in his turn lie in wait for thee. I warn you, 
therefore, to look to thyself well." Then Caius was let go, and went back again 
into the city. 

But king Porsenna was greatly moved, 34 and made the Romans offers of peace, 
„, „ , v to which they listened gladly, and gave up the land beyond the 

Of the peace made be- _. i ■ i i j i ■ r • c i , r . 

tweenkmg Porsenna and liber, Avhieh had been won in former times from the veientians ; 

the Romans; and ot tho . » 

great spirit of the maiden and he gave back to them the hill Janiculum. Besides this, the 
Romans gave hostages to the king, ten youths and ten maidens, 
children of noble fathers, as a pledge that they would truly keep the peace 
which they had made. But it chanced, as the camp of the Etruscans was near 
the Tiber, that Clcelia, one of the maidens, escaped with her fellows, and fled to 
the brink of the river, and as the Etruscans pursued them, Clcelia spoke to the 
other maidens, and persuaded them, and they rushed all into the water, and 
swam across the river, and got safely over. At this king Porsenna marvelled 
more than ever, and when the Romans sent back Cloelia and her fellows to him, 
for they kept their faith truly, he bade her go home free, and he gave her some of 
the youths also who were hostages, to choose whom she would ; and she chose 
those who were of tenderest age, and king Porsenna set them free. Then the 
Romans gave lands to Caius, and set up a statue of Cloelia in the highest part 
of the Sacred Way ; and king Porsenna led away his army home in peace. 

After this king Porsenna 35 made war against the Latins, and his army was 
Aow Tarqninius sought beaten, and fled to Rome ; and the Romans received them kindly, 
^ aid from the Latin.. m| j| took care f those who were woun( jed, and sent them back 

safe to king Porsenna. For this the king gave back to the Romans all the rest 
of their hostages whom he had still with him, and also the land which they had 
won from the Veientians. So Tarquinius, seeing that there was no more hope 
of aid from king Porsenna, left Clusium and went to Tusculum of the Latins ; 
for Mamilius Octavius, the chief of the Tusculans, had married his daughter, and 
he hoped that the Latins would restore him to Rome, for their cities were many, 
and when he had been king he had favored them rather than the Romans. 
So after a time thirty cities of the Latins joined together and made Octavius 

Mamilius their general, and declared war against the Romans. 
Romans and Latins on ac- Now Publius Valerius was dead, and the Romans so loved and 

honored him that they buried him within the city, 36 near the hill 
Velia, and all the matrons of Rome had mourned for him for a whole year : also 
because the Romans 37 had the Sabines for their enemies as well as the Latins, 
they had made one man to be their ruler for a time instead of two ; and he was 
called the Master of the people, or the commander, and he had all the power 
which the kings of Rome had in times past. So Aulus Postumius was appointed 
Master of the people at this time, and Titus iEbutius was the chief or Master of 
the horsemen ; and they led out the whole force of the Romans, and met the 
Latins by the lake Regillus, in the country of Tusculum ; and Tarquinius himself 

33 Here I have followed Dionysius rather than M Livy, II. 13. 

Livy, because in Eavy's story Mucins tells Tor- * Livy, II. 14, 15. 

senna in reward of his generosity no more than x Plutarch in Publicola, 28. Livy, II. 16. 

he had told him at first as a mere vaunt to *" Livy, II. 18. 
frighten hiin. 



Chap. VII] THE BANISHING OF KING TARQUINIUS, ETC. 45 

was with the army of the Latins, and his son and all the houses of the Tar- 
quinii : for this was their last hope, and fate was now to determine whether the 
Romans should be ruled over by king Tarquinius, or whether they should be free 
forever. 

There were many Romans who had married Latin wives, 38 and many Latins 
who had married wives from among the Romans. So before the Hovr the Rom? , n wome „ 
war began, it was resolved that the women on both sides might S h haTtand" a cImt to w 
leave their husbands if they chose, and take their virgin daughters toRome - 
with them, and return to their own country. And all the Latin women, except 
two, remained in Rome with their husbands : but the Roman women loved Rome 
more than their husbands, and took their young daughters with them, and came 
home to the houses of their fathers. 

Then the Romans and the Latins joined battle by the lake Regillus. 39 There 
might you see king Tarquinius, though far advanced in years, of thereat battle by the 
yet mounted on his horse and bearing his lance in his hand, as lake Re e iUus - 
bravely as though he were still young. There was his son Tarquinius, leading on 
to battle all the band of the house of the Tarquinii, whom the Romans had ban- 
ished for their name's sake, and who thought it a proud thing to win back their 
country by their swords, and to become again the royal house, to give a king to 
the Romans. There was Octavius Mamilius, of Tusculum, the leader of all the 
Latins, who said, that he would make Tarquinius his father king once more in 
Rome, and the Romans should help the Latins in all their wars, and Tusculum 
should be the greatest of all the cities, whose people went up together to sacri- 
fice to Jupiter of the Latins, at his temple on the high top of the mountain of 
Alba. And on the side of the Romans might be seen Aulus Postumius, the 
Master of the people, and Titus ^Ebutius, the Master of the horsemen. There 
also was Titus Herminius, who had fought on the bridge by the side of Horatius 
Codes, on the day when they saved Rome from king Porsenna. There was 
Marcus Valerius, the brother of Publius, who said he would finish by the lake 
Regillus 40 the glorious Avork which Publius had begun in Rome ; for Publius had 
driven out Tarquinius and his house, and had made them live as banished men, 
and now they should lose their ffves as they had lost their country. So at the 
first onset king Tarquinius levelled his lance, and rode against Aulus ; and on 
the left of the battle, Titus ^Ebutius spurred his horse against Octavius Mamilius. 
But king Tarquinius, before he reached Aulus, received a wound in his side, and 
his followers gathered around him, and bore him out of the battle. And Titus 
and Octavius met lance to lance, and Titus struck Octavius on the breast, and 
Octavius ran his lance through the arm of Titus. So Titus withdrew from the 
battle, for his arm could no longer wield its weapon ; but Octavius heeded not 
his hurt, but when he saw his Latins giving ground, he called to the banished 
Romans of the house of the Tarquinii, and sent them into the thick of the fight. 
On they rushed so fiercely that neither man nor horse could stand before them ; 
for they thought how they had been driven from their country, and spoiled of 
their goods, and they said that they would win back both that day through the 
blood of their enemies. 

Then Marcus Valerius, the brother of Publius, levelled his lance and rode fiercely 
against Titus Tarquinius, who was the leader of the band of the Ho w two horsemen on 
Tarquinii. But Titus drew back," and sheltered himself amidst rhe i touir»ndTught d for 
his band ; and Marcus rode after him in his fury, and plunged the Roma;is - 
into the midst of the enemy, and a Latin ran his lance into his side as he was 
rushing on ; but his horse stayed not in his career till Marcus dropped from him 
dead upon the ground. Then the Romans feared yet more, and the Tarquinii 
charged yet more vehemently, till Aulus, the leader of the Romans, rode up with 

88 Dionysius, VI. 1. families decus ejecti reges erant, ejusdem intcr- 

" Livy, II. 19. _ fecti forent. Livy, II. 20. 

40 Domestica etiam gloria accensus, ut cujus 



46 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VII. 

his own chosen band ; and he bade them level their lances, and slay all whose 
faces were towards them, whether they were friends or foes. So the Romans 
turned from their flight, and Aulus and his chosen band fell upon the Tarquinii ; 
and Aulus prayed, and vowed that he would raise a temple to Castor and to Pol- 
lux, 41 the twin heroes, if they would aid him to win the battle ; and he promised 
to his soldiers that the two who should be the first to break into the camp of the 
enemy should receive a rich reward. When behold, there rode two horsemen at 
the head of his chosen band, 42 and they were taller and fairer than after the stat- 
ure and beauty of men, and they were in the first bloom of youth, and their 
horses were white as snow. Then there was a fierce battle w r ben Octavius, the 
leader of the Latins, came up with aid to rescue the Tarquinii ; for Titus Hermin- 
ius rode against him, and ran his spear through his body, and slew him at one 
blow ; but as he was spoiling him of his arms, he himself was struck by a javelin, 
and he was borne out of the fight and died. And the two horsemen on white 
horses rode before the Romans ; and the enemy fled before them, and the Tar- 
quinii were beaten down and slain, and Titus Tarquinius was slain among them ; 
and the Latins fled, and the Romans followed them to their camp, and the two 
horsemen on white horses were the first who broke into the camp. But when the 
camp was taken, and the battle was fully won, Aulus sought for the two horse- 
men to give them the rewards which he had promised ; and they were not found 
either amongst the living or amongst the dead, only there was seen imprinted 42 
on the hard black rock 44 the mark of a horse's hoof, which no earthly horse had 
ever made ; and the mark was there to be seen in after ages. And the battle was 
ended, and the sun went down. 

Now they knew at Rome 45 that the armies had joined battle, and as the day 
wore away all men longed for tidino-s. And the sun went down, 

How the two horsemen 1111,1 • ., ? i , ■,, , 

appeared at Rome in and suddenly there were seen in the torum two horsemen, taller and 
that e> the' D f'attie was fairer than the tallest and fairest of men, and they rode on white 
horses, and they were as men just come from the battle, and their 
horses were all bathed in foam. They alighted by the temple of Vesta, where a 
spring of water bubbles up from the ground and fills a small deep pool. There 
they washed away the stains of the battle, and^vhen men crowded round them, 
and asked for tidings, they told them how the battle had been fought, and how 
it was won. And they mounted their horses and rode from the forum, and 
were seen no more ; and men sought for them in every place, but they were not 
found. 

Then Aulus and all the Romans knew how Castor and Pollux, the twin heroes, 
had heard his prayer, and had fought for the Romans, and had van- 
the twin heroes, castor quished their enemies, and had been the first to break into the ene- 
mies' camp, and had themselves, with more than mortal speed, 
borne the tidings of their victory to Rome. So Aulus built a temple according to 
his vow to Castor and Pollux, and gave rich offerings ; for he said, " These are the 
rewards which I promised to the two who should first break into the enemies' 
camp ; and the twin heroes have won them, and they and no mortal men have 
won the battle for Rome this day." 

So perished the house of the Tarquinii, in the great battle b}^ the lake Regillus, 

How Tarquinius, after an d all the sons of king Tarquinius, and his son-in-law, Octavius 

w'. e „i r "i" 'cumk ho «"nd Mamilius, were slain on that battle-field. Thus king Tarquinius saw 

the ruin of all his family and of all his house, and he was left alone, 

utterly without hope. So he went to Cumas, 46 a city of the Greeks, and there he 

41 Livy, II. 20. uiulcr La Colonna, Labieum, to the ordinary 

42 Dionysius, VI. 13. level of the Campagna, in going to Rome. Ci- 
a Cicero, de Naturu Deorum, III. 5. cero speaks of the mark being visihle " in sili- 
44 The lake of Regillus is now a small and ce :" and silex is the name given by the Roman 

weedy pool surrounded by eratcr-like banks writers to the lava and basalt of the neighbor- 

and with much lava or basalt about it, situated hood of Rome. 

at some height above the plain on the right hand 45 Dionysius, VI. 18. 

of the road as you descend from the high ground 48 Livy, II. 21. 



Chap. VIIL] ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY. 47 

died. And thus the deeds of Tarquinius and of the wicked Tullia, and of Sextus 
their son, were visited upon their own heads ; and the Romans lived in peace, and 
none threatened their freedom any more. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY— THE DICTATORSHIP— THE TRIB- 
UNES OF THE COMMONS. 



'Ilfxcis <5f avbpZv tZv apteral* IniKi^avrt; bjiMriv tovtowi -Kepi^eijijiiiv to Kpdros' h yap <5rj tovtoigi Kal 
airol imS/uSu. — Heeodot. III. 81. 



Men love to complete what is imperfect, and to realize what is imaginary. 
The portraits of king Fergus and his successors in Holyrood palace , „ . . 

r O . O J r- ±i T he Roman history 13 

were an attempt to give substance to the phantom names ot the stm meager and uncer- 

10 1 t tain. 

early Scotch story ; those of the founders of the oldest colleges in 
the gallery of the Bodleian library betray the tendency to make much out of little, 
to labor after a full idea of those who are only known to us by one particular ac- 
tion of their lives. So it has fared with the early history of Rome ; Romulus and 
Numa are like king Fergus ; John of Balliol, and Walter of Merton, are the coun- 
terparts of Servius Tullius, and Brutus, and Poplicola. Their names were known, 
and their works were living: and men, longing to image them to their minds more 
completely, made up by invention for the want of knowledge, and composed in 
one case a pretended portrait, in the other a pretended history. 

There have been hundreds, doubtless, who have looked on the portrait of John 
of Balliol, and, imposed upon by the name of portrait and by its being the first in 
a series of pictures of which the greater part were undoubtedly copied from the 
life, have never suspected that the painter knew no more of the real features of 
his subject than they did themselves. So it is that we are deceived by the early 
history of the Roman commonwealth. It wears the form of annals, it professes 
to mark accurately the events of successive years, and to distinguish them by the 
names of the successive consuls, and it begins a history which, going on with these 
same forms and pretensions to accuracy, becomes, after a time, in a very large 
proportion really accurate, and ends with being as authentic as any history in the 
world. Yet the earliest annals are as unreal as John of Balliol's portrait; there is 
in both cases the same deception. I cannot as yet give a regular history of the 
Roman people ; all that can be done with the first years of the commonwealth, 
as with the last of the monarchy, is to notice the origin and character of the insti- 
tutions, and for the rest, to be contented with that faint outline which alone can 
be relied upon as real. 

The particulars of the expulsion of the last king of Rome, and his family and 
house, can only be given, as they already have been, in their poeti- 
cal form. It by no means follows that none of them are historical, ■omeiwEHTtfc'e'L- 
but we cannot distinguish what are so. But we may be certain, pul3 '° n ° arquimus " 
whether Brutus belonged to the commons, as Niebuhr thinks, or not, that the 
commons immediately after the revolution recovered some of the rights of which 
the last king had deprived them ; and these rights were such as did not interfere 
with the political ascendancy of the patricians, but yet restored to the commons 
their character of an order, that is, a distinct body with an internal organization 



48 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIII. 

of its own. The commons again chose their judges to decide ordinary civil causes 1 
•when both parties belonged to their own order, and they again met in their Com- 
pitalia and Paganalia, the common festivals of the inhabitants of the same neigh- 
borhood in the city and in the country. They also gained the important privilege 
of being, even in criminal matters, judges of their own members, in case of an 
appeal from the sentence of the magistrate. As a burgher might appeal to the 
people or great council of the burghers, so a commoner might appeal to the com- 
mons assembled in their tribes, and thus in this respect the two orders of the nation 
were placed on a footing of equality. It is said also that a great many of the rich- 
est families of the commons who belonged to the centuries of knights, or horsemen, 
were admitted as new patrician houses into the order of the patricians, or burghers, 
or people of Rome ; for I must again observe, that the Roman people or burghers, 
and the Roman commons, will still for a long period require to be carefully dis- 
tinguished from each other. 

In the first year of the commonwealth, the Romans still possessed the domin- 
ion enjoyed by their king; all the cities of the coast of Latium, as 
R o r m£ n Rupiur° n orthe we have already seen, were subjected to them as far as Terracina. 

alliance with the Lat- , VT . , , •> , i • i ^ ^ 

ins. The territory on Within twelve years, we cannot certainly say now much sooner, 
Tiber'fs conquered by these were all become independent. This is easily intelligible, if we 
only take into account the loss to Rome of an able and absolute 
king, the natural weakness of an unsettled government, and the distractions pro- 
duced by the king's attempts to recover his throne. The Latins may have held, 
as we are told of the Sabines 2 in this very time, that their dependent alliance with 
Rome had been concluded with king Tarquinius, and that as he was king no 
longer, and as his sons had been driven out with him, all covenants between La- 
tium and Rome had become null and void. But it is possible also, if the chro- 
nology of the common story of these times can be at all depended on, that the 
Latin cities owed their independence to the Etruscan conquest of Rome. For that 
war, which has been given in its poetical version as the war with Porsenna, was 
really a great outbreak of the Etruscan pow r er upon the nations southward of 
Etruria, in the very front of whom lay the Romans. In the very next year after 
the expulsion of the king, according to the common story, and certainly at some 
time within the period with which we are now concerned, the Etruscans fell upon 
Rome. The result of the war is, indeed, as strangely disguised in the poetical 
story as Charlemagne's invasion of Spain is in the romances. Rome was com- 
pletely conquered ; all the territory which the kings had won on the right bank 
of the Tiber was now lost. 3 Rome itself was surrendered to the Etruscan con- 
queror ; 4 his sovereignty was fully acknowledged, 5 the Romans gave up their arms 
and recovered their city and territory on condition of renouncing the use of iron" 
except for implements of agriculture. But this bondage did not last long : the 
Etruscan power was broken by a great defeat sustained before Aricia ; for after 
the fall of Rome the conquerors attacked Latium, and while besieging Aricia, the 
united force of the Latin cities, aided by the Greeks 7 of Cumse, succeeded in de- 

1 Mkos nepl tZv ovixfio\atuiv. Dionysius, V. 2. " Deditio" meant may be seen by the form pre- 

2 Dionysius, V. 40. served by Livy, I. 38. 

3 This 18 confessed in the poetical story : only b The senate, says Dionysius, V. 34, voted him 
it is added that Porsenna, out of admiration for an ivory throne, a sceptre, a golden crown, and 
the Romans, gave the conquered land back triumphal robe. These very same honors had 
again to them after the war. But Niebuhr has been voted, according to the same writer, to the 
well observed that the Roman local tribes, which Roman king Tarquinius Prisons by the Etrns- 
were thirty in number in the days ofSor. Tul- cans, as on acknowledgment of his supremacy. 
bus, appear reduced to twenty in the earliest 111.62, 

mention of them afterthe expulsion ofTarquin- ° Pliny, XXXIV. 14. In foedere quod expul- 

ius ; an«l it appears from the account ofthe v"ei- sis regibus populo Romano deditPorsenna,no- 

entian war oi271, thatthe Roman territory could minatim comprehensum invenimus, ne ferro 

not then have extended much beyond the hill msi in agriculture uterentor. Compare 1 Samuel 

Jam'culum. xiii. 19,20. These passages from Tacitus and' 

1 Tacitus, Ifistor. III. 72. Sedan Jovis op- Pliny were first noticed by Beaufort in his Essay 

timi maximi, — quam non Porsenna dedita urbe, on the Uncertainty ofthe Early Roman History. 

neque Galli capta, temerare potuisscnt. What 7 Dionysius, V. 86, ct VII. 2-11. 



Chap. VIIL] ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY. 49 

stroyino- their army, and in confining their power to their own side of the Tiber. Still, 
however, the Romans did not recover their territory on the right bank of that 
river, and the number of their tribes, as lias been already noticed, was consequently 
lessened by one third, being reduced from thirty to twenty. 

Thus, within a short time after the banishment of the last king,_the Romans lost 
all their territory on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, and all their Re i al ion S of Rome 
dominion over Latium. A third people were their immediate neigh- Wilh the Sllbme8 - 
bors on the northeast, the Sabines. The cities of the Sabines reached, says Varro, 
from Reate, to the distance of half a day's journey from Ronfe, that is, according 
to the varying estimate of a day's journey, 8 either seventy-five or a hundred sta- 
dia, about ten or twelve miles. But with the more distant Sabines of Reate, and 
the high valley of the Velinus, our history has yet no concern. The line of mount- 
ains which stretches from Tiber to the neighborhood of Narnia was a natural 
division between those Sabines who lived within it, and those who had settled 
without it, in the lo'wer country nearer Rome. These last were the Sabines of 
Cures, 9 twenty-four miles from Rome, of Eretum, five miles nearer to it, of No- 
mentum, about the same distance, of Collatia and Regillut,, southward of the Anio, 
and in the midst of Latium ; and at a more ancient period, these same Sabines 
possessed Crustumerium, Caenina, AntemnaB, and, as we have seen, two of the very 
hills which afterwards made up the city of Rome. But living so near to or even 
in the midst of the Latins, these more lowland Sabines had become in some de- 
gree Latinized, and some of their cities partook in the worship of Diana on the 
Aventine, 10 together with the Romans and the Latins, during the reign of the last 
king of Rome. Perhaps they also were his dependent allies, and, like the Latins, 
renounced their alliance with Rome immediately after his expulsion. At any rate, 
we read of a renewal of wars between them and the Romans four years after the 
beginning of the commonwealth, and it is said, that at this time Attus Clausus, 11 
a citizen of Regillus, as he strongly opposed the war, was banished by his coun- 
trymen, and went over to the Romans with so large a train of followers, that he 
was himself received immediately as a burgher, gave his name to a new tribe, 
which was formed out of those who went over with him, and obtained an assign- 
ment of lands beyond the Anio, between Fidence and Ficulea. But when we read 
of the lake Regillus as belonging to the territory of Tusculum, 12 and when we also 
find Nomentum included amongst the thirty cities of the Latins, which concluded 
the great alliance with Rome, in the consulship of Spurius Cassius, we are inclined 
to suspect that the lowland Sabines about this time were forced to join themselves 
some with the Romans and some with the Latins, being pressed by both on dif- 
ferent quarters, when the alliance between the three nations was broken up. Thus 
Collatia, Regillus, and Momentum fell to the Latins ; and then it may well have 
happened that the Claudii and Postumii, with their followers, may have preferred 
the Roman franchise to the Latin, and thus removed themselves to Rome ; while 
if Mebuhr's conjecture be true, that the Crustuminian tribe as well as the Clau- 
dian was created at this time, we might suppose that Crustumeria, and other Sa- 
bine cities in its neighborhood, whose very names have perished, united themselves 
rather with the Romans : certain it is that from this time forward we hear of no 
Sabine city nearer to Rome than Eretum, which, as I have already said, was nine- 
teen miles distant from it. It is certain also that the first enlargement of the 
Roman territory, after its great diminution in the Etruscan war, took place towards 
the northeast, between the Tiber and the Anio ; and here were the lands of the 
only new tribes that were added to the Roman nation, for the space of more than 
one hundred and twenty years 13 after the establishment of the commonwealth. 

8 Herodotus reckons the clay's journey in one 10 As appears from the story in Livy, I. 45. 
place at two hundred stadia, IV. 801, and in an- " Livy, II. 16. Dionysius, V. 40. 

other place at one hundred and fifty stadia, V. 53. B Livy, II. 19, "ad lacum Eegillum in agro 

9 Bunsen, " Antichi Stabilimenti Italici," in Tusculano." 

the " Annali dell' Institute di Corrispondenza 13 The number of tribes continued to be 
Archeologica," Vol. VI. p. 133. twenty-one till three years after the invasion of 

4 



50 HISTORY OP ROME. [Chap. VIII 

The chronology of this period is confessed by Livy 14 to be one mass of confu- 
„, t , sion ; it was neither agreed when the pretended battle at the lake 

Of the protended re- T - 1 . 11 „ . ° i r> t 

turns ot tbe census Keg-illus was iouo-ht, nor when the first dictator was created ; and 

during this period. ]• -\ t\- • ii n > »» 

accordingly, JDionysius sets both events three years later than they 
are placed by Livy. But a far more surprising disorder is indicated by the re- 
turns of the census, if we may rely on them as authentic ; for these make the 
number of Roman citizens between fifteen and sixteen years of age to have been 
one hundred and thirty thousand, 15 in the year following the expulsion of the 
Tarquinii ; to have risen to one hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred 16 at 
the end of the next ten years, and again five years later to have sunk to one 
hundred and ten thousand. 17 It should be added, that these same returns gave 
eighty-four thousand seven hundred as the number of citizens, at the first census 
of Servius Tullius ; and for this amount Dionysius quotes expressly the tables of 
the census. Now, Niebuhr rejects the census of Servius Tullius as unhistorical, 
but is disposed to admit the authenticity of the others. Yet surely if the censor's 
tables are to be believed in one case, they may be in the other ; a genuine record 
of the census of Servius Tullius might just as well have been preserved as that of 
Sp. Lucretius and P. Valerius Poplicola. And it is to be noted, that although 
Dionysius gives the return of the census taken by the dictator T. Lartius, as one 
hundred and fifty thousand seven hundred, yet he makes Appius Claudius, five 
years afterwards, give the number at one hundred and thirty thousand ; 1S and then, 
although Appius quotes this number as applying to the actual state of things, 
yet the return of the census, at the end of that same year, gives- only one hundred 
and ten thousand. I am inclined to suspect that the actual tables of the census, 
before the invasion of the Gauls, perished in the destruction of the city ; and that 
they were afterwards restored from the annalists, and from the records of differ- 
ent families, as was the case with the Fasti Capitolini. If this were so, different 
annalists might give different numbers, as they also give the names of consuls dif- 
ferently ; and exaggeration might creep in here, as in the list of triumphs, and 
with much less difficulty. For although Niebuhr's opinion is no less probable than 
ingenious, that the returns of the census include the citizens of all those foreign 
states which enjoyed reciprocally with Rome each other's franchise, still the num- 
bers in the period under review seem inconsistent, not only with the common 
arrangement of the events of these years, but with any probable arrangement that 
can be devised. For if the Latins and other foreigners are not included in the 
census of Poplicola, the number of one hundred and thirty thousand is incredibly 
large ; if they are included, with what other states can we conceive the inter- 
change of citizenship to have been contracted in the ten following years, so as to 
have added twenty thousand names to the return made at the end of that period ? 
I am inclined, therefore, to think that the second pretended census of the com- 
monwealth, taken by the dictator T. Lartius, which gives an amount of one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand seven hundred citizens within the military age, is a mere 
exaggeration of the annalist or poet, whoever he was, who recorded the acts of the 
first dictator. 

But the really important part of the history of the first years of the common- 
progress of distress wealth is the tracing, if possible, the gradual depression of the com- 
amoogit the commons. mons ^ tliat extreme point of misery which led to the institution 
of the tribuneship. We have seen that, immediately after the expulsion of the 
king, the commons shared in the advantages of the revolution ; but within a few 
years we find them so oppressed and powerless, that their utmost hopes aspired, 

the Gauls, when four new ones were added, rum modo sed etiam auctorum digerere pos- 

Livy, VI. 5. ms. 

" II. 21. Tanti errores implicant temporum, J5 Dionysius, V. 20. 

aliter apud alios ortlinatis magistratdbuB. ut nee 10 Dionysius, V. 75. 

quiconsules secundum quosdam, nee quid quo- 1T Dionysius, V. £16. 

que anno actum sit, in tanta vetustate non re- w Dionysius, V. 6. 



Chap. VIII.] ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY. 51 

not to the assertion of political equality with the burghers, but merely to the ob- 
taining protection from personal injuries. 

The specific character of their degradation is stated to have been this : that there 
prevailed 19 amonar them severe distress, amounting in many cases to , 

tr . O ' ,°, J , Its particular charac- 

actual ruin; that to relieve themselves from their poverty, they J^' 0l t v h e a d t i i h ^ t became 
were in the habit of borrowing money of the burghers ; that the 
distress continuing, they became generally insolvent ; and that as the law of debtor 
and creditor was exceedingly severe, they became liable in their persons to the 
cruelty of the burghers, were treated by them as slaves, confined as such in their 
workhouses, kept to task-work, and often beaten at the discretion of their task- 
masters. 

In reading this statement, a multitude of questions suggest themselves. Ex- 
planations and discussions must occupy a large space in this part of our history, 
for when the poetical stories have been once given, there are no materials left for 
narrative or painting ; and general views of the state of a people, where our means 
of information are so scanty, are little susceptible of liveliness, and require at every 
step to be defended and developed. The perfect character of history in all its 
freshness and fulness is incompatible with imperfect knowledge ; no man can step 
boldly or gracefully while he is groping his way in the dark. 

A population of free landowners naturally engages the imagination ; but such 
a state of society requires either an ample territory or an uninter- 

J ■!• • t i i, 1 i mi The causeB which lea 

rupted state ot peace, it it be dependent on agriculture alone, lhe to this state or debt, 
Roman territory might be marched through in a day ; and after ?iona of the uelghbor- 
the overthrow of the powerful government of Tarquinius, which, 
by the extent of its dominion, kept war at a distance, the lands of the Roman 
commons were continually wasted by the incursions of their neighbors, and were 
actually to a large extent torn away by the Etruscan conquest. The burghers 
suffered, less, because their resources were greater : the public undivided land, 
which they alone enjoyed, was of a very different extent from the little lots as- 
signed to each commoner, and besides, as being chiefly left in pasture, it suf- 
fered much less from the incursions of an enemy ; a burgher's cattle might often 
be driven off in time to one of the neighboring strongholds, while a commoner's 
corn and fruit-trees were totally destroyed. Again, if commerce were forbidden 
to a commoner, it certainly was not to a burgher ; and those whose trade with 
Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa was sufficiently important to be made the subject of 
a special treaty, were not, like the commoners, wholly dependent on a favorable 
season, or on escaping the plundering incursions of the neighboring people. 
Thus it is easy to conceive how, on the one hand, the commoner would be driven 
to borrow, and on the other how the burgher would be able to lend. 

The next step is also plain. Interest was as yet wholly arbitrary ; and where 
so many were anxious to borrow, it was sure to be high. Thus The bigh rate of inter . 
again the commons became constantly more and more involved e5U 
and distressed, while the burghers engrossed more and more all the wealth of 
the community. 

Such a state of things the law of the Israelites had endeavored by every means 
to prevent or to mitigate. If a small proprietor found himself The severity of the law 
ruined by a succession of unfavorable seasons, or by an inroad of ° filebt ° ra »< 1<:red " or - 
the Philistines or Midianites, and was obliged to borrow of his richer neighbor, 
the law absolutely forbade his creditor to take any interest at all. If he were 
obliged to pledge his person for payment, he was not to serve his creditor with- 
out hope, for at the end of seven years, at the farthest, he was restored to his 
freedom, and the whole of his debt cancelled. Or if he had pledged his land to 
his creditor, not only was the right secured to him and to his relations of redeeming 
it at any time, but even if not redeemed it was necessarily to return to him or to his 

w See the story of the old centurion, in Livy, II. 23. 



52 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIII 

heirs in the year of jubilee, that no Israelite might by any distress be degraded for- 
ever from the rank of a freeman and a landowner. Afar different fate awaited the 
plebeian landowner at Rome. When he found himself involved in a debt which 
he could not pay, his best resource was to sell himself to his creditor, on the con- 
dition that unless the debt were previously discharged, the creditor, at the expi- 
ration of a stated term, should enter into possession of his purchase. This was 
called, in the lansmao-e of the Roman law, the entering into a nexum, 20 and the 
person who had thus conditionally sold himself was said to be "nexus.' When 
the day came, the creditor claimed possession, and the magistrate awarded it ; 
and the debtor, thus given over to his purchaser, addictus, passed, with all that 
belonged to him, into his power ; and as the sons were considered their father's 
property, they also, unless previously emancipated, were included in the sale, 
and went into slavery together with their father. Or if a man, resolved not by 
his own act to sacrifice his own and his children's liberty, refused thus to sell 
himself, or, in the Roman language, to enter into a nexum, and determined to 
abide in his own person the consequences of his own debt, then he risked a fate 
still more fearful. If, within thirty days after the justice of the claim had been 
allowed, he was unable to discharge it, his creditor might arrest him, and bring 
him before the court ; and if no one then offered to be his security, he was given 
over to his creditor, and kept by him in private custody, bound with a chain of 
fifteen pounds weight, and fed with a pound of corn daily. If he still could not, 
or would not, come to any terms with his creditor, he was thus confined during 
sixty days, and during this period was brought before the court in the comitium, 
on three successive market-days, and the amount of his debt declared, in order 
to see whether any one would yet come forward in his behalf. On the third mar- 
ket-day, if no friend appeared, he was either to be put to death, or sold as a 
slave into a foreign land beyond the Tiber ; that is, into Etruria, where there was 
as yet no interchange of franchise with Rome, amidst a people of a different lan- 
guage. Or if there were several creditors, they might actually hew his body in 
pieces ; and whether a creditor cut off a greater or smaller piece than in propor- 
tion to his debt, 21 he incurred no penalty. 

Aulus Gellius, who wrote in the age of the Antonines, declares that he had 
never heard or read of a single instance in which this concluding provision had 
been acted upon. But who was there to record the particular cruelties of the 
Roman burghers in the third century of Rome '? and when we are told generally 
that they enforced the law against their debtors with merciless severity, can we 
doubt that there were individual monsters, like the Shylock and Front de Bceuf 
of fiction, or the Earl of Cassilis of real history, who would gratify their malice 
against an obnoxius or obstinate debtor, even to the extremest letter of the law ? 
It is more important to observe that this horrible law was continued in the twelve 
tables, for we cannot suppose it to have been introduced there for the first time ; 
that is to say, that it made part of a code sanctioned by the commons, when they 
were triumphant over their adversaries. This shows, that the extremest cruelty 
against an insolvent debtor was not repugnant, in all cases, to the general feel- 
ing of the commons themselves, and confirms the remark of Gellius, that the Ro- 
mans had the greatest abhorrence of breach of faith, or a failure in performing 
engagements, whether in private matters or in public. It explains also the long 

20 For tins explanation of the term " Nexus," lock had in his hond omitted to insert. "Si 
see Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. fiOl, et seqq. Ed. 2. plus minusve secuerunt, se fraude esto" (" se" 

21 See tin' Extracts from the law of the XII. is the old form for "sine"). Besides, the last 
tables in A. Gellius, XX. 1. £ 45, et seqq. Some penalty, reserved for him who continued obsti- 
modcrn writers have imagined that the words nate, was likely to be atrocious hi its severity. 
"partes Beoanto" were, to be understood of a What do we tliink of the "peine forte et dure" 
division of the debtor's property, and no! of ma denounced by the English law against a prisoner 
person. But Niebuhr well observes, that the who refused to plead ? a penalty not repealed till 
following provision alone refutes such a notion ; the middle of the last centurv, and quite as 
a provision giving to the creditor that very se- cruel as that of the law of the JUL tables, and 
curity in the infliction of his cruelty, which Shy- not less unjust. 



Chap. VITL] ROME AFTER THE END OF THE MONARCHY. 53 

patience of the commons under their distress, and, when at last it became too 
grievous to endure, their extraordinary moderation in remedying it. Severity 
against a careless or fraudulent debtor seemed to them perfectly just ; they only 
desired protection in cases of unavoidable misfortune or wanton cruelty, and this 
object appeared to be fulfilled by the institution of the tribuneship, for the trib- 
une's power of protection enabled him to interpose in defence of the unfortunate, 
while he suffered the law to take its course against the obstinate and the dis- 
honest. 

Such a state of things, however, naturally accounts for the political degrada- 
tion of the commons, and the neglect of the constitution of Servius . 
Tullius. The Etruscan conquest had deprived the Romans of their commons led to their 

. .. iit ill • weakness politically. 

arms : how, amidst such general distress, could the commons again 
provide themselves with the full arms of the phalanx ; or how could they afford 
leisure for that frequent training and practice in warlike exercises, which were 
essential to the efficiency of the heavy-armed infantry ? It may be going too far 
to say that the tactic of the phalanx was never in use after the establishment 
of the commonwealth ; but it clearly never existed in any perfection. It is quite 
manifest, that if the heavy-armed infantry had constituted the chief force of the 
nation, and if that infantry, according to the constitution of Servius Tullius, had 
consisted exclusively of the commons, the commons and not the burghers would 
soon have been the masters of Rome ; the comitia of the centuries would have 
drawn all power to itself, the comitia of curiae would have been abolished, as in- 
compatible with the sovereignty of the true Roman peojale. The comitia of the 
tribes would have been wholly superfluous, for where could the commons have 
had greater weight than in an assembly where they formed exclusively every 
century except six ? Whereas the very contrary to all this actually happened : 
the commons remained for more than a century excluded from the government ; 
the curiae retained all their power ; the comitia of tribes were earnestly desired 
by the commons, as the only assembly in which they were predominant ; and 
when, after many years, we can trace any details of the comitia of centuries, we 
find them in great measure assimilated to those of the tribes, and the peculiarity 
of their original constitution almost vanished. 

But the comitia of centuriesswere not an assembly in which the commons were 
all-powerful. "We are expressly told 22 that the burghers' clients i nflue nce exercised by 
voted in these centuries ; and these were, probably, become a more [^"clem™ M "Ie 
wealthy and a more numerous body, in proportion as the commons comi,ia of centurieS - 
became more and more distressed and miserable. If a third part of the com- 
mons had lost their lands by the event of the Etruscan war, if a large proportion 
of the rest were so involved in debts that their property was scarcely more than 
nominally their own, we may feel quite sure that there would be many who would 
voluntarily become clients, in order to escape from their actual misery. What 
they lost, indeed, by so doing, was but little in comparison of what they gained ; 
they gave up their order, they ceased to belong to a tribe, and became personally 
dependent on their patron ; but, on the other hand, they might follow any retail 
trade or manufacture ; they retained their votes in the comitia of centuries, and 
were saved by the protection of their patron from all the sufferings which were 
the lot of the insolvent commoner. For as the patron owed his client protection, 
he was accounted infamous if he allowed him to be reduced to beggary : and thus 
we read of patrons granting lands to their clients, which, although held by them 
only at will, were yet, under present circumstances, a far more enviable posses- 
sion than the freeholds of the commons. And whilst the clients had thus become 
more numerous, so they would also, from the same causes, become more wealthy, 
and a greater number of them would thus be enrolled in the higher classes, 
whilst the commons, on the other hand, were continually sinking to the lower. 

82 Livy, II. 64. Irata plebs interesse consularibus coinitiis noluit. Per patres, clientesque 
patrum consules creati. 



54 HISTORY OP ROME. [Chap. VIII 

Yet, amidst the general distress of the commons, we meet with an extraordi- 
nary statement in one of the speeches 23 in Dionysius, that more than 

Separation of the rich- - » , ,- , , -* .... - 1 - . . 

er commons from the lour hundred persons had been raised in one year irom the mian- 

mass ol their order. , 4 . r* l • i i rm • 

try to the cavalry service on account ot their wealth, lhis, strange 
as it seems at first, is probable, and full of instruction. When money bore so high 
a rate of interest, capital was sure to increase itself rapidly, and in a time of dis- 
tress, whilst many become poorer, there are always some also who, from that very 
circumstance, become richer. The rich commons were thus likely to increase 
their fortunes, whilst the poorer members of their order were losing every thing. 
It was, then, the interest of the burghers to separate these from the mass of the 
commons, and to place them in a class which already seems to have acquired its 
character of a moneyed and commercial interest ; a class which resigned the 
troubles and the honors of political contests for the pursuit and safe enjoyment 
of riches. Further, the removal of the richest commoners from the infantry ser- 
vice rendered the organization of the phalanx more and more impracticable, and 
thus preserved to the burghers, whether serving as cavalry or heavy-armed in- 
fantry, their old superiority ; for that the burghers in these times did sometimes 
serve on foot, 24 although generally they fought on horseback, is proved not only 
by the story of L. Tarquitius, whose poverty, it is said, had. forced him to do so, 
but by the legend of the valiant deeds of Caius Marcius, and of the three hun- 
dred Fabii who established themselves on the Cremera. It is probable that, when 
occasion required it, they were the principes in rich armor who fought in the van 
of the infantry, although, in ordinary circumstances, they fought on horseback ; 
and as the infantry of the neighboring nations was not better organized than their 
own, the horsemen in these early times are constantly described as deciding the 
issue of the battle. 

Thus the monarchy was exchanged for an exclusive aristocracy, in which the 

burghers or patricians possessed the whole dominion of the state. 

The government be- _, ° , , » * 1 • n • 

comes an exclusive jb or, mixed as was the influence in the assembly ot the centuries, 
and although the burghers through their clients exercised no small 
control over it, still they did not think it safe to intrust it with much power. In 
the election of consuls, the centuries could only choose out of a number of pa- 
trician or burgher candidates ; and even after this election it remained for the 
burghers in their great council in the curiae to ratify or to annul it, by conferring 
upon, or refusing to the persons so elected, " the Imperium ;" in other words, that 
sovereign power which belonged to the consuls as the successors of the kings, and 
which, except so far as it was limited within the walls of the city, and a circle of 
one mile without them, by the right of appeal, was absolute over life and death. 
As for any legislative power, in this period of the commonwealth, the consuls 
were their own law. No doubt the burghers had their customs, which, in all 
great points, the consuls would duly observe, because otherwise, on the expira- 
tion of their office, they would be liable to arraignment before the curise, and to 
such punishment as that sovereign assembly might please to inflict ; but the com- 
mons had no such security, and the uncertainty of the consuls' judgments was 
the particular grievance which afterwards led to the formation of the code of the 
twelve tables. 

We are told, however, that within ten years of the first institution of the con- 
suls, the burghers found it necessary to create a sinrde magistrate 

A. U. C. 25Si. A.C. 499. . O ^ O O 

institution of the dicta- with powers still more absolute, who was to exercise the full sov- 
ereignty of a king, and even without that single check to which the 
kings of Rome had been subjected. The Master of the people, 26 that is, of the 

23 That of M. Valerius on resigning liis tlio- foot, are given by Dionysius, VI. 33, and VIII. 

tutorship in the year 260. .See Dionysius, VI. I'm. and bj l.ivy.'ll. 65. III. 62. IN'. 38. 

43-45. -•' ■' MaVisU-v lionuli.'' See Varm, tie Ling. 

-' Instances of battles won by the cavalry, Lat. V. 82. Ed. Mailer, et Festus in "optima 

when they had Left their horses and fought on lex." 



Chap. VIIL] ROME AFTER THE END OP THE MONARCHY. 55 

burghers, or, as he was otherwise called, the Dictator, was appointed, it is true, 
for six months only ; and therefore liable, like the consuls, to be arraigned, after 
the expiration of his office, for any acts of tyranny which he might have com- 
mitted during its continuance. But whilst he retained his office he was as abso- 
lute within the walls of the city, as the consuls were without them ; neither com- 
moners nor burghers had any right to appeal from his sentence, although the lat- 
ter had enjoyed this protection in the times of the monarchy. This last circum- 
stance seems to prove that the original appointment of the dictator was a meas- 
ure of precaution against a party amongst the burghers themselves, rather than 
against the commons ; and gives a probability to that tradition 26 which Livy 
slighted, namely, that the consuls who were for the first time superseded by " the 
Master of the burghers," were inclined to favor the return of the exiled king. It 
is not likely that they were the only Romans so disposed : and if a strong minor- 
ity amongst the burghers themselves, and probably a large portion of the com- 
mons, were known to favor the restoration of the old government, it is very intel- 
ligible that the majority of the burghers should have resolved to strengthen the 
actual government, and to appoint an officer who might summarily punish all con- 
spirators, of whatever rank, whether belonging to the commons or to the burghers. 

If the consuls were superseded by the dictator because they could not be re- 
lied upon, we may be quite sure that the appointment was not left to their free 
choice. 27 One of the consuls received the name of the person to be declared dic- 
tator from the senate ; he then declared him dictator, and he was confirmed and 
received the imperium by a vote of the great council of the curiae. The dictator 
must previously have held the highest magistracy in the state, 28 that is, he must 
have been praetor, the old title of the consuls. Thus, afterwards, when the powers 
of the original praetors were divided between the consuls and prsetors of the later 
constitution, any man who had been praetor was eligible to the dictatorship, no 
less than one who had been consul. 

Together with the Master of the burghers, or dictator, there was always ap- 
pointed the Master of the knights or horsemen. In later times this The Master of the 
officer was always named by the dictator himself, but at first it ■»«««•«»«■-«»*■ . 
seems as if both alike were chosen by the senate. The Master of the knights 
was subject, like every other citizen, to the Master of the burghers ; but his own 
authority was equally absolute within his own jurisdiction, that is, over the knights 
and the rest of the commons. Lydus expressly says that from his sentence there 
was no appeal ; Varro says that his power was supreme 29 over the knights and 
over the accensi ; but who are meant by this last term it is difficult to determine. 

Fifteen years after the expulsion of Tarquinius, the commons, driven to de- 
spair by their distress, and exposed without protection to the ca- secession of the com- 
pricious cruelty of the burghers, resolved to endure their degraded Hm'aJdflStappS 
state no longer. The particulars of this second revolution areas ment of the tribunes - 
uncertain as those of the overthrow of the monarchy ; but thus much is certain, 
and is remarkable, that the commons sought safety, not victory ; they desired to 
escape from Rome, not to govern it. It may be true that the commons who were 
left in Rome gathered together 30 on the Aventine, the quarter appropriated to 
their order, and occupied the hill as a fortress ; but it is universallj- agreed that 
the most efficient part of their body, who were at that time in the field as sol- 
diers, deserted their generals, and marched off to a hill 31 beyond the Anio ; that 
is, to a spot b«yond the limits of the Ager Romanus, the proper territory of the 

26 Ex factione Tarquinia essent (consules), id m " Magister equitum, quod summa potestas 
quoque enim traditur, parum creditura sit. hujus in equites etaccensos." Varro, de L. L., 
Livy, II. 81. V. 82. Ed. Midler. 

27 See on this point Mebuhr, Vol. I. p. 591, 30 "Piso auctor est in Aventinum secessio- 
et seqq. nem factam." Livy, II. 32. So also Cicero, de 

28 " Consulares legere." Livy, II. 18. This, Bepubliea, II. 33, and Sallust, Fragm. Histor. 
in the language of the time, would have been I. 2. 

" praetorios legere." 31 " Trans Anienem amnem est." Livy, II. 82. 



56 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. VIII 

burghers, but within the district which had been assigned to one of the newly 
created tribes of the commons, the Crustuminian. 32 Here they established them- 
selves, and here they proposed to found a new city of their own, to which they 
would have gathered their families, and the resit of their order who were left 
behind in Rome, and have given up their old city to its original possessors, the 
burghers and their clients. 

But the burghers were as unwilling to lose the services of the commons, as the 
Egyptians in the like case to let the Israelites go, and they endeavored, by every 
means, to persuade them to return. To show how little the commons thought 
of gaining political power, we have only to notice their demands. They required 33 
a general cancelling of the obligations of insolvent debtors, and the release of all 
those whose persons, in default of payment, had been assigned over to the power 
of their creditors : and, further, they insisted on having two 34 of their own body 
acknowledged by the burghers as their protectors ; and to make this protection 
effectual, the persons of those who afforded it were to be as inviolable as those 
of the heralds, the sacred messengers of the gods ; whosoever harmed them was 
to be held accursed, and might be slain by any one with impunity. To these 
terms the burghers agreed ; and a solemn treaty was concluded between them 
and the commons, as between two distinct nations ; and the burghers swore for 
themselves, and for their posterity, that they would hold inviolable the persons 
of two officers, to be chosen by the centuries on the Field of Mars, whose business 
it should be to extend full protection to any commoner against a sentence of the 
consul ; that is to say, who might rescue any debtor from the power of his cred- 
itor, if they conceived it to be capriciously or cruelly exerted. The two officers 
thus chosen retained the name which the chief officers of the commons had borne 
before : they were called Tribuni, or tribe-masters ; but instead of being merely 
the officers of one particular tribe, and exercising an authority only over the 
members of their own order, they were named tribunes of the commons at large, 
and their power, as protectors in stopping any exercise of oppression towards 
their own body, extended over the burghers, and was by them solemnly acknowl- 
edged. The number of the tribunes was, probably, suggested by that of the 
consuls ; 35 there were to be two chief officers of the commons, as there were of 
the burghers. 

When these conditions had been formally agreed to, the commons returned to 
Rome. The spot on which this great deliverance had been achieved became to 
the Romans what Runnymede is to Englishmen : the top of the hill 36 was left 
forever unenclosed and consecrated, and an altar was built on it, and sacrifices 
offered to Jupiter, who strikes men with terror and again delivers them from 
their fear ; because the commons had fled thither in fear, and were now 'return- 
ing in safety. So the hill was known forever by the name of the Sacred Hill. 

33 Hence Varro calls it " seeessio Crustumc- and forwards ; and it may have been raised to 

rina," de L. L., V. 81. Ed. Miiller. ten in the year '2(31, when Sp. Cassius was con- 

33 Dionysius, VI. 83-89. sul, and afterwards reduced to its original nnni- 

34 " Two" is the number given byPiso (Livy, ber, when his popular measures were, repealed 
II. 58), and by Cicero, Fragm. pro'Cornelio, 23. or set aside by the opposite party. With regard 
Ed. Kobb., et dc Republica, II. 34. "Two," to the curia, I agree with Niebuhr, that their 
according to Livy and Dionysius, were origin- share in the appointment of the tribunes must 
ally created, and then three more were added to have been rather a confirmation or rejection of 
the number immediately. According to Fiso, the choice of the centuries, than an original elec- 
thcre were only two for the first twenty-three tion. This the ourise would claim at every elec- 
years, and by the Publilian law they became live, tion made by the centuries ; and it was the ob- 
Fourteen years after this, in 2ii7, t lie number, ject of the Publilian law to get rid of this claim, 
according to Livy and Dionysius, was raised to amongst ether advantages, by transferring the 
ten. (Livy, III. 80. Dionys. X. 80.) ButCice- appointment to the comitia of the tribes. 

ro, in his speech for the tribune Cornelius, says :,: ' < >r, as Niebuhr supposes, by the number of 
that ten were chosen in the verj next year after tribes, at this time reduced to twenty-one, so 
the first institution ofthe office, and chosen by that each deeury of tribes should have onetrib- 
the comitia euriata. So great are the varieties nne of its own. But the odd number, twenty- 
in the traditions ofthese times. I'ossibly, how- one, max seem to make against this supposition. 
ever, the number really was altered buck wards M Dionysius, VI. 90. 



Oeap. IX.] SPURIUS CASSIUS— LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS. 57 

Thus the dissolution of the Roman nation was prevented ; the commons had 
gained protection ; their rights as an order were again and more fully recognized ; 
their oppressions were abated ; better times came to relieve their distress, and 
they became gradually more and more fitted for a higher condition, to become 
citizens and burghers of Rome in the fullest sense, sharing equally with the old 
burghers in all the benefits and honors of their common country. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SPUEIUS CASSIUS— THE LEAGUE WITH THE LATINS AND HEKNICANS— THE 
AGEAEIAN LAW.— A. U. C. 261-269. 



" The noble Brutus 
Hath told you, Caesar was ambitious. 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 
And grievously hath Csesar answered it." 

Ol irpoaTixTat tov Sfijiov, Sts 7roX«f<(/coi yivoivro, Tvpavvibi eircriSevTO ' ir&VTsq &e tovto ciptav xnvo tou 
Ifjjxov maTivSevTes, >; Se tt'kttis 7/v >/ anix$£ l <i h ^pos roiig -nXovaiovs. — AniSTOT. Politic. V. 5. 



Brutus and Poplicola were no doubt real characters, jet fiction has been so 
busy with their actions, that history cannot venture to admit them within her 
own proper domain. By a strange compensation of fortune, the first Roman 
whose greatness is really historical, is the man whose deeds no poet sang, and 
whose memory the early annalists, repeating the language of the party who 
destroyed him, have branded with the charge of treason, and attempted tyranny. 
This was Spurius Cassius. Amidst the silence and the calumnies of his enemies, he 
is known as the author of three works to which Rome owed all her future great- 
ness ; he concluded the league with the Latins in his second consulship, in his 
third he concluded the league with the Hernicans, and procured, although with 
the price of his own life, the enactment of the first agrarian law. 

I. We know that the Latins were in the first year of the commonwealth 
subject to Rome. We know that almost immediately afterwards LeagU( ; with the Lat _ 
they must have become independent ; and it is probable that they ins - 
may have aided the Tarquinii in some of their attempts to erfect their restoration. 
But the real details of this period cannot be discovered : this only is certain, 
that in the year of Rome 261, the Latin confederacy, consisting of the old 
national number of thirty cities, concluded a league with Rome on terms of 
perfect equality ; and the record of this treaty, which existed at Rome on a 
brazen pillar 1 down to the time of Cicero, contained the name of Spurius Cassius, 
as the consul who concluded it, and took the oaths to the Latin deputies on 
behalf of the Romans. It may be that the Roman burghers desired to obtain 
the aid of the Latins against their own commons, and that the fear of this union 
led the commons at the Sacred Hill to be content with the smallest possible con- 
cessions from their adversaries ; but there was another cause for the alliance, no 
less natural, in the common danger which threatened both Rome and Latium 
from the growing power of their neighbors on the south, the Oscan, or Ausonian, 
nations of the iEquians and the Volscians. 

The thirty cities which at this time formed the Latin state, and concluded the 

1 Cicero pro Balbo, 23. Livy, II. 33. 



58 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. IX 

league with Rome, were these : 2 Ardea, Aricia, Bovillee, Buben- 
ty slut's of Latimn. turn, Corniculum, Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, Corbio, Cora, For- 

Condiiiunsotthe league. -j-, .. r >, . .. T T . x . . T . . 

tuna or i'oretii, (jrabn, Laurentum, Lanuvmm, Lavimum, Lavici, 
Nomentum, Norba, Prseneste, Pedum, Querquetulum, Satricum, Scaptia, Setia, 
Tellena, Tibur, Tusculum, Toleria, Tricrinum, Velitrae. The situation of several 
of these places is unknown ; still the list clearly shows to how short a distance 
from the Tiber the Roman territory at this time extended, and how little was 
retained of the great dominion enjoyed by the last kings of Rome. Between 
this Latin confederacy and the Romans there was concluded a perpetual league : 3 
" There shall be peace between them so long as the heaven shall keep its place 
above the earth, and the earth its place below the heaven : they shall neither 
bring nor cause to be brought any war against each other, nor give to each 
other's enemies a passage through their land ; they shall aid each other when 
attacked with all their might, and all spoils and plunder won by their joint arms 
shall be shared equally between them. Private causes shall be decided within 
ten days, in the courts of that city where the business which gave occasion to 
the dispute may have taken place." Further, it was agreed that the command 
of the Roman and Latin armies, on their joint expeditions, should one year 4 be 
jjiven to the Roman general, and another to the Latin : and to this leao-ue nothing 
was to be added, and nothing taken away, without the mutual consent of the 
Romans and the confederate cities of the Latins. 

II. Seven years afterwards the same Spurius Cassius, in his third consulship, 5 
a. u. c.268. League concluded a similar league with the cities of the Hernicans. The 
witk the Hemicans. Hernicans were a Sabine, not a Latin people, and their country 
lay chiefly in that high valley which breaks the line of the Apennines at Praeneste, 
and running towards the southeast, falls at last into the valley of the Liris. The 
number of their cities was probably sixteen ; but with the exception of Anagnia, 
Verulse, Alatrium, and Ferentinum, the names of all are unknown to us. They, 
like the Latins, had been the dependent allies of Rome under the last Tarquinius ; 
they, too, had broken off this connection after the establishment of the common- 
wealth, and now renewed it on more equal terms for mutual protection against 
the -^Equians and Volscians. The situation of their country, indeed, rendered 
their condition one of peculiar danger; it lay interposed in the very midst of the 
country of these enemies, having the JEquians on the north, and the Volscians 
on the south, and communicating with the Latin cities and with Rome only by 
the opening in the Apennines already noticed under the citadel of Praeneste. 

2 Dionysus, V. 61. Iliave followed the read- and only gives an additional proof of tlie systfr- 
ings of the Vatican MS. given in the various matio falsehood of the Roman annals in their 
readings in Reiske's Edition, with Niebuhr's accounts of the relations of Rome with foi 
corrections. Vol. II. p. 19, 2d Ed. ers. It is true that the words of Cincius, " quo 

3 Dionysius, VI. 95. anno," do not expressly assert that the com- 

4 Cincius de Consulum Potcstate, quoted by mand was held by a Roman every other year: 
Festus in "Prator ad Portam." The whole and it may he that after the Hernicans joined 
passage is remarkable. " Cincius ait, Albanos the alliance, the Romans had the command only 
rerum potitos usque ad Tullum regem : Alba once in three vears. But as the Latin states 
deindc airuta usque ad P. Decium Murem cos. \i ere considered as forming one people, and the 
populos Latinos ad caput Ferentina, quod est Romans another.it is most likely that so long 
sab Monte Albano. consulere Bolitos, et imperi- as the alliance subsisted hetween 'these twopar- 
nni communj consilio administrare. Itaque quo tics only, the command shifted from the one to 
anno Romanos imperatoros ad exercitum mit- the other year by year. 

tere oporteret iussu nominis Latini, compilures - r ' Dionysius, VIII. 69. Ttis -rpfc "Bfviitos *£»/- 

in Capitolio a sole Oriente aUSpicilB OPO- vtyKzv biioXoytii ' avTat 6' ijoav avrtyputpoi tuv 

dare Bohtos. Ubi aves addixissent, mili- npdi Aarlvovs yevoithw. Amongst other clauses, 

tem ilium qui a communi Latio missus esset, therefore, of the treaty was one which secured to 

ilium quern aves addixeranl prsetorem Balutare the Hernicans their equal share of all lands con- 

Bolitum, qui cam ]>rov'mciam ohtiiieret pratoris quered by the confederates ; namely, one-third 

nomine." cincius lived in the time ofthe sec- part. This is disfigured bythe annalist, whom 

ond Punic h ar, and his works on various points I. ivy copied, in a most extraordinary manner; 

of ho> nan law and antiquities were of high value, he represented the Hernicans as being deprived 

itement, which hears on the face of it a by the treaty of two-thirds of their own land. 

character of Authenticity, is quite in agreement "Cum Hernicis foedus ictum, agri partes dua 

with what Dionysius reports of the 1 1 f;it\ itself, ademto." Livy, 11. 41. 



Chap. IX.] THE AGRARIAN LAW. 59 

On the other hand, the Romans were glad to obtain the willing aid of a brave 
and numerous people, whose position enabled them to threaten the rear of the 
Volscians, so soon as they should break out from their mountains upon the plain 
of Latium or the hills of Alba. 

Thus by these two treaties with the Latins and Hernicans, Spurius Cassius 
had, so far as was possible, repaired the losses occasioned to the importance of these two 
Roman power by the expulsion of Tarquinius, and had reorganized treati ° 3 - ( 
that confederacy to which, under her last kings, Rome had been indebted for her 
greatness. The wound was healed at the very critical moment, before the"storm of 
the great Volscian invasions burst upon Latium. It happened of necessity that 
the Latins, from their position, bore the first brunt of these attacks : Rome could 
only be reached when they were conquered : whereas, had it not been for the 
treaty concluded by Spurius Cassius, the Volscians, on their first appearance in 
Latium, might have been joined by the Latins ; or the surviving cities of the con- 
federacy, after the conquest of some of their number, might have taken refuge 
under the protection of the conquerors. 

But in restoring the league with the Latins and Hernicans, Spurius Cassius 
had only adopted a part of the system of the Roman kings. Sp . Cassius prc .p 0sea ^ 
Another, and a far more difficult part, yet remained : to strengthen asraiian w - 
the state within ; to increase the number of those who, as citizens, claimed their 
share of the public land, and out of this public land to relieve the poverty of 
those who united the two inconsistent characters of citizenship and beggary. 
Spurius Cassius proposed, what tradition ascribed to almost every one of the 
kings as amongst his noblest acts, an agrarian law. But he was not a king ; and 
it is but too often a thankless act in the eyes of the aristocracy, when one of 
their own members endeavors to benefit and to raise the condition of those who 
are not of his own order. 

If, amongst Niebuhr's countless services tp Roman history, any single one may 
claim our gratitude beyond the rest, it is his explanation of the -n ie trae character of 
true nature and character of the agrarian laws. Twenty-four ^elpKd'^Nie!! 
years have not yet elapsed since he first published it, but it has buhr " 
already overthrown the deeply rooted false impressions which prevailed univer- 
sally on the subject; and its truth, like Newton's discoveries in natural science, 
is not now to be proved, but to be taken as the very corner-stone of all our 
researches into the internal state of the Roman people. I am now to copy so 
much of it as may be necessary to the right ivnderstanding of the views and 
merits of Spurius Cassius. 

It seems to have been a notion generally entertained in the ancient world, that 
every citizen of a country should be a landholder, and that the of the p „ b ij C or de _ 
territory of a state, so far as it was not left unenclosed or reserved ™|™ e eommoSweaithX 
for public purposes, should be divided in equal portions amongst Knd ifs O0CJ P ation - 
the citizens. But it Avould almost always happen that a large part of it was left 
unenclosed ; the complete cultivation of a whole country, without distinction of 
soil, being only the result of an excess of population, and therefore not taking 
place till a late period. The part thus left out of cultivation was mostly kept as 
pasture, and a revenue was raised from it, not only from every citizen who had 
turned out sheep or cattle upon it, but also from strangers, who, although inca- 
pable of buying land, might yet rent a right of pasture for their flocks and herds. 
But when a new territory was gained in war, the richer parts of it already in 
cultivation were too valuable to be given up to pasture ; while, on the other hand, 
if they were divided, the division could only follow the general rule, and allot 
an equal portion to every citizen. In these circumstances, it was the practice at 
Rome, and doubtless in other states of Italy, to allow individuals to occupy such 
lands, and to enjoy all the benefits of them, on condition of paying to the state 
the tithe of the produce as an acknowledgment that the state was the proprietor 
of the land, and the individual merely the occupier. With regard to the state, 



60 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. IX. 

the occupier was merely a tenant at will ; but with respect to other citizens, he 
was like the owner of the soil, and could alienate the land which he occupied 
either for a term of years or forever, as much as if he had been its actual pro- 
prietor. 

This public land thus occupied was naturally looked to as a resource on every 
portions of u w«re admission of new citizens. They were to receive their portion of 
granted to new atiz ens . f ree ] 10 ](j ] an & } according to the general notion of a citizen's condi- 
tion ; but this land could only be found by a division of that which belonged to 
the public, and by the consequent ejectment of its tenants at will. Hence, in the 
Greek states, every large accession to the number of citizens 6 was followed by a 
call for a division of the public land ; and as this division involved the sacrifice 
of many existing interests, it was regarded with horror by the old citizens, 7 as an 
act of revolutionary violence. For although the land was undoubtedly the 
property of the state, and although the occupiers of it were in relation to the 
state mere tenants at will, yet it is in human nature that a long undisturbed 
possession should give a feeling of ownership, the more so, as while the state's 
claim lay dormant, the possessor was in fact the proprietor ; and the land would 
thus be repeatedly passing by regular sale from one occupier to another. And 
if there was no near prospect of the state's claiming its right, it is manifest that 
the price of land thus occupied would, after some years of undisturbed possession, 
be nearly equal to that of an actual freehold. 

Under such circumstances the English law, with its characteristic partiality to 
The occupiers of the individual and existing interests, would no doubt have decided, as 
w« b ys c be 1 eje d cted u a < t the ^ did in the somewhat similar case of the copyholds, that the 
pleasure of the state, occupier could not be ejected so long as he continued to pay his 
tithe to the state. The Roman law, on the other hand, in a spirit no less charac- 
teristic, constantly asserted the utterly precarious tenure of the occupier, 8 when- 
ever the state might choose to take its property into its own hands. And 
accordingly, most of the kings of Rome are said to have carried an agrarian law, 
that is, to have divided a portion, more or less, of the public land amongst those 
whom they admitted to the rights of citizenship. Yet it was understood that 
these new citizens, the Roman commons, although they received their portion of 
land as freehold, whenever the public land was divided, had still no right to 
occupy it 9 while it lay in the mass unallotted ; while the old burghers, who 

6 htovTivoi — 7roXiVas tc £7r£ypa'^avro s-oAAouc, Kal possideret," was understood by every Roman 
h 1^0? T?iv yfiv iireviet avaSdcraadui. Thucyd. V. 4. without the addition of the word "publici" to 
So, again, when the Cyrenssans in Africa "agri," because the word " possidere" coidd 
wished to increase the number of their citizens, not in a legal sense apply to private property, 
they invited over any Greek that chose to come, although there is no doubt that in common lnii- 
liolding out the temptation of an allotment of guage it is often found in that signification, 
land. Herodotus, IV. 159. 9 This was because the plebs was not yet con- 

7 Hence it was a clause of the oath taken by sidered to be a part of the populus : Srjtxos and 
every member of the court of Heliaea at Athens, tt6\is were still carefully distinguished, and the 
that be would allow no division of the land of state, or people, or burghers, claimed the ex- 
the Athenians (Dcmosthen. Timocrat. p. 74fi) ; elusive administration of what may be called 
by which it was not meant that there was any the corporate property of the state. Those who 
dream of a division of the private property of are acquainted with the affairs of the colleges 
Athenian citizens, but of the public land of'the of the English universities will recollect the 
commonwealth, which being beneficially en- somewhat similar practice there with regard to 
joyed by the existing citizens, could not, 'with- fines. "Whatever benefits arise out of the ad- 
out loss to them, be allotted out to furnish free- rrwrdstorabUm of the college property belong ex- 
hold properties, x'XTipoi. for any citizens newly elusivelyto the ruling part of the society : the 
admitted to the franchise. fellows engross the lines to themselves, just as 

8 I have used the words "occupation" and the burghers at Rome enjoyed the exclusive 
"ocenpier," rather than "possession" and right of occupying the public land. But the 

essor." to express the Latin termB " poB- rents of college lands are divided in certain 

Bessio" and "possessor," because the English fixed proportions amongst the fellows and scholf 

word " possession" is often used to denote what ars, the populus and plebs of the society. And 

ib a man's own property, whereas it was an es- a law which should prohibit the practice of 

sential part of the definition of " possessio," taking a fine on the renewal of a lease of col- 

that it could relate only to what was «<>/ a man's lege property, and should order the land to be 

own property. Hence the clause in the Liein- let at its full value, in order to secure to the 

ian law, " Ne quis plus quingenta jugcra agri scholars their due share in all the benefits aris- 



Chap. IX.] THE AGRARIAN LAW. 61 

enjoyed exclusively the right of occupation with regard to the undivided public 
land, had no share in it whatever when it was divided, because they already 
enjoyed from ancient allotment a freehold property of their own. Thus the 
public land was wholly unprofitable to the commons, so long as it was undivided, 
and became wholly lost to the burghers whenever it was divided. 

Now twenty-four years after the expulsion of Tarquinius, there must have 
been at least as great need of an agrarian law as at any former An agrarian !aw wa8 
period of the Roman history. The loss of territory on the right fen*d y of e iS£ it 
bank of the Tiber, and all those causes which had brought on the tory- 
general distress of the commons, and overwhelmed them hopelessly in debts, 
called aloud for a remedy ; and this remedy was to be found, according to pre- 
cedent no less than abstract justice, in an allotment of the public land. For as 
the burghers who occupied this land had even grown rich amidst the distress of 
the commons, so they could well afford to make some sacrifice ; while the reser- 
vation to them of the exclusive right of occupying the public land till it was 
divided, held out to them the hope of acquiring fresh possessions, so soon as the 
nation, united and invigorated by the proposed relief, should be in a condition to 
make new conquests. 

Spurius Cassius accordingly proposed an agrarian law 10 for the division of a 
certain proportion of the public land, while from the occupiers of 8puriu ^ Cas3ius ,,„>.. 
the remainder, he intended to require the regular payment of the S s n % 'oppo^l by 
tithe, which had been greatly neglected, and to apply the revenue the bOT s hers - 
thus gained to paying the commons, whenever they were called out to serve as 
soldiers. Had he been king he could have carried the measure without difficulty, 
and would have gone down to posterity invested with the same glory which 
rendered sacred the memory of the good king Servius. But his colleague, 
Proculus Virginius, 11 headed the aristocracy in resisting his law, and in maligning 
the motives of its author. His treaties with the Latins and Hernicans were 
represented as derogating from the old supremacy of Rome ; and this ciy roused 
the national pride even of the commons against him, as, four centuries afterwards, 
a similar charge of sacrificing the rights of Rome to the Italian allies ruined the 
popularity of M. Drusus. Still it is probable that the popular feeling in favor 
of his law was so strong, that the burghers yielded to the storm for the moment, 
and consented to pass it. 12 They followed the constant policy of an aristocracy, 

ing out of the college property, would give no been that the law was passed, and its execution 

bad idea of the nature and objects of an agra- fraudulently evaded ; and that the tribunes de- 

rian law at Rome. manded no more than the due execution of an 

10 1 have here followed Niebuhr (Vol. II. 188, existing law. And he supposes that the words 

2d ed.) in assuming as the original proposal of of Dionysius, rovro rb Sdy^a tU rbv br)pov siasvs%- 

Cassnis, what is represented in Dionysius as 0£i>, t6v ts Kdaawv sxavos rrjs Snftaywyias Kai ti)v 

the proposal of A. Sempronius Atratinus, to avapfrun^oftivijv ck t&v ltsvfiruv vrdaiv ovk s'aas tts- 

which the senate assented. Dionysius, VIII. pairspw -KposXQtlv, VIII. 76, are taken from some 

75, 76. Roman annalist, who by the words "ad populum 

11 Livy, II. 41, This was the great quarrel latum" meant the old populus, the assembly of 
between the nobles and the commons in Castile, the burghers in their curias. At any rate, the 
The commons complained that the crown do- words sis rbv &Tijwv siasvex^sv seem to imply more 
mains had been so granted away to the nobles, than the mere communicating to the people 
that now, as the nobles were exempt from tax- the knowledge of a decree of the senate. They 
ation, the commons were obliged to defray all must apparently signify that the decree of the 
the expenses of the public service at their own senate, as a 7rpo/?ou'Asu/<a, was submitted to the 
private cost. And it was the commons' insist- people for its acceptance and ratification ; and 
ing that the nobles should give up the domains this "people 1 ' 1 must have been the burghers in 
as being strictly public property, which deter- their curiae, and by its being stated that the 
mined the nobles to take part with the crown, bringing the measure before the people put an 
in the famous war of the commons in the reign end to the agitation, it must surely be con- 
of Charles V. See Ranke, Fursten und Voider ceived that the measure was not rejected, but 
von Siid-Europa. Vol. I. p. 218. . passed. For the words, htyipstv sis rbv Sfj/wv, as 

12 See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 196. He argues, signifying "to submit a measure to the people 
that as the tribunes, before the Publilian laws, for their confirmation of it," it can hardly be 
had no power of originating any legislative necessary to quote instances, rov; %vyypa<pias — 
measure, and as we hear of their agitating the ^vyypdipavTas yvu>nriv iasvsyKslv is rbv irj/xov. Tbu- 
question of the agrarian law, year after year cyd. VIII. 67. 

from the death of Cassius, the fact must have 



62 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. X. 

to separate the people from their leaders, to pacify the former by a momentary 
resignation of the point in dispute, and then to watch their time for destroying 
the latter, that so when the popular party is deprived of its defenders, they may 
wrest from its hands that concession which it is then unable to retain. 

When, therefore, the year was over, and Spurius Cassius was no longer consul, 
spunus cassius is im- the burghers knew that their hour of vengeance had arrived. 
llwhA, b co f Ddemn^ Ser. Cornelius and Quintus Fabius 13 were the new consuls ; Kaeso 
and executed. Fabius, the consul's brother, and Lucius Valerius, were the inquis- 

itors of blood, quasstores parricidii, who, as they tried all capital offences subject 
to an appeal to the burghers or commons, were also empowered to bring any of- 
fender at once before those supreme tribunals, instead of taking cognizance of his 
case themselves. Cassius was charged with a treasonable attempt to make him- 
self king, and the burghers, assembled in their curiae, found him guilty. He 
shared the fate of Agis and of Marino Falieri ; he was sentenced to die as a 
traitor, and was, according to the usage of the Roman law, scourged and be- 
headed, and his house razed to the ground 



CHAPTER X, 



ASCENDENCY OE THE ARISTOCRACY— THE FABII AND THEIR SEVEN CONSUL- 
SHIPS—THE PUBLILIAN LAW.— A. U. C. 269-283. 



'Hruxfav Hx iv & &VI*°$ Kai KardirXij^iv roiavrriv loars Kipfios b jut Tidax^v ti ftiaiov, tl Kal ciyifl. iv6f>it,€. 
— Thtcyd. VIII. 66. 

" Les abus recens avaient brave la force et depasse la prevoyance des aneiennes lois : il fallait 
des garanties nouvelles, explicates, revetues de la sanction du parlement tout entier. C'etait ne 
rien faire que de renouveler vaguement des promesses tant de ibis violees, des statuts si long- 
temps oublies." — Guizot, Revolution d'Angleterre, Livre I. p. 45. 



The release of all existing debts by the covenant concluded at the Sacred Hill, 
and the appointment of the tribunes to prevent any tyrannical en- 
thc exclave appoi™ forcement of the law of debtor and creditor for the time to come, 
had relieved the Roman commons from the extreme of personal 
degradation and misery. But their political condition had made no perceptible 
advances ; their election of their own tribunes was subject to the approval of the 
burghers ; and their choice of consuls, subject also to the same approval, was 
further limited to such candidates as belonged to the burghers' order. Even 
this, however, did not satisfy the burghers ; the death of Spurius Cassius enabled 
them to dare any usurpation ; while on the other hand, they needed a more ab- 
solute power than ever, in order to evade their own concession in consenting to 
hi> agrarian law. Accordingly, they proposed to elect 1 the consuls themselves, 

13 Livy, II. 41. ation tbcn made in tbe constitution. And Zo- 

1 Sec Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 202, et seqq. Dio- naras, who copies Dion Cassius, says expressly 

nysius and Livv both ascribe the election of that the commons, in the year 278, insisted on 

^Emilias and Fabius to the influence of the pa- electing one of the consuls", for at that time both 

trieians; but Dionysius (VI II. S3) further noti- were chosen by the patricians. It seems, there- 

ces their coming into office as a marked period fore, probable that the period from 270 to 273 

in the Roman history, and mentions the date, was marked by a decided usurpation on the part 

and the name of thearehon at Athens for that of the burghers, and that during that time they 

year; as if there had been some important alter- alone elected both.consuls. 



Chap. X.] ASCENDENCY OF THE ARISTOCRACY. 63 

and only to require the confirmation of them by the centuries ; a form which 
would be as unessential as the crowd's acceptance of the king at an English cor- 
onation, inasmuch as it was always by the vote of the burghers in their curiae 
that the imperium or sovereignty was conferred ; and when a consul was already 
in possession of this, it mattered little whether the centuries acknowledged his title 
or not. In this manner were Lucius JEmilius, and Kaeso Fabius, 

A. U. C 270 

the prosecutor of Spurius Cassius, chosen consuls by the burghers ; 
and it was in vain that the commons demanded the execution of the agrarian 
law ; the consuls satisfied the object of those who had elected them, and the -law 
remained a dead letter. The same spirit was manifested in the 

• A. U C 271 

elections of the following year, and was attended with the same 
result ; the other prosecutor of Cassius, L. Valerius, was now chosen by the 
burghers, and with him another member of the Fabian house, Marcus, the brother 
of Keeso and of Quintus. 

But the complete usurpation of the consulship by the burghers served to call 
into action the hitherto untried powers of the tribuneship. In the The tribimes protcct 
year 271, the tribune Caius Maenius 2 set the first example of ex- refcTT us s ,rve tIll as 
tending the protection of his sacred office to those of the com- sold ' ers - 
mons, who on public grounds resisted the sovereignty of the consuls, by refusing 
to serve as soldiers. This was the weapon so often used from this time forwards 
in defence of the popular cause : the Roman commons, like those of England, 
sought to obtain a redress of grievances by refusing to aid the government in its 
wars ; they refused to furnish men, as our fathers refused to furnish money. 
But the first exercise of this privilege was overborne with a high hand ; the con- 
suls held their enlistment of soldiers without the city ; there the tribunes' pro- 
tection had no force ; and if any man refused to appear, and kept his person safe 
within the range of the tribunes' aid, the consuls proceeded to lay waste his land, 
and to burn and destroy his stock and buildings, by virtue of that sovereign 
power which, except within the walls of the city, was altogether unlimited.- Ac- 
cordingly the tribunes' opposition totally failed, and the consuls obtained the army 
which they wanted. 

But there is an undying power in justice which no oppression can altogether 
put down. Caius Maenius had failed, but his attempt was not -n^ cen t uri e3 recover 
entirely fruitless; a spirit was excited amongst the commons Sg „^ e W ou r t of ae°t°™ 
which induced the burghers the next year, after long disputes and C0 " sul8- 
delays, to choose for one of the consuls a man well affected to the cause of the 
commons ; and the year afterwards it was agreed by both orders 

» • o J AUG 272 

that the election should be divided between them ; that one consul 
should be chosen by the burghers in their curiae, and the other by the whole 
people in their centuries. Still, however, it must not be forgotten, that the votes 
of the burghers' clients were at this time so numerous in the centuries, as to give 
to their patrons no small influence even in the election of that consul who was 
particularly to be the representative of the commons. Yet the commons regarded 
the change as a triumph, and it was marked as a memorable event 3 in the annals, 
that in the year 273, Kaeso Fabius was again chosen consul by the burghers, and 
that Spurius Furius was elected as his colleague by the people in their centuries. 
The refusal of the burghers to execute the agrarian law still rankled in the 
minds of the commons; and when men were again wanted to A .u.c. 273. The Re- 
serve against the iEquians and Veientians, Spurius Licinius, 4 one ™* m J°lf"le bflZ 
of the tribunes, again offered his protection to those who refused %u u tov ?be hei bursh" 
to enlist. But his colleagues betrayed him, and either as being a er ° s - 
majority of the college overruled the opposition of Licinius, or by an abuse of 
their peculiar power, offered their protection to the consuls in enforcing their 

8 Dionysius, VIII. 87. 4 Livy, II. 43. 

* Zonaras, VII. 17. Dionysius, IX. 1. 



64 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. X. 

orders against the refractory. Thus an army was raised ; but the soldiers who 
followed Kaeso Fabius into the field, regarded him and the burghers as more their 
enemies than the Veientians, and according to the Roman annalists, they refused 
to conquer, and retreated before an enemy whom they could have vanquished if 
they would. This is merely the habitual style of Roman arrogance ; but that 
brave men may be found capable of allowing themselves to be slaughtered by 
the enemy rathqr, than risk the possibility of winning a victory for a commander 
whom they detest, we know, not merely from the suspicious accounts of the Ro- 
man writers, but from the experience of our own naval service in the last war, in 
one memorable instance as melancholy as it was notorious. 

Marcus Fabius was again chosen as the burghers' consul for the next year, and 
a. u. c. 274. The Cn. Manlius 5 was elected by the centuries. Another attempt to 
pur? the h ca£e b ofX sto P the raising of an army was made by the tribune Tiberius 
commons. Pontificius, 6 and was again baffled by the opposition of his col- 

leagues. But this year witnessed an accession to the cause of the commons, of 
importance more than enough to compensate for the defection of the majority of 
the tribunes. The Fabian house had now been in possession of one place in the 
consulship for six years without interruption, a clear proof that no other house 
among the burghers could compare with them in credit and in power. Standing 
at the head of their order, they had been most zealous in its cause, and had in- 
curred proportionably the hatred of the commons. But they had men amongst 
them of a noble spirit, who could not bear to be so hated by their countrymen, 
as that their own soldiers should rather allow themselves to be slaughtered by 
the enemy than conquer under the command of a Fabius. Thus the new consul, 
Marcus Fabius, was resolved to conciliate the commons ; 7 he succeeded so far as 
to venture to give battle to the Veientians ; in the battle 8 he and his brothers 
fought as men who cared for nothing else than to recover their countrymen's 
love ; Quintus Fabius, the consul of the year 272, was killed ; but the Romans 
gained the victory. Then the Fabii, to show that they were in earnest, persuaded 
the burghers to divide amongst their houses the care of the wounded soldiers ; 
they themselves took charge of a greater number than any other house, and dis- 
charged the duty which they had undertaken with all kindness and liberality. 
Thus, when the burghers named Kaeso Fabius to.be again their consul, he was 
as acceptable to the centuries as his colleague whom they themselves appointed, 
Titus Virginius. 

Kceso did not delay an instant in showing that his sense of the wrongs of the 
commons was sincere ; he immediately 9 required that the agrarian 
tion of the Fabii tlfthe law.of Spurius Cassius should be duly carried into effect. But 
cat off by the veim- the burghers treated him with scorn ; the consul, they said, had 
forgotten himself, and the applause of the commons had intoxi- 
cated him. Then Kseso and all his house, finding themselves reproached for 
having deserted their former cause, resolved to quit Rome altogether. The war 
with the Veientians showed them how they might still be useful to their old 
country : they established themselves on the Cremera, a little stream that runs 
into the Tiber from the west, a few miles above Rome. Here they settled with 
tl\eir wives and families, 10 with a large train of clients, 11 and with some of the 
burghers also who were connected with them by personal ties, and who resolved 
to share their fortune. The Fabii left Rome as the Claudii had left Regillus a 
few years before ; they wished to establish themselves as a Latin colony in 
Etruria, serving the cause of Rome even while they had renounced her. But two 

6 Patres — M.Fabium consulena cvcant: Fabio " Livy, II. 48. 

collega Cn. Manlius datur. Livy, II. 43. w Sco Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 219. Aulus Gel- 

8 Livy, II. 44. lius says, Sex et treeenti Fabii cum familiis suis 

7 Neque imraemor ejus, quod initio .consula- — curoumventi pericrunt. 

tus imbiberat, reeonciliandi auimosijlobis, &c. " rkAdrac tc tovs lavr&v cnaydncvot koX tplXovf 

Livy, II. 47. ad tin. and afjain, a little below, rb ncv irXctov jrtAaruii/ 

6 Livy, II. 45-47. tc (cat fratpwv ^.•Dionysius, IX. 15. 



Chap. X.] THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 65 

years afterwards they fell victims to the Veientians, who surprised a _ ^ c _ m _ 
them, put them all to the sword, and destroyed their settlement. 

The commons had gained strength and confidence from the coming over of 
the Fabii to their cause ; they gratefully honored the spirit which 

? Jo it i i r i ■ ^" e common3 wnpeacn 

had made them leave Rome, and when they heard ot their over- the consuls for allowing 

■ _ z, . , , trie i? aim to be cut on. 

throw, they at once accused the burghers of having treacherously 
betrayed them. Titus Menenius, one of the consuls, had been quietly lying 
encamped 12 near the Cremera when the Fabii were cut off. He was accused, 
therefore, in the following year of treason, and was condemned ; A y _ c> m 
but the tribunes themselves pressed for no heavier sentence than 
a fine, although he actually died from vexation and shame at having been sub- 
jected to such a sentence. In the next year 13 another consul was A ua2w> 
accused by the tribunes, because he had been defeated in battle 
by the Veientians, but he defended himself manfully, and was acquitted. 

This habit of acting on the. offensive for two successive years emboldened the 
commons, and they now began again to call for the execution of Genucius impeaches the 
the agrarian law of Cassius. The consuls L. Furius and C. Man- ^lu£ Jtlttl^ 
lius resisted this demand during their year of office, but as soon rianW - 
as that was expired, Cn. Genucius, 14 one of the tribunes, impeached them both 
before the commons for the wrong done to that order. a. u. c. sso. 

The burghers were now alarmed, for they saw that the commons were learning 
their own strength, and putting it in practice. They desired, at . 

i -li 1 x -r» , A. U. C. 281. He 18 

any risk, to produce a reaction, and they acted at Kome as the found dead in his bed 

J £ ' • i i • tt i j. j.1 before the trial. 

Spartans some years afterwards treated their Helots, or as the 
Venetian nobles in modern times silenced those bold spirits whom they dreaded. 
On the night before the day fixed for the trial of the consuls, Genucius the trib- 
une was found dead in his bed. 15 

The secrecy and treachery of assassination are always terrifying to a popular 
party, who have neither the organization among themselves to be •■-'.«* 

able to concert reprisals, nor wealth enough to bribe an assassin, tribune voiero pumIuub 
even if no better feeling restrained them from seeking such aid. 
Besides, the burghers were not satisfied with a single murder; others whom they 
dreaded were put out of the way by the same means as Genucius ; and like the 
Athenian aristocratical conspirators in the Peloponnesian war, they freely used 
the assassin's dagger to secure their ascendency. 16 Thus the tribunes for awhile 
were silenced, and the consuls proceeded to enlist soldiers to serve against the 
iEquians and Volscians. Amongst the rest was one Voiero Publilius, 11 who had 
served before as a centurion, and who was now called on to serve as a common 
soldier ; he refused to obey, and being a man of great vigor and activity, he 
excited the commons to support him, and the consuls and their lictors were 
driven from the Forum. Here the disturbance rested for the time, but Voiero 
was chosen to be one of the tribunes for the year ensuing. 

Voiero was a man equal to the need. The tribunitian power might be crip- 
pled by the influence of the burghers at the elections ; the burgh- A _ n . c . 282- rhe Pub _ 
ers' clients were so numerous in the centuries, that they could lilianlaw - 
elect whom they would ; and' thus, in ordinary times, the college of tribunes 
might, perhaps, contain a majority who were the mere tools of the burghers, and 
who could utterly baffle the efforts of their colleagues. This Voiero was impa- 
tient to prevent, and takjng advantage of the excitement of the moment, when 
the commons were enraged by the murder of Genucius, he proposed a law that 
the tribunes, for the time to «ome, 18 should be chosen by the votes of the com- 
mons in their tribes, and not by those of the whole people in their centuries. 

12 Livy, II. 52. 1B Zonaras, VII. IT. Dion Cass. Fragm. Vfflr 

13 Livy, II. 52. tic. XXII. 

14 Livy, II. 54. " Livy, II. 55. 
18 Livy, II. 54. # 18 Livy, II. 56. 



qq HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. X. 

No tribune could, be persuaded to betray the cause of bis order and of public 
n is violently opposed freedom by opposing Yolero on this occasion ; but the year passed 
by the burghers. away, and the burghers were thus long successful in obstructing 
the further progress of the law. It should be remembered that Volero could 
but propose his measure to the commons assembled in their tribes, and that even 
if accepted by them, it did not, therefore, become a law, but rather resembled 
the old petitions of the house of commons, which required the sanction of the 
king and the house of lords before they could become the law of the land. So 
any resolution of the tribes was no more than a petition addressed to the senate 
and burghers ; but there is a moral power in such petitions which is generally 
irresistible, and the burghers well understood the policy of an aristocracy, to fight 
its battle in the assembly of the commons themselves, rather than to commit their 
order in an open contest with the whole order of the commons. Accordingly, 
the burghers labored to prevent Volero from carrying his petition in the assem- 
bly of the tribes. With this view, their method was delay : the tribes met to 
transact business only once in eight days, once, that is, in a Roman week ; 19 and 
no measure could be proposed unless notice had been given of it two full weeks 
beforehand, while any measure that was not carried on the day that it was 
brought forward, was held to be lost, and could not be again put to the vote till 
after the lapse of two full weeks more. The object, therefore, of the burghers 
was so to obstruct the course of business, whenever the tribes met, as to spin it 
out to sunset without a division ; then the measure was lost, and could not be 
brought on again till after a fortnight's interval. And they interrupted and de- 
layed the business of the tribes, by appearing with their clients in the Forum, 
and purposely exciting a disturbance with the commons. Besides, we are told 
that Rome was this year visited with a severe epidemic disorder, which, though 
it lasted only a little while, was exceedingly fatal. This was an interruption to 
ordinary business, and this, together with the arts of the burghers, prevented 
the commons from coming to a resolution in favor of their measure throughout 
the whole course of the year. 

Volero was re-elected tribune f° Appius Claudius was chosen consul by the 
a. u. c. 283. But at burghers, and T. Quintius was elected as his colleague by the 
last carried. centuries. With Volero there was chosen also another tribune 

more active than himself, Caius Lsetorius ; 21 the oldest of all the tribunes, but a 
man endowed with a resolute spirit, and well aware of the duty of maintaining 
the contest vigorously. Fresh demands were added to those contained in Vo- 
lero's first law : the sediles were to be chosen by the tribes as well as the tribunes, 
and the tribes were to be competent 22 to consider all questions affecting the whole 
nation, and not such only as might concern the commons. Thus the proposed 
law was rendered more unwelcome to the burghers than ever, and Appius de- 
termined to resist it by force. Lsetorius was provoked by the insulting language 
of the consul, and he swore that on the next day on which the law could be 
brought forward, he would either get it passed by the commons before evening, 
or would lay down his life upon the place. 23 Accordingly, when the tribes as- 
sembled, Appius stationed himself in the Forum, surrounded by a multitude of the 
younger burghers and of his own clients, ready to interrupt the proceedings of the 
commons. Lsetorius called the tribes to vote, and gave the usual order that all 
strangers, that is, all who did not belong to any tribe, should withdraw from the 
Forum. Appius refused to stir ; 2i the tribune, sent his officer to enforce obe- 
dience, but the consul's lictors beat off the officer, and a general fray ensued, in 

19 In the Roman Kalendars which have heen elusive manner of reckoning, common to all the 

preserved to us, eight letters arc used to mark nations of antiquity, 
the several days ofthe mouth, just as seven arc a0 Iavy, II. 56. 
used by ua. Thus, the nones ofthe month fell SI Dionysius, IX. 46. 
always one Roman week before the ides ; the m Dionysius, IX. 43. Zonaras, VII. 17. 
term nonse, like that of nundinse to express the 23 Livy,' II. 56. 
■weekly market-day, having reference to the in- 2 ' I^vy, II • 56. I 



Chap. X.] THE PUBLILIAN LAW. 67 

which Lsetorius received some blows ; and matters would have come to extrem- 
ity, it is said, had not T. Quintius interposed, and with great difficulty parted the 
combatants. This, however, appears to be one of the usual softenings of the 
annals, which delighted to invest these early times with a character of romantic 
forbearance and innocence. Both parties were thoroughly in earnest ; Lseto- 
rius had received such injuries as to rouse the fury of the commons to the utmost; 
again had the sacred persons of the tribunes been profaned by violence, and Lse- 
torius might soon share the fate of Genucius. Accordingly, the commons acted 
this time on the offensive : they neither withdrew to the Sacred Hill, nor shut 
themselves up in their own quarter on the Aventine, but they attacked and occu- 
pied 25 the Capitol, and held it for some time as a fortress, keeping regular guard, 
under the command of their tribunes, both night and day. The occupation of 
the citadel in the ancient commonwealths implied an attempt to effect a revolu- 
tion ; and a popular tribune, thus holding the Capitol with his partisans, might, 
at any instant, make himself absolute, and establish his tyranny, like so many of 
the popular leaders in Greece, upon the ruins of the old aristocracy. The sen- 
ate, therefore, and the wiser consul, T. Quintius, resisted the violent counsels of 
Appius and the mass of the burghers; it was resolved that the law, which we 
must suppose had been passed by the commons immediately before they took 
possession of the Capitol, should be immediately laid before the senate, to re- 
ceive the assent of that body. It received the senate's sanction, 26 and with this 
double authority it was brought before the burghers in their curiss, to receive 
their consent also ; the only form wanting to give it the force of a law. But the 
decision of the wisest and most illustrious members of their own body overcame 
the obstinacy of the burghers : they yielded to necessity ; and the second great 
charter of Roman liberties, the Publilian law, was finally carried, and became the 
law of the land. Some said that even the number of tribunes was now, for the 
first time, raised to five, having consisted hitherto of two only. At any rate, the 
names of the first five tribunes, freely chosen by their own order, were handed 
down to posterity; they were C. Siccius, 27 L. Numitorius, M. Duilius, Sp. Icilius, 
and L. Msecilius. 

In this list we meet with neither Volero nor Lsetorius. Volero, as having 
been already tribune for two years together, and having been less prominent in 
the final struggle, may naturally have been passed over ; but Lsetorius, like 
Sextius at a later period, would surely have been the first choice of the com- 
mons, when they came to exercise a power which they owed mainly to his exer- 
tions. Was it, then, that his own words had been prophetic ; that he had, in fact, 
given up his life in the Forum on the day when he brought forward the law ; that 
the blows of Appius' burghers were as deadly as those of Kseso Quinctius, or of 
the murderers of Genucius, and that Lsetorius was not only the founder of the 
greatness of his order, but its martyr also ? • 

Thus, after a period of extreme depression and danger, the commons had again 
begun to advance, and the Publilian law, going beyond any former charter, was 
a sure warrant for a more complete enfranchisement yet to come. The com- 
mons could now elect their tribunes freely, and they had formally obtained the 
right of discussing all national questions in their own assembly. Thus their power 
spread itself out on every side, and tried its strength, against that time when, 
from being independent, it aspired to become sovereign, and swallowed up in itself 
all the powers of the rest of the community. 

46 Dionysius, IX. 48. » Livy, II. 58. He borrows the names from 

28 Dionysius, IS. 49. the annals of Piso. 



CHAPTER XL 

WAES "WITH THE ^QUIANS AND VOLSCIANS— LEGENDS CONNECTED WITH 
THESE WAES— STOEIES OF COEIOLANUS, AND OF CINCINNATUS. 



" Pandite nunc Helicona Dete, cantusque movete : 
Qui bello exciti reges ; quae queraque secutas 
Complerint campos acies ; quibus Itala jam turn 
Floruerit terra alma viris, quibus arserit armis." 

Virgil, Mu.. VII. 641. 

Nothing conveys a juster notion of the greatness of Roman history than those 
introduction to the for- chapters in Gibbon's work, in which he brings before ns the state 
eignhktory of Rome. of the eagt and of the north) of p ers i a an ^ f Germany, and is led 

unavoidably to write a universal history, because all nations were mixed up with 
the greatness and the decline of Rome. This, indeed, is the peculiar magnifi- 
cence of our subject, that the history of Rome must be in some sort the history 
of the world ; no nation, no language, no country of the ancient world, can alto- 
gether escape our researches, if we follow on steadily the progress of the Roman 
dominion till it reached its greatest extent. On this vast field we are now begin- 
ning to enter ; our view must be carried a little beyond the valley of the Tiber, 
and the plain of the Campagna ; we must go as far as the mountains which di- 
vide Latium from Campagna, which look down upon the level of the Pontine 
marshes, and even command the island summits of the Alban hills : we must 
cross the Tiber, and enter upon a people of foreign extraction and language, a 
mighty people, whose southern cities were almost within sight of Rome, while 
their most northern settlements were planted beyond the Apennines, and, from 
the great plain of the Eridanus, looked up to that enormous Alpine barrier which 
divided them from the unknown wildernesses watered by the Ister and his -thou- 
sand tributary rivers. 

In the days of Thucydides, the Greek city of Cuma 1 is described as situated 
The opicans or Ausoni- hi the land of the Opicans. The Opicans, Oscans, or Ausonians, 
%Sl Mt1o5, e thrkqu£ fc> r tue three names all express the same people, occupied all the 
•nsandvoiscians. country between (Enotria and Tyrrhenia, that is to say, between 
the Silarus and the Tiber ; but the sea-coast of this district was full of towns 
belonging to people of other nations, such as the Greek cities of Cuma and Ne- 
apolis, and those belonging to the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, such as Tarracina, Cir- 
ceii, Antium, and Ardea. The Opicans were an inland people, and it was only 
by conquest that they at last came down to the sea-coast, and established them- 
selves in some of the Tyrrhenian towns. They had various subdivisions ; but 
the two nations of them with whom the Romans had most to do, and whose 
encroachments on Latium we are now to notice, are known to us under the name 
of the ^quians and Volscians. 

It is absolutely impossible to offer any thing like a connected history of the 
Volscian and ^Equian wars with Rome during the first half century from the 
beginning of the commonwealth. But in order to give some clearness to the 
following sketch, I must first describe the position of the two nations, and class 
their contests with Rome, whether carried on singly or jointly, under the names 
respectively of the JEquian and Volscian wars, according to the quarter which 
was the principal field of action. 

• Thucyd. VI. 4. 



Chap. XL] WARS WITH THE ^EQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 69 

The Yolscians, when they first appear in Roman history, are found partly 
settled on the line of highlands overlooking the plain of Latium, Their geographical po - 
from near Prseneste to Tarracina, and partly at the foot of the 6ition - 
hills, in the plain itself. It has been already noticed, that just to the south of 
Prseneste a remarkable break occurs in this mountain wall, so that only its mere 
base has been left standing, a tract of ground 2 barely of sufficient elevation to 
turn the waters in different directions, and to separate the source of the Trerus, 
which feeds the Liris, from the streams of the Campagna of Rome. This breach 
or gap in the mountains forms the head of the country of the Hernicans, who 
occupied the higher part of the valley of the Trerus, and the hills on its left bank 
downward as far as its confluence with the Liris. But at Prseneste the mount- 
ain wall rises again to its full height, and continues stretching to the northward 
in an unbroken line, till it is again interrupted at Tibur or Tivoli by the deep val- 
ley of the Anio. Thus from the Anio to the sea at Tarracina, the line of hills 
is interrupted only at a single point, immediately to the south of Prseneste, and 
is by this breach divided into two parts of unequal length, the shorter one ex- 
tending from Tibur to Prseneste, the longer one reaching from the point where 
the hills again rise opposite to Prseneste as far as Tarracina and the sea. Of 
this mountain wall the longer portion was held by the Volscians, the shorter by 
the ^Equians. 

But it is not to be understood that the whole of this highland country was 
possessed by these two Opican nations. Latin towns were scat- Seat of tlie warawi th 
tered along the edge of it overlooking the plain of Latium, such "^^na; 
as Tibur and Prseneste in the ^Equian portion of it, and in the Volscian, Ortona, 
Cora, Norba, and Setia. The iEquians dwelt rather in the interior of the mount- 
ain country ; their oldest seats were in the heart of the Apennines, on the lake 
of Fucinus, from whence they had advanced towards the west, till they had 
reached the edge overhanging the plain. Nor is it possible to state at what time 
the several Latin cities of the Apennines were first conquered, or how often they 
recovered their independence. Tibur and Prseneste never fell into the hands of 
the ^Equians, their natural strength helping, probably, to secure them from the 
invaders. The JEquians seem rather to have directed their efforts in another 
direction, against the Latin towns of the Alban hills, pouring out readily through 
the breach in the mountain line already noticed, and gaining thus an advanced 
position from which to command the plain of Rome itself. 

The Volscian conquests, on the other hand, were effected either in th^eir own 
portion of the mountain line, or in the plain nearer the sea, or . ,_ ,_ „ , . 
finally, on the southern and western parts ol the cluster ot the voisdan conquests in 
Alban hills, as the ^Equians attacked their eastern and northern 
parts. Tarracina 3 appears to have fallen into their hands very soon after the 
overthrow of the Roman monarchy ; and Antium 4 was also an early conquest. 
In the year 261, Bovillse, Circeii, Corioli, Lavinium, Satricum, and Velitrse, were 
still Latin cities ; but all 6 these were conquered at one time or other by the Vol- 

2 TaMng a parallel case from English, geogra- seems,.therefore, to have fallen soon after the 
phy, the gap in the_ oolitic limestone chain of date of the treaty with Carthage, in which it is 
hills which occurs in Warwickshire, between spoken of as a Latin city. 

Farnborough and Edge Hill, may be compared 4 It belonged to the Volscians in the year 261, 

to the gap at Prseneste ; the line of hills north- the year in which the Eoman league with the 

ward and southward from this point, overlook- Latins was concluded. Livy, II. 33. 

ing the lias plain of Warwickshire, may repre- 5 The present text of Dionysius has BoXas or 

sent respectively the countries of the jjquians BuXa's (VIII. 20). Plutarch has BdXXaj (Cori- 

and Volscians ; whilst Banbury and the valley olanus, 29) ; but it appears that Bovillss, and not 

of the Cherwell answer to the country of the Bola, is meant, because the conquest of Bola is 

Hernicans. mentioned separately by both writers, and be- 

3 It is mentioned as a Volscian town under cause Plutarch gives the distance of BrfXXat from 
the name of Anxur in the year 349. (Livy, IV. Rome at one hundred stadia, which suits Bo- 
59.) Its capture by the Volscians is nowhere villas, but is too little for Bola. The conquest 
recorded ; but in the earliest Volscian wars, af- of Circeii, Corioli, Lavinium, and Satricum, is 
ter the expulsion of the Tarquins, the seat of noticed by Livy, II. 39. Velitrse was taken by 
war lies always on the Roman side of it. It the Romans from the Volscians in the year 260, 



70 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XI 

scians, so that at the period of their greatest success they must have advanced 
within twelve miles of the gates of Rome. The legend of Coriolanus represents 
these towns, with the exception of Velitrse, as having been taken between the 
years 263 and 266, in the great invasion conducted jointly by Coriolanus and by 
Attius Tullius. But Niebuhr has given reasons for believing that these con- 
quests were not made till some years later, and that they were effected not all 
at once, but in the course of several years. Be this as it may, it is certain that 
some of the towns thus taken, Satricum, for instance, Cerceii, and Velitrse, re- 
mained for many years in possession of the Yolscians. Corioli was destroyed, 
and is no more heard of in history, while Bovillae and Lavinium were in all prob- 
ability soon recovered either by the Romans or by the Latins. 

Whilst the Yolscians were thus tearing Latium to pieces on one side, the ^Equi- 
„ . ans were assailing it with equal success on the other. Their con- 

Aqman conquests. . °. i 1 1 1 i p it • i 1 • <• 

quests also are assigned by the legend ot Coriolanus to his famous 
invasion, when he is said to have taken Corbio, 6 Vitellia, Trebia, Lavici, and Pedum. 
All these places, with the exception of Trebia, stood either on the Alban hills, or 
close to them, and three of them, Corbio, Lavici, and Pedum, are amongst the 
thirty Latin cities which concluded the treaty with Spurius Cassius in the year 
261. They were retained for many years 1 by their conquerors ; and thus Tibur 
and Prssneste were isolated from the rest of Latium, and the ^Equians had 
established themselves on the Alban hills above and around Tusculum, which 
remained the only unconquered Latin city in that quarter, and was so thrown 
more than ever into the arms of Rome. 

Now, had all these conquests been indeed achieved as early as the year 266, 
These conquests were an d within the space of one or two years, what could have pre- 
b^rperiod'ofse'v'erai vented the JEquians and Volscians from effecting the total con- 
thTVrd '"centurT of quest of Rome, or what could their armies have been doing in 
Rorae- the years from 273 to 278, when the Romans were struggling so 

hardly against the Veientians ? Or how comes it, as Niebuhr well observes, if 
the iEquians had taken Pedum, and Corbio, and Lavici, in 266, that their armies 
are mentioned as encamping on Algidus for the first time in 'the year 289 ; a 
spot which from that time forwards they continued to occupy, year after year, 
till Rome regained the ascendency ? It is much more probable that the first 
years of the war after 263 were marked by no decisive events ; that the league 
with the Hernicans in 268 opposed an additional obstacle to the progress of the 
Opican nations ; but that subsequently, the wars with the Veientians, and the 
domestic disputes which raged with more or less violence from the death of Spu- 
rius Cassius to the passing of the Publilian law, distracted the attention of the 
Romans, and enabled the ^Equians and Volscians to press with more effect upon 
the Latins and Hernicans. But Antium was wrested from the Volscians by the 
three confederate nations in 286 ; and the great period of the Roman disasters 
is to be placed in the ten years following that event, unless we choose to separ- 
ate the date of the Volscian conquests from those of the JEquians. We must, 
then, suppose that Corioli, Satricum, Lavinium, and the towns in that quarter, 
had been taken by the Volscians between 266 and 286, that some of these were 
afterwards recovered, and that the Romans during the latter part of the period 

but it must afterwards have been lost again ; pretended revolts of Roman colonies to Lave 

for we find it in arms with the Volscians against been properly a revolt of the old inhabitants, in 

Rome, and afterwards with the Latins ; and al- which the Roman colonists, as a matter of course, 

though this is Bpoken of as the revolt of a Ro- were expelled or massacred. See Vol. II. p. 44, 

man colony, as if the descendants of the eolo- 45. Engl. Transl. 

nists, Bent there after its first conquest in 260, ° Livy, II. 89. 

had always continued in possession of it, yet " Lavici was conquered by the Romans in 886. 

tin' well-known inscription found there, known (Livy, IV. 47.) Corbio in 297. (Livy, 111. 30.) 

by the name of" La Lamina Volsca," or " Bor- No recapture of Pedum is mentioned ; but the 

Lfiana," is written in the Oscan language, and town probably ioincd the Latin confederacy 

contains the Osoan title "Medix." Bee Lama, again, when it shook off the Volscian yoke: it 

Saggio di Lingua Etrusea, Vol. III. p. 616. 1 is mentioned in the time of the great Latin war 

believe Niebuhr is right in considering such as taking an active part on the Latin side. 



Chap. XL] WARS WITH THE ^EQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS. 71 

had been regaining their lost ground, till in 286 they became, in their turn, the 
assailants, and conquered Antium. Then the ^Equians united their arms more 
zealously with the Volscians ; the seat of the war was removed to the frontier of 
Latium, bordering on the iEquians, and then followed the invasion of that fron- 
tier, the establishment of the JEquians on Algidus, and the repeated ravages of 
the Roman territory between Tusculum and Rome. 

The period between the year 286 and the end of the century was marked by 
the visitations of pestilence as well as by those of war. A short ■ ■ ' 

■T . . l • 1 a • 1 i That period -was also 

but most severe epidemic had raared m the year 282, it broke marked by the ™ita- 

■T mi ■ j. tioua of pestuence. 

out again in 288, and then in 291, w when its ravages were most 
fearful. It carried off both the consuls, two out of the four augurs, the Curio 
Maximus, with a great number of other persons of all ages and conditions ; and 
this sickness, like the plague of Athens, was aggravated by the inroads of the 
JEquians and Volscians, which had driven the country people to fly with then- 
cattle into Rome, and thus crowded a large population into a narrow space with 
deficient accommodations, while the state of the atmosphere was in itself pesti- 
lential, even had it been met under circumstances the most favorable. It is man- 
ifest that at this time the Romans were in possession of no fortified towns between 
Rome and the JEquian frontier ; when the Roman armies could not keep the 
field, the enemy might march without obstacle up to the very walls of Rome 
itself; and there was nothing for them to win, except the plunder of the Roman 
territory, and the possession of the capital. 

Perhaps, too, these disastrous times were further aggravated by another evil, 
which the Roman annals were unwilling openly to avow. When AnA by int?rnal dU . 
matters came to such a crisis that the commons occupied the Cap- SyR™ 11 "^ 
itol in arms, as was the case immediately before the passing of the o'("'t\te m %^L^ rr tnl 
Publilian law, when we read of dissensions so violent, that the Volsmns - 
consuls of three successive years were impeached by the tribunes, and a tribune 
was on the other hand murdered by the aristocracy ; when again, at a somewhat 
later period, we read of the disputes about the Terentilian law, and hear of the 
banishment of Kasso Quinctius for his violences towards the commons on that 
occasion, we may suspect that the whole truth has not been revealed to us, and 
that the factions of Rome, like those of Greece, were attended by the banish- 
ment of a considerable number of the vanquished party, so that Roman exiles 
were often to be found in the neighboring cities, as eager to return as the Tar- 
quinii had been formerly, and as little scrupulous as they of effecting that retur" 
through foreign aid. That this was actually the case, is shown by the surprise 
of the Capitol, in the year 294, when a body of men, consisting, as it is expressly 
said, of exiles and slaves, 11 and headed by Appius Herdonius, a Sabine, made 

8 Dionysius, IX. 42. admit of no doubt. T Hi> St avrov yv&nri pcra to 

9 Livy, III. 2. Dionysius, IX. 60. Kparrjtrat rdv ImKaipoTaruiv rdnwv (of Eome, name- 

10 Livy, III. fi, 7. Dionysius, IX. 67. ly) rou's re ipvydias da&ixcaOai, Kal rows MXovs £i? 

11 It is not, indeed, expressly said that the {\tvdepiav KaXeiv. These can certainly be no 
exiles were Soman exiles ; and Livy, who, in other than the exiles and the slaves of Eome. 
his whole narrative of the transaction, says The supposition in the text receives further 
nothing of Kseso, or of his connection with the confirmation from a remarkable statement in 
conspiracy, uses language which might be ap- Dionysius, that in the year 262, just before the 
plicable to the case of exiles of other countries, banishment of Coriolanus, many Boinan citizens 
He makes Herdonius say (III. 15), " Se miser- were invited by the neighboring cities to leave 
rimi cuj usque suscepisse causam, ut exules in- their country and to come and live with them, 
jur'ia pulsos in patriam reduceret ; id malle and enjoy their franchise of citizenship. And 
populo Eomano auctore fieri : si ibi spes non a great many noXXol irdvv left Eome with their 
sit, Volscos et Jllquos, et omnia extrema ten- families, he says, on these terms ; some of whom 
taturum et coneitaturum." Still even these returned, afterwards, when better times arrived, 
words, especially the expression "in patriam," but others continued to live in their new eoun- 
instead of "in patriae, • are most naturally to tries. See Dionys. VII. 18. This undoubtedly 
•be understood of Roman exiles ; if they had must mean that many Romans were obliged to 
been all Sabines, or iEquians, or Volscians, the go into banishment, and these availed them- 
attempt would have been made on the citadel selves of the treaty with the Latins, which 
of Cures, or Lavici, or Anxur ; not on the Capi- established an interchange of citizenship be- 
tol at Rome. But Dionysius' words (X. 14) tween Rome and Latium, and became citizens 



72 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL 

themselves masters of the citadel of Rome. There is, therefore, in all probabil- 
ity, a foundation in truth for the famous story of Coriolanus, but it must be 
referred to a period much later than the year 263, the date assigned to it in the 
common annals ; and the circumstances are so disguised, that it is impossible to 
guess from what reality they have been corrupted. It would be a beautiful 
story, could we believe that Coriolanus joined the conquering iEquians and Vol- 
scians with a body of Roman exiles ; that the victories of foreigners put it in his 
power to procure his own recall and that of his companions, but that, overcome 
by the prayers of his mother, he refrained from doing such violence to the laws 
of his country ; and, contented with the conquests of his protectors, he refused 
to turn them to his own personal benefit, and chose rather to live and die an 
exile than to owe his restoration to the swords of strangers. Be this as it may, 
the common story is so famous and so striking that it must not be suppressed ; 
and the life and death of Coriolanus are no unworthy sequel to the story of the 
life and death of the last king Tarquinius. 

Caius Marcius 12 was a noble Roman, of the l'ace of that worthy king, Ancus 
story of coriolanus. Marcius ; 13 his father died when he' was a child, but his mother, 
tte'tatti^by^iake whose name was Volumnia, performed to him the part both of 
Reguius. father and of mother ; and Caius loved her exceedingly, and when 

he gained glory by his feats of arms, it was his greatest joy that his mother 
should hear his praises ; and when he was rewarded for his noble deeds, it was 
his greatest joy that his mother should see him receive his crown. And he 
fought at the battle by the lake Regillus, 14 against king Tarquinius and the Lat- 
ins, and he Avas then a youth of seventeen years of age ; and in the heat of the 
battle he saw a Roman beaten to the ground, and his foe was rushing- on him to 
slay him, but Caius stepped before him, and covered him, and slew the enemy, 
and saved the life of his fellow-soldier. So Aulus, the general, rewarded him 
with an oaken wreath, for such was the reward given to those who saved the life 
of a comrade in battle. And this was his first crown, but after this he won many 
in many battles, for he was strong and valiant, and none of the Romans could 
compare with him. 

After this there was a war between the Romans and the Volscians ; and the 
Romans attacked the city of Corioli. 15 The citizens of Corioli 

How he toot the citv i -i • -ii n ii .1 n .. 

of corioli and won opened their gates and made a sally, and drove the Romans back 

the name of Coriolanus. x , ° rf ,-\ r^ • r l m n 1 

to their camp, then Cams ran forwards with a lew brave men, 
and called back the runaways, and he stayed the enemy, and turned the tide of 
the battle, so that the Volscians fled back into the city. Bat Caius followed 
them, and Avhen he saw the gates still open, for the Volscians were flying into 
the city, then he called to the Romans, and said, " For us are yon gates set wide 
rather than for the Volscians ; why are we afraid to rush in ?" He himself fol- 
lowed the fugitives into the town, and the enemy fled before him ; but when they 
saw that he was but one man they turned against him, but Caius held his ground, 
for he was strong of hand, and light of foot, and stout of heart, and he drove the 
Volscians to the farthest side of the town, and all was clear behind him ; so that 
the Romans came in after him without any trouble, and took the city. Then all 

of some Latin city. Ami tins is the simplest respect, as •well as in calling the mother of the 
way of accounting for the name Coriolanus, to hero Volumnia, ami his wife Virgilio, 1 have re- 
suppose that lie settled at Corioli, and becatne garded Shakspeare's authority as decisive, 
a citizen there; and afterwards, when Corioli » Plutarch,. Coriolanus, I. 4. 
was conquered by the Volscians, joined their " Plutarch, Coriolanus. B. 
army in order to prosecute his revenge against I6 Plutarch, Coriolanus, VIII. The story rep- 
Rome. resents Corioli as a Yolseian town, and a-< taken 
" Zonaras, copying Dion Cassius, and most by the Romans in the consulship ofPostumus 
of the MSS. of Livy, give the preenoinen of Co- Cominius, A. U. C. 261. The authentic tnonu- 
riolanus as Cnajus, ana not Caius. Historically ment of these times, the treat] between the Ro- 
the point is of no consequence ; but the richest mans and Latins concluded in this verj same 
poetry in which the. story of< ioriolanus was ever year, shows that Corioli was then not a Volscian 
recorded, Shakspeare's tragedy on that subject, buta Latin town, ami one of the thirty states 
has consecrated the name of Caius ; and in this which made the alliance with Rome. 



Chap. XL] STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 73 

men said, " Caius and none else has won Corioli ;" and Cominius the general said, 
" Let him be called after the name of the city." So they called him Caius Mar- 
cius Coriolanus. 16 

After this there was a great scarcity of corn, and the commons were much 
distressed for want, and the king 11 of the Greeks in Sicily sent Caius offend8 the com . 
ships laden with corn to Rome: so the senate resolved to sell the m ° n8 ' and * haniahei - 
corn to the poor commons, lest they should die of hunger. But Caius hated the 
commons, and he was angry that they had got tribunes to be their leaders, and 
he said, " If they want corn, let them show themselves obedient to the burghers 
as their fathers did, and let them give up their tribunes ; and then will we let 
them have corn to eat, and will take care of them." The commons, when they 
heard this, were quite furious, and they would have set upon Caius as he came 
out of the senate-house and torn him to pieces, but the tribunes said, " Nay, ye 
shall judge him yourselves in your comitia, and we will be his accusers." So 
they accused Caius before the commons ; and Caius knew that they would show 
him no mercy, therefore he stayed not for the day of his trial, 18 but fled from 
Rome, and took refuge among the Volscians. They and Attius He goea t0 th6 Vo i- 
Tullius, their chief, received him kindly, and he lived among them 8Cians: 
a banished man. 

Attius said to himself, " Caius, who used to fight against us, is now on our 
side ; we will make war again upon the Romans." But the Vol- 
scians were afraid ; so that Attius was forced to practice craftily, ™ between the r - 

, , - , , •ill! ji 11 mans and Volscians. 

to make them do what he wished, whether they would or no. how he contrived to 
Now the manner of his practice was as follows : 19 The great 
games at Rome were finished, but they were going to be celebrated over again 
with great pomp and cost, to appease the wrath of Jupiter. For Jupiter had 
spoken in a dream to Titus Latinius, a man of the commons, and said, " Go and 
bid the consuls to celebrate the games over again with great pomp, for one 
danced at the opening of the games 20 but now, whom I liked not ; and venge- 
ance is coming therefore upon this city." But Titus feared to go to the consuls, 
for he thought that every one would laugh at him, and so he did not obey the 
god. A few days after his son fell sick and died ; and again the vision appeared 
to him in his sleep, and said, " Wilt thou still despise what I tell thee ? Thy 
son is dead, but if thou go not quickly, and do my bidding, it shall be yet worse 
for thee." But Titus still lingered, so he was himself stricken with a palsy ; and 
he could not walk, but they carried him in a litter. Then he delayed no longer, 
but said to his kinsmen, " Carry me into the forum, to the consuls." And they 
carried him in his litter, and he told the consuls the bidding of the god, and all 
that had befallen himself. When he had finished his story, the consuls remem- 
bered how that on the morning of the first day of the games, a burgher had taken 
his slave and scourged him in the midst of the circus where the games were to 

16 The story of the taking of Corioli was an at- nology as little as Shakspeare did about that of 
tempt to explain the name of Coriolanus, which Rome; and as he makes Titus Lartius talk of 
in reality merely showed that Marcius had been Cato the censor, so they made Dionysius the ty- 
settled at Corioli, and had become a citizen of rant contemporary with the battle of Marathon, 
that place after his banishment from Rome, and said that it was he who relieved the scarci- 
The same explanation will serve, perhaps, for ty at Rome in the year 262. 

some other Latin surnames, such as Medullinus, le Livy, II. 35. Ipse quum die dicta non 

Regillensis, Malventanus, and others, recording adesset, perseveratum in ira est. Dionysius, 

the connection of Roman families at some period whom Plutarch follows, says that the tribunes 

or other with the towns from which they took fixed perpetual banishment as the penalty which 

their names. See note 11. the accused should suffer if found guilty; that 

17 Plutarch names Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, he was found guilty by the votes of twelve tribes 
Livy merely says that the corn came from Sici- out of twenty-one, and banished accordingly, 
ly ; Dionysius calls Gelon " the most distin- Dionysius and Plutarch seem to have forgotten 
guished of the tyrants of Sicily at that time," that exile as a punishment was unknown to the 
without specifying whether, at the time of the Roman law tiU a much later period. 

famine at Rome, he was tyrant of Gela or of 19 Livy, II. 36. 

Syracuse. The old Roman annalists, Licinius w Visus Jupiter dicere, " Sibi ludis prsesulta- 

Macer and Cn. Gellius, cared about Greek chro- torem displicuisse." Livy, II. 36. 



74 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL 

be held ; and the burgher regarded it not, but Jupiter saw it and was wroth : for 
it was a holy day, and a day for mirth and gladness, and not for crying and for 
torment. So the consuls believed what Titus said, and brought him into the 
senate, and he told the story again to the senators. When lo ! so soon as he 
had ended his story, the palsy left him, and his limbs became strong as be- 
fore, and he needed no more to be carried in his litter, but walked home on his 
feet. 

Thus the great games 21 were celebrated over again at Rome, and many of the 
The voiscians are driv- Volscians went to Rome to see the sight. Then Attius went to 
ceiebr a t ion R o'"{he a yeat the consuls privately, and said to them : " A great multitude of 

Volscians are now in Rome. I remember now on a like occasion, 
not many years since, the Sabines made a riot in this city, and great mischief 
was like to come of it ; loth were I that my people should do aught of the 
same kind : but it becomes your wisdom rather to hinder evil than to mend it." 
When the consuls told this to the senate, the senate was afraid ; and it was 
thought best to send the criers round the city, to give notice that every Volscian 
should be gone from Rome before the setting of the sun. The Volscians were 
very angry at this, for they said to one another, " Do these men then hold us to 
be so profane and unholy, that our presence is an offence to the blessed gods ?" 
So they left Rome in haste, and went home towards their' own country, full of 
indignation at the shame which was put upon them. 

Their way home was over the hills of Alba, 22 by the well-head of the water 

of Ferentina, where the councils of the Latins had been used to 

Attius meets them, and /> i i a- i i i -tt i • i i i • 

excites them to go to meet or old. Attius knew that the Volscians would be driven 

war with the Romans. „ _ ill i i 

trom Kome, and would pass that way, so he Avaited there to meet 
them. At last they came up in a long train, each as he could go, and Attius 
spoke to them, and asked them what was the matter, that they had so suddenly 
left Rome. When they told him, he called them to follow him from the road, 
down to the grass which was by the side of the stream, and there they gathered 
round him, and he made a speech to them, and said, " What is it that these men 
have done to you ? They have made a show of you at their games before all the 
neighboring nations. Ye, and your wives, and your children, were cast out at 
the voice of the crier, as though ye were profane and unholy, and as if your pres- 
ence before the sight of the gods were a sacrilege. Do ye not count them for 
your enemies already, seeing if ye had not made such good haste in coming away 
ye would have been all dead men ere now ? They have made war upon us : see 
to it, if ye be men, that ye make them rue their deed." So the Volscians eagerly 
listened to his words, and all their tribes made it a common quarrel, and they 
raised a great army, and chose Attius and Caius Marcius, the Roman, to com- 
mand it. 

When this great host took the field, the Romans feared to go out to battle 
how caius ana Attius against it. So Caius and Attius attacked the cities of the Latins, 
marched against Rome. and fl^y first took circeii, 23 and afterwards Satricum, and Lon- 
gula, and Polusca, and Corioli ; and then they took Lavinium, which was to the 
Romans a sacred city, because /Eneas was its founder, and because the holy 
things of the gods of their fathers were kept there. After this Caius and Attius 
took Corbio, and Vitellia, and Trebia, and Lavici, and Pedum ; and from Pedum 
they went towards Rome, and they encamped by the Cluilian dyke, which was 
no more than five miles from the city ; and they laid waste the lands of the com- 
mons of Rome, but they spared those of the burghers ; Caius, for his part, think- 
ing that his quarrel was with the commons only, and that the burghers were his 
friends ; and Attius, thinking that it w r ould cause the Romans to be jealous of 
each other, and so make Rome the easier to be conquered. So the host of the . 
Volscians lay encamped near Rome. 

■ Livy, II. 87. » Livy, II. 38. M Livy, II. 89. 



Chap. XL] STORY OF CORIOLANUS. 75 

Within the city, meanwhile, there was a great tumult ; the women ran to the 
temples of the gods to pray for mercy, the poorer people cried 
out in the streets that they would have peace, and that the senate pence, tat™ s b n " 
should send deputies to Caius and to Attius. So deputies were 
sent, 24 five men of the chief of the burghers ; but Caius answered them, " We 
will give you no peace, till ye restore to the Volscians all the land and all the 
cities which ye or your fathers have ever taken from them ; and till 25 ye make 
them your citizens, and give them all the rights which ye have yourselves, as ye 
have done to the Latins." The deputies could not accept such hard conditions, 
so they went back to Rome. And when the senate sent them again to ask for 
gentler terms, Caius would not suffer them to enter the camp. 

After this 26 the senate sent all the priests of the gods, and the augurs, all 
clothed in their sacred garments, and bearing in their hands the t^ priests of the godl 
tokens of the gods whom they served. But neither would Caius Su*, tat^e^^c* 
listen to these ; so they too went back again to Rome. hear them - 

Yet, when the help of man had failed the Romans, the help of the gods de- 
livered them ; for among the women who were sitting as suppli- 
ants in the temple of Jupiter in the Capitol, was Valeria, 21 the vaieria,%e™mcies a the 
sister of that Publius Valerius who had been called Poplicola, a caV/to |° mime £> 
virtuous and noble lady, whom all held in honor. As she was sit- m ormercy ■ 
ting in the temple as a suppliant before the image of Jupiter, Jupiter seemed to 
inspire her with a sudden thought, and she immediately rose, and called upon all 
the other noble ladies who were with her to arise also, and she led them to the 
house of Volumnia, the mother of Caius. There she found Virgilia, the wife of 
Caius, with his mother, and also his little children. Valeria then addressed Vo- 
lumnia and Virgilia, and said, " Our coming here to you is our own doing ; 
neither the senate nor any other mortal man have sent us ; but the god in whose 
temple we were sitting as suppliants put it into our hearts, that we should come 
and ask you to join with us, women with women, without any aid of men, to win 
for our country a great deliverance, and for ourselves a name glorious above all 
women, even above those Sabine wives in the old time, who stopped the battle 
between their husbands and their fathers. Come then with us to the camp of 
Caius, and let us pray to him to show us mercy." Volumnia said, " We will go 
with you :" and Virgilia took her young children with her, and they all went to 
the camp of the enemy. 

It wa^ a sad and solemn sight 28 to see this train of noble ladies, and the very 
Volscian soldiers stood in silence as they passed by, and pitied How hi3 wife and 
them and honored them. They found Caius sitting on the gen- Sm^LdTowte^ea 
eral's seat in the midst of the camp, and the Volscian chiefs were awa 'yWsarm y . 
standing round him. When he first saw them he wondered what it could be ; 
but pi-esently he knew his mother, who was walking at the head of the train ; 
and then he could not contain himself, but leaped down from his seat, and ran 
to meet her, and was going to kiss her. But she stopped him and said, 29 " Ere 
thou kiss me, let me know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my son ; 
whether I stand in thy camp as thy prisoner or as thy mother." Caius could 
not answer her, and then she went on and said, " Must it be, then, that had I 
never borne a son, Rome never should have seen the camp of an enemy ; that 
had I remained childless, I should have died a free woman in a free city ? But 
I am too old to bear much longer either thy shame or my misery. Rather look 
to thy wife and children, whom if thou persistest thou art dooming to an untimely 
death, or a long life of bondage." Then Virgilia and his children came up to 
him and kissed him, and all the noble ladies wept, and bemoaned their own fate 
and the fate of their country. At last Caius cried out, " mother, what hast 

24 Dionysius, VIII. 22. ™ Plutarch, Coriolan. 32, 33. 

25 Dionysius, VIII. 35. Plutarch, Coriolan. 30. 28 Plutarch, Coriolan. 34. 

26 Livy, II. 39. Plutarch, Coriolan. 32. 28 Livy, II. 40. 



76 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL 

thou done to me ?" and he wrung her hand vehemently, and said, " Mother, thine 
is the victory ; a happy victory for thee and for Rome, but shame and ruin to thy 
son." Then he fell on her neck and embraced her, and he embraced his wife and 
his children, and sent them back to Rome ; and led away the army of the Vol- 
scians, and never afterwards attacked Rome any more ; and he lived on a ban- 
ished man amongst the Volscians, and when he was very old, and had neither wife 
nor children around him, he was wont to say, " That now in old age 30 he knew 
the full bitterness of banishment." So Caius lived and died amongst the Vol- 
scians. 

The Romans, as was right, honored Volumnia and Valeria for their deed, and 
a temple was built and dedicated to " Woman's Fortune," 31 just 

How the Romans hon- .- 1 ,-, n ■ l i • i i i j i • j_i» J J 

ored the nobie ladies on the spot where (Jams had yielded to his mother s words ; and 
the first priestess of the temple was Valeria, into whose heart Ju- 
piter had first put the thought to go to Volumnia, and to call upon her to go out 
to the enemy's camp and entreat her son. 

Such is the famous story which has rendered the Volscian wars with Rome so 
memorable ; the wars with the vEquians are marked by a name and a story not 
less celebrated, those of L. Quinctius Cincinnatus. 

There had been peace between the Romans and the yEquians : but the iEqui- 
ans and Gracchus Clcelius, 32 their chief, broke the peace, and 
The^jmanfbreakthe plundered the lands of the people of Lavici and of the people of 
scom the compiamts n of Tusculum. They then pitched their camp on the top of Algidus ; 
and the Romans sent deputies to them to complain of the wrong 
which they had done. It happened that the tent of Gracchus was pitched under 
the shade of a great evergreen oak, and he. was sitting in his tent when the depu- 
ties came to him. His answer was full of mockery : " I, for my part," said he, 
" am busy with other matters ; I cannot hear you ; you had better tell your mes- 
sage to the oak yonder." Immediately one of the deputies answered, "Yea, let 
this sacred oak hear, and let all the gods hear likewise, how treacherously you 
have broken the peace ! They shall hear it now, and shall soon avenge it ; for 
you have scorned alike the laws of the gods and of men." Then they went back 
to Rome, and the senate resolved upon war : and Lucius Minucius, the consul, 
led his legions towards Algidus, to fight with the proud enemy. 

But Gracchus was a skilful soldier, 33 and he pretended to be afraid of the Ro- 
mans, and retreated before them, and they followed him, without 

How the armv of the t t -i ,i • nit • ± 1 

eonsui Minucius feu heeding where they were going, do they came into a narrow val- 
ley, with hills on either side, high, and steep, and bare ; and then 
Gracchus sent men secretly, who closed up the way by which they had entered 
into the valley, so that they could not get back ; and the hills 34 closed round the 
valley in front of them, and on the right and left, and on the top of these hills 
Gracchus lay with his army, while the Romans were shut up in the valley below. 
In this valley there was neither grass for the horses, nor food for the men ; but 

30 " Multo miserius seni exilium esse." Fa- S3 Dionysius, X. 23. 

bins, quoted by Livy, II. 40. M This is just the description of the famous 

81 Li vy, II. 40. Dionysius, VIII. 55. It is one Furcsa Caudinse, in which the Romans were 

of Niebuhr's most ingenious conjectures that blockaded by C. Pontius. It suits the charae- 

the foundation of this temple, and the fact that tcr of the Apennine valleys, but I never saw 

Valeria was the first priestess of it, gave oeca- any such spots on the Alban hills, where the 

sion to the date assigned to the story of Corio- scene of Cincinnatus' victory is laid. It is likely 

hums, and to the introduction of Valeria into enough, however, that Dionysius, or the annal- 

it, asthe first suggester of the step which saved ist whom he followed, did actually take their 

Rome. Niebuhr observes that Fortuna Mulic- description from that of the Caudine Furies, and 

bris had nothing to do with the successful cm- that it made no part of the old legend. Livy's 

bassj of Volumnia and Valeria, but correspond- account says nothing of any natural disadvan- 

ed to Fortuna Virilis ; and that both were an- tages of position : he merely says that the Ro- 

eicntly worshipped ; the one as influencing the mans kept within their camp through tear, and 

fortunes of men, the other those of women, that this encouraged the iEquians to blockade 

Vol. II. p. 115. 2d edit. them. 

B Livy, III. 25. 



Chap. XI] STORY OF CINCINNATUS. 77 

five horsemen had broken out, before the road in the rear of the Romans was 
quite closed up, and these rode to Rome, and told the senate of the great danger 
of the consul and of the army. 

Upon this Quintus Fabius, 35 the warden of the city, sent in haste for Caius 
Nautius, the other consul, who was with his army in the country The kohhuw at Rora e 
of the Sabines. When he came, they consulted together, and the ™» >» g«* "»™- 
senate said, " There is only one man who can deliver us ; we must make Lucius 
Quinctius Master of the people." So Caius, as the manner was, named Lucius 
to be Master of the people ; and then he hastened back to his army before the 
sun was risen. 

This Lucius Quinctius let his hair grow, 36 and tended it carefully : and was so 
famous for his curled and crisped locks that men called him Cin- ^ g ^ ^.^ 
cinnatus, or the "crisp-haired." He was a frugal man, 37 and did Quinetws tc .be Mwtm 
not care to be rich ; and his land was on the other side of the Ti- 
ber, a plot of four jugera, where he dwelt with his wife Racilia, and busied him- 
self in the tilling of his ground. So in the morning early the senate sent depu- 
ties to Lucius to tell him that he was chosen to be Master of the people. The 
deputies went over the river, and came to his house, and found him in his field 
at work without his toga or cloak, and digging with his spade in his ground. 
They saluted him and said, " We bring thee a message from the senate, so thou 
must put on thy cloak that thou mayest receive it as is fitting." Then he said, 
" Hath aught of evil befallen the state ?" and he bade his wife to bring his cloak, 
and when he had put it on he went out to meet the deputies. Then they said, 
" Hail to thee, Lucius Quinctius, the senate declares thee Master of the people, 
and calls thee to the city ; for the consul and the army in the country of the 
^Equians are in great danger." There was then a boat made ready to carry him 
over the Tiber, and when he stepped out of the boat his three sons came to meet 
him, and his kinsmen and his friends, and the greater part of the senators. He 
was thus led home in great state to his house, and the four- and -twenty lictors, 
with their rods and axes, walked before him. As for the multitude, they crowded 
round to see him, but they feared his four-and-twenty lictors ; for they were a 
sign that the power of the Master of the people was as sovereign as that of the 
kings of old. 

Lucius chose Lucius Tarquitius 38 to be Master of the horse, a brave man, and 
of a burgher's house ; but so poor withal that he had been used . . 

° ip it- ip ii Lucius marche» out to 

to serve among the toot soldiers instead 01 among the horse, deliver the consul'* 
Then the Master of the people and the Master of the horse went 
together into the Forum, and bade every man to shut up his booth, and stopped 
all causes at law, and gave an order that none should look to his own affairs till 
the consul and his army were delivered from the enemy. They ordered also that 
every man, who was of an age to go out to battle, should be ready in the Field 
of Mars before sunset, and should have with him victuals for five days, and 
twelve stakes ; and the older men dressed the victuals for the soldiers, whilst the 
soldiers went about everywhere to get their stakes ; and they cut them where 
they would, without any hinderance. So the army was ready in the Field of 
Mars at the time appointed, and they set forth from the city, and made such 
haste, that ere the night was half spent they came to Algidus ; and when they 
perceived that they were near the enemy, they made a halt. 

Then Lucius rode on, and saw 39 how the camp of the enemy lay ; and he or- 

35 Dionysius, X. 23. more than distance ; and as it had brought the 

30 Zonaras, VII. p. 346. Ed. Paris, p. 260. Eoman army from Eome to Algidus between 

Ed. Venet. sunset and midnight, though each soldier had 

37 Livy, III. 26. to carry his baggage and twelve stakes besides, 

38 Livy, III. 27. so it made Cincinnatus reconnoitre the enemy 

39 " Quantum nocte prospici poterat" is Livy's as soon as he arrived in their neighborhood, 
qualification of the story ; but the original le- without considering that on its own showing 
gend, in all probability, regarded darkness no his arrival took place at midnight. 



78 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XI 

He conquers the iEqui- dered his soldiers to throw down all their baggage into one plnce, 
an8 ' but to keep each man his arms and his twelve stakes. Then they 

set out again in their order of march as they had come from Rome, and they 
spread themselves round the camp of the enemy on every side. When this was 
done, upon a signal given they raised a great shout, and directly every man be- 
gan to dig a ditch just where he stood, and to set in his stakes. The shout rang 
through the camp of the enemy, and filled them with fear ; and it sounded even 
to the camp of the Romans who were shut up in the valley, and the consul's 
men said one to another, " Rescue is surely at hand, for that is the shout of Ro- 
mans." They themselves shouted in answer, and sallied to attack the camp of 
the enemy ; and they fought so fiercely, that they hindered the enemy from in- 
terrupting the work of the Romans without their camp ; and this went on all 
the night, till when it was morning, the Romans who were without had drawn a 
ditch all round the enemy, and had fenced it with their stakes ; and now they 
left their work, and began to take part in the battle. Then the ^Equians saw 
that there was no hope, and they began to ask for mercy. Lucius answered, 
" Give me Gracchus and your other chiefs bound, and then I will set two spears 
upright in the ground, and I will put a third spear across, and you shall give up 
your arms, and your cloaks, and shall pass, every man of you, under the spear 
bound across as under a yoke, and then you may go away free." This was 
done accordingly ; Gracchus and the other chiefs were bound, and the ^Equians 
left their camp to the Romans, with all its spoil, and put off their cloaks, and 
passed each man under the yoke, and then went home full of shame. 

But Lucius would not suffer 40 the consul's army to have any share of the spoil, 
nor did he let the consul keep his power, but made him his own under-officer, 
and then marched back to Rome. Nor did the consul's soldiers complain ; but 
they were rather full of thankfulness to Lucius for having rescued them from the 
enemy, and they agreed to give him a golden crown ; as he returned to Rome, 
they shouted after him, and called him their protector and their father. 

Great was now the joy in Rome, and the senate decreed that Lucius should 
Luc™ marches back to enter the city in triumph, in the order in which the army was re- 
Rome in triumph, turning from Algidus, and he rode in his chariot, while Gracchus 
and the chiefs of the iEquians were led bound before him ; and the standards 
were borne before him, and all the soldiers, laden with their spoil, followed be- 
hind. And tables were set out at the door of every house, with meat and drink 
for the soldiers, and they and the people feasted together, and followed thk 
chariot of Lucius, with singing and great rejoicings. Thus the gods took 
vengeance up-»n Gracchus and the vEquians ; and thus Lucius delivered the 
consul and his army ; and all was done so quickly, that he went out on one 
evening, and came home the next day at evening victorious and triumphant. 

This famous story is placed by the annalists in the year of Rome 296, thirteen 
General state of the years after the passing of the Publilian law. In such a warfare 
marTs ^rthe'opkan as that of the Romans with the iEquians and Volscians, there are 
the ti0 "hird centu^ of always sufficient alternations of success to furnish the annalists on 
Rom *- either side with matter of triumph ; and by exaggerating every 

victory, and omitting or slightly noticing every defeat, they form a picture such 
as national vanity most delights in. But we neither can, nor need we desire to 
correct and supply the omissions of the details of the Roman historians : it is 
enough to say, that at the close of the third century of Rome, the warfare which 
the Romans had to maintain against the Opican nations was generally defensive ; 
that the ^Equians and Volscians had advanced from the line of the Apennines 
and established themselves on the Alban hills, in the heart of Latium ; that of 
the thirty Latin states which had formed the league with Rome in the year 261, 
thirteen 41 were now either destroyed, or were in the possession of the Opicans ; 

40 Livy, III. 29. Fortona (if it be the same with Ortona), Lavici, 

41 Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, Corbio, Cora, Norba, Pedum, Satricum, Setia, Totina, and 



Chap. XII.] WARS WITH THE ETRUSCANS. 79 

that on the Alban hills themselves, Tusculum alone remained independent ; and 
that there was no other friendly city to obstruct the irruptions of the enemy into 
the territory of Rome. Accordingly, that territory was plundered year after year, 
and whatever defeats the plunderers may at times have sustained, yet they were 
never deterred from renewing a contest which they found in the main profitable 
and glorious. So greatly had the power and dominion of Rome fallen since the 
overthrow of the monarchy. We have now to notice her wars with another 
enemy, the Etruscans ; and to trace on this side also an equal decline in glory 
and greatness since the reigns of the later kings. 



CHAPTER XII. 

wars With the etruscans— veii— legend of the slaughter of the 
fabii at the river cremera. 



" Our hands alone 
Suffice for this ; — take ye no thought for it. 
While the mole breaks the waves, and bides the tempest, 
The ship within rides safe : while on the mountain 
The wind is battling with the adventurous pines, 
He stirs no leaf in the valley. So your state, 
We standing thus in guard upon the border, 
Shall feel no ruffling of the rudest blast 
That sweeps from Veii." 



After the great war of king Porsenna, the Etruscans, for several years, ap- 
pear to have lived in peace with the Romans ; and in the famine Beginning of hostuuiei 
of the year 262, when the enmity of the Volscians would allow withVeil - 
no supplies of corn to be sent to Rome from the countr}- on the left bank of the 
Tiber, the Etruscan cities, we are told, 1 allowed the Romans to purchase what 
the} wanted, and the corn thus obtained was the principal support of the people. 
But nine years afterwards, in 271, a war broke out, not with the Etruscans gen- 
erally, but with the people of the neighboring city of Veii. The quarrel is said 3 
to have arisen out of some plundering inroads made by the Yeientian borderers 
upon the Roman territory ; but it suited the Roman aristocracy at this period to 
involve the nation in foreign contests, 3 in order to prevent the commons from in- 
sisting on the due execution of Cassius' agrarian law ; and quarrels, which at an- 
other time might easily have been settled, were now gladly allowed to end in 
open war. 

Veii 4 lay about ten miles from Rome, between two small streams which meet 
a little below the city, and run down into the Tiber, falling into situation and si Z8 of 
it nearly opposite to Castel Giubileo, the ancient Fidenae. Insig- Ven - 

Velitrce. Carventum seems to have been one Cora. Another supposition, as Mr. Bunsen in- 
of the towns of the Alban hills, and Niebuhr forms me, places it on Monte Ariano, the high- 
suggests that we should read Kopvsvravoi instead est eastern point of that volcanic range of 
of Kopio\avol in Dionysius, VIII. 19, asthepeo- mountains of which Monte Cavo is the most 
pie conquered by Coriolanus, for they are placed western point. But nothing is really known 
in the neighborhood of Corbia and Pedum ; on the question, 
whereas the conquest of the real Coriolani is ' Livy, II. 34. 
mentioned in another place (VIII. 36), and in 2 Dionysius, VIII. 81, 91. 
their proper neighborhood. Sir W. Cell sup- 3 Dionysius, VIII. 81. Dion Cassius, Fragm. 
poses Carventum to have been at Roca Massi- Vatican, XX. 
mi, a high point on the Volscian highlands near 4 See Sir W. Gell's Map of the Campagna. 



80 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XIL 

nificant in point of size, these little streams, however, like those of the Campagna 
generally, are edged by precipitous rocky cliffs, and thus are capable of affording 
a natural defence to a town built on the table-land above and between them. 
The space inclosed by the walls of Veii was equal to the extent 5 of Rome itself, 
so long as the walls of Servius Tullius were the boundary of the city : the citadel 
stood on a distinct eminence, divided by one of the little streams from the rest 
of the town, and defended by another similar valley on the other side. In the 
magnificence of its public and private buildings, Veii is said to have been pre- 
ferred by the Roman commons to Rome ; 6 and we know enough of the great 
works of the Etruscans to render this not impossible ; but the language is too 
vague to be insisted on ; and the Etruscan Veii was as unknown to the Roman 
annalists as to us. On the other hand, Rome had itself been embellished by 
Etruscan art, and had been undei its kings the seat of a far mightier power 
than Veii. 

The government of Veii, like that of the other Etruscan cities, was in the hands 
of an aristocracy of birth, one or more of whom were elected an- 
nually by the whole body to command in war and administer jus- 
tice. There were no free commons ; but a large population of serfs or vassals, 
who cultivated the lands of the ruling class. In wars of peculiar importance, 7 
we read from time to time of the appointment of a king, but his office was for 
life only, and was not perpetuated in his family. The hereditary principle pre- 
vailed, however, in the priesthoods ; none but members of one particular family 
could be priests of Juno, 8 the goddess especially honored at Veii. 

The Veientians, like the other Etruscans, fought in the close order 9 of the pha- 
character of its miiita- l anx \ their arms being the small round shield, and the long pike. 
ryforce - We know not whether they ventured, like the Parthians, to trust 

their serfs with arms equal to their own, and to enrol them in the phalanx ; but 
we may more probably suppose that they employed them only as light-armed 
troops ; and if this were so, their armies must have encountered the Romans at 
a disadvantage, their regular infantry being probably inferior in numbers to the 
legions, and their light troops, except for desultory warfare, still more inferior in 
quality. To make up for this, they employed the services of mercenaries, who 
were generally to be hired from one or other of the states of Etruria, even when 
their respective countries refused to take part publicly in the quarrel. 

The war between the Romans and Veientians, which began in the' year 271, 

5 Dionysius compares the size both of Eome bitionis regem creavere," imply that the goveru- 
and Veil with that of Athens, II. 54. IV. 1-3. ment was commonly exercised by one or more 
Sir W. Gell told me that the traces of the walls magistrates annually chosen, like the consuls at 
of Veii, which he had clearly made out. quite Eome. Niebuhr refers to the case of Lars To- 
justified the comparison of Veii in point of extent lumnius, who had been king of Veii thirtv- 
with Rome. A no. his map shows the same thing, four years before the time of which Livy is speak- 

6 Livy, V. 24. Urbem quoque urbi Eomce vel ing; and he thinks that Livy is mistaken, in 
situ vel magnifi.cen.ti4 publicorum privatorum- supposing the appointment of a king in the last 
que tectorum ac locorum prseponebant. This war with Eome to have been any thing unusual. 
being no more than an expression of opinion (Vol. I. p. 128. 2d ed. note 344.) But we read 
ascribed to the commons, we cannot be sure of no king after Lars Tolumnius till the period 
that Livy had any authority for it at all, any of the last war, nor of any before him in the 
more than for the language of his speeches, earlier wars with Eome. And as the lucumo, 
But suppose that he found it iu some one of or chief magistrate of a single Etruscan city, was 
the older annalists, still it can hardly be more appointed sometimes chief over the whole con- 
than the expression of that annalist's opinion, federacy, when any general war broke out ; so 
grounded possibly upon some tradition of the the annual lueumo may have been made lucumo 
splendor of Veii, but possibly also upon noth- for life in times of danger, if he were a man of 
ing more than the fact that the Eoman com- commanding character and ability. 

mons were at one time anxious to remove to 8 Livy, V. 22. 

Veii. And if the Koman commons had actually " Diodorus. Fragm. Vatican. Lib. XXIII. 

said that Veii was a finer city than Eome. when Tv/>[>tivoi x a ^ Ka 'i aairtoi <pa\ayyonaxovi>Te(, for so 

they were extolling its advantages, is such an we must correct the reading <pd\ayya piaxovvTis, 

assertion to he taken as an historical fact, to just as a little below in the same passage we read 

jni tifj us in passing a judgment as to the com- tnrctpals, i. e. cohortibus, or manipuhs, instead 

parativc magnificence of the two cities? of ircipals, which Mai absurdly renders " cus- 

7 Livy, V. 1. His words, " Tcedio annute am- pidibus." 



Chap. XII.] LEGEND OF THE FABII. 81 

lasted nine years. It is difficult to say what portion of the events outline of the war fro™ 
recorded of it is deserving of credit ; nor would the details, 10 at any 211 10 28 °- 
rate, be worth repeating now. But it seems to have been carried on with equal 
fortune on both sides, and to have been ended by a perfectly equal treaty. The 
Romans established themselves on the Cremera, within the Veientian territory, 
built a sort of town there, and, after having maintained their post for some time, 
to the great annoyance of the enemy, they were at last surprised, and their whole 
force slaughtered, and the post abandoned. Then the Veientians, in their turn, 
established themselves on the hill Janiculum, within the Roman territory ; retal- 
iated, by their plundering excursions across the Tiber, the damage which their 
own lands had sustained from the post on the Cremera ; held their ground for 
more than a year, and then were, in their turn, defeated and obliged to evacuate 
their conquest. Two years afterwards, in 280, a peace was concluded between 
the two nations, to last for forty years ; and, as the Roman historians name no 
other stipulations, we may safely believe that the treaty" merely placed matters 
on the footing on which they had been before the war ; the Romans gave up all 
pretensions to the town which they had founded on the Cremera ; the Veientians 
equally resigned their claim to the settlement which they had made on the hill 
Janiculum. 

But whatever may be thought of the history of this war, it has been the sub- 
ject of one memorable lea;end, the story of the self-devotion of the ,„._,... 

J O ' . J ~ mi i r Story of the Fabu. 

Fabii, ami of their slaughter by the river Cremera. Ihe truth ot 
domestic events, no less than of foreign, has been, probably, disregarded by this 
legend ; and what seems a more real account of the origin of the settlement on 
the Cremera, has been given in a former chapter. The story itself, however, I 
shall now, according to my usual plan, proceed to offer in its own form. 

The Veientians dared not meet the Romans 12 in the open field, but they troubled 
them exceedingly with their incursions to plunder the country. And The Fabian house of . 
on the other side, the iEquians and the Volscians were making wlth^th^VeienS 
war upon the Romans year after year; and while one consul went wholly upon ltself - 
to fight with the JEquians and the other with the Volscians, there was no one to 
stop the plundering^ of the Veientians. So the men of the Fabian house con- 
sulted together, and when they were resolved what to do, they all went to the 
senate-house. And Kseso Fabius, who was consul for that year, went into the 
senate and said, " We of the house of the Fabii take upon us to fight with the Vei- 
entians. We ask neither men nor money from the commonwealth, but we will 
wage the war with our own bodies, at our own cost." The senate heard him joy- 
fully ; and then he went home, and the other men of his house followed him ; 
and he told them to come to him the next day, each man in his full arms ; and 
so they departed. 

The house of Keeso was on the Quirinal Hill ; and thither all the Fabii came to 
him the next day, as he had desired them ; and there they stood in 

J „ , . „ J , . The Faba establish 

array in the outer court ot his house. Kseso then put on his vest, themselves on the ri T - 

such as the Roman generals were used to wear in battle, and came 

out to the men of his house, and led them forth on their way. As they went, a 

10 The Roman accounts of the war may be Porsenna, were at this time recovered. But if 
found in Li vy, II. 42-54, and in Dionysius, VIII. so, the annalist would surely have boasted of 
81. 91. IX. 1-36. I imagine both the post on the cessions of territory made by the Veientians, 
the Cremera and that on the Janiculum to have even if they had been consistent enough not to 
been designed for permanent cities ; the one, describe the country recovered as the very same 
probably, being as near to Veii as the other was which they had made Porsenna restore out of 
to Rome. These were exactly the i-ir£i'x(o-//ara generosity more than thirty years before. Is 
of the Greeks, when executed on a larger scale there any reason to believe that the Romans ad- 
as rival cities, and not mere forts. I may, per- vanced their frontier on the right bank of the 
haps, be allowed to refer to my note on Thu- Tiber opposite Rome, beyond the hills which 
cydides, I. 142, where the two kinds of Imrd- bound the valley of the river, previously to their 
Xiofia are distinguished. conquest of Veii ? 

11 Niebuhr supposes that the septem pagi, u Livy, II. 48. et seqq. 
which the Romans had lost in the war with 

6 



82 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XII. 

great crowd followed after them and blessed them, and prayed the gods for their 
prosperity. They were, in all, three hundred and six men, and they went down 
from the Quirinal Hill and passed along by the Capitol, and went out of the city 
by the gate Carmentalis, by the right-hand passage of the gate. Then they 
came to the Tiber, and went over the bridge, and entered into the country of the 
Veientians, and pitched their camp by the river Cremera ; for there it was their 
purpose to dwell, and to make it a stronghold, from which they might lay waste 
the lands of the Veientians, and carry off their cattle. So they built their for- 
tress by the river Cremera, and held it for more than a year ; and the Veientians 
were greatly distressed, for their cattle and all their goods became the spoil of the 
Fabians. 

But there was a certain day 13 on which the men of the house of the Fabians 
m were accustomed to offer sacrifice and to keep festival together to 

The Veientians lay an , - „ . . . r- i • r i ii i mi /-\ • 

amtau for them, and the gods ol their race, in the seat or their lathers, on the hill Qui- 
rinal. So when the day drew near, the Fabians set out from the 
river Cremera, three hundred and six men in all, and went towards Rome ; for 
they thought that as they were going to sacrifice to their gods, and as it was a 
hoty time, and a time of peace, no enemy would set upon them. But the Veien- 
tians knew of their going, and laid an ambush for them on their wayf and fol- 
lowed them with a great army. So when the Fabians came to the place where 
the ambush was, behold the enemy attacked them on the right and on the left, 
and the army of the Veientians that followed them fell upon them from behind ; 
and they threw their darts and shot their arrows against the Fabians, without 
daring to come within reach of spear or sword, till they slew them every man. 
Three hundred and six men of the house of the Fabians were there killed, and 
there was not a grown man of the house left alive : one boy only, on account of 
his youth, had been left behind in Rome, and he lived and became a man, and 
preserved the race of the Fabians ; for it was the pleasure of the gods that great 
deeds should be done for the Romans by the house of the Fabians in after-times. 

13 This latter part of the story is one of the The devotion of the Fabians to the sacrifices of 

versions of it given by Dionysius, which he re- their house on the Quirinal was a part of their 

jects as improbable. Of course I am not main- traditional character; a similar story was told 

tabling its probability, but I agree with Nie- of C. Fabius Dorso, who broke out from the 

buhr in thinking it a far more striking story Capitol while the Gauls were besieging it, and 

than that which Dionysius prefers to it, and made his way to the Quirinal Hill to perform the 

which has been adopted by Livy and by Ovid, appointed sacrifice of his house. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

INTERNAL HISTORY— THE TERENTILIAN LAW— APPOINTMENT OF THE TEN 

HIGH COMMISSIONERS TO FRAME A CODE OF WRITTEN LAWS. 

A. U. C. 284-303. 



, 0\t\apx^a &* T &" l** v K(»3ilnii» toIs 7ToAXoi; jiiTabibuiai, tZv 5 oxpeXlpuiv ov tt\t.ov£KTtX p6vov, aX\a Kal 
%-uji.nav a^>t\ojiivr] sx £t ' " VftSv o'i Tt ivvdfitvoi Kal oi iiot itpoSvixovvTai, dbivara cv neyd^y irdXst Karaa- 
xdv. — Tuucydides, VI. 39. 

TiTaprnv eTubs d\iyap%'ias, '6rav frals hvrX irarpbs dairj. Kal apxv f'/ & v6\los dXX' oi apx oi/T£ S- Kai scrriv 
avTiaTpotpos avTTj Iv rats oXiyapxiais, Sicnrep r) rvpawls tf Tals jiovapxias, Kal itepi i)S Tt,\wrala% dirofiev <5i;- 
/iOKptiTias lv Tals SrinoKpariais- — Akistotle, Politic. IV. 5. 



Nothing- is more unjust than the vague charge sometimes brought against 
Niebuhr, that he has denied the reality of all the early history of Rome. On the- 
contrary, he has rescued from the dominion of skepticism much which less pro- 
found inquirers had before too hastily given up to it ; he has restored and estab- 
lished far more than he has overthrown. Ferguson finds no sure ground to rest 
on till he comes to the second Punic war. In his view, not only the period of 
the lungs and the first years of the commonwealth, but the whole of two, addi- 
tional centuries, — not only the wars with the JEquians and Volscians, but those 
with the Gauls, the Samnites, and even with Pyrrhus, — are involved in consid- 
erable uncertainty. The progress of the constitution he is content to trace in the 
merest outline : particular events, and still more particular characters, appear to 
him to belong to poetry or romance, rather than to history. Whereas Niebuhr 
maintains that a true history of Rome, with many details of dates, places, events, 
and characters, may be recovered from the beginning of the commonwealth. It 
has been greatly corrupted and disguised by ignorant and uncritical writers, but 
there exist, he thinks, sufficient materials to enable us, not only to get rid of 
these corruptions, but to restore that genuine and original edifice, which they 
have so long overgrown and hidden from our view. And accordingly, far from 
passing over hastily, like Ferguson, the period from the expulsion of Tarquinius 
to the first Punic war, he has devoted to it somewhat more than two large vol- 
umes ; and from much, that to former writers seemed a hopeless chaos, he has 
drawn a living picture of events and institutions, as rich in its coloring, as perfect 
in its composition, as it is faithful to the truth of nature. 

Were I, indeed, to venture to criticise the work of this great man, I should be 
inclined to charge him with having overvalued, rather than undervalued, the pos- 
sible certainty of the early history of the Roman commonwealth. He may seem, 
in some instances, rather to lean too confidently on the authority of the ancient 
writers, than to reject it too indiscriminately. But let no man judge him hastily, 
till, by long experience in similar researches, he has learnt to estimate sufficiently 
the instinctive power of discerning truth, which even ordinary minds acquire by 
constant practice. In Niebuhr, practice, combined with the natural acuteness of 
his mind, brought this power to a perfection which has never been surpassed. 
It is not caprice, but a most sure instinct, which has led him to seize on some 
particular passage of a careless and ill-informed writer, and to perceive in it the 
marks of most important truth ; while, on other occasions, he has set aside the 
statements of this same writer, with no deference to his authority whatever. To 
say that his instinct is not absolutely infallible, is only to say that he was a man ; 
but he who follows him most carefully, and thinks over the subject of his re- 



84 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIII. 

searches most deeply, will find the feeling of respect for his judgment continually- 
increasing, and will be more unwilling to believe what Niebuhr doubted, or to 
doubt what he believed. 

I have said thus much as a preface to the ensuing chapter, in which I am to 
trace the internal history of Rome, from the passing of the Publilian law to the 
appointment of the decemvirs. The detail itself will show how little Niebuhr has 
deserved to be charged with overthrowing the Roman history ; while, on the 
other hand, if I have followed him even on ground on which, had he not pro- 
nounced it to be firm, I might myself have feared to venture, I have done it, not 
in blind or servile imitation, but in the reasonable confidence inspired by expe- 
rience. For many years I had doubted and disputed Niebuhr's views on several 
points of importance, but having had reason at last to be convinced that they 
were right, 1 feel for him now a deference the more unhesitating, as it was not 
hastily given, nor without inquiry. 

Immediately after the passing of the Publilian law, 1 the consuls took the field 
a. u c 2ss ac a » amst tue -^Equians and Volscians. It was now the period when 
«9. campaign of Ap. those two nations were pressing most dangerously upon Latium, 

pius Claudius aguuist . ■» . " 1 <• 1 t ■ 

the ^quians and Yoi- not only overrunning the territory both of the Latins and Romans 
with their plundering incursions, but taking or destroying the 
cities of the Latin confederacy. There was no choice, therefore, but to oppose 
them ; and thus the hated Appius Claudius, as well as his colleague, T. Quinc- 
tius, led out an army from the city. But the mutual suspicion and hatred be- 
tween him and the commons was so great that they could not act together. He 
was tyrannical, and his soldiers became discontented and disobedient. In this 
temper they met the Volscians and were beaten ; and Appius, finding it hope- 
less to continue the campaign, began to retreat towards Rome. On his retreat 
he was again attacked and again beaten ; the soldiers, it is said, throwing away 
their arms and flying at the first onset. Thus doubly embittered by the shame 
of his defeats, and having obtained some color for his vengeance, Appius, as soon 
as he had rallied his army on ground out of the reach of the enemy, proceeded 
to indulge his old feelings of hatred to the commons. By the aid of the Latin 
and Hernican troops who were present in the army, and, above all, of the Roman 
burghers, who formed the best armed and best trained part of his own forces, 
he was enabled to seize and execute every centurion whose century had fled, and 
every standard-bearer who had lost his standard, and then to put to death one 
out of every ten men of the whole multitude of legionary soldiers. 

The maintenance of military discipline, by whatever degree of severity it was 
Appius is brought to effected, was regarded by the Romans, not as a crime, but as a 
Sums oi ft h?s nt subse-" sacred duty ; nor would even the commons have complained of 
Appius for simply punishing with rigor his cowardly or mutinous 
soldiers. But when new consuls were come into office, L. Valerius and T. /fimil- 
a. u. c. 248. a. c. ms , 2 and both showed themselves inclined to carry into effect the 
agrarian law of Sp. Cassius, while Appius still opposed it, and 
was most forward in defeating the measure, then two of the tribunes, M. Duilius 
and C. Sicinius, 8 brought him to trial before the commons as the perpetual ene- 
my of their order ; accusing him of giving evil counsels to the senate, of having 
laid violent hands on the sacred person of a tribune in the disputes about the 
Publilian law, and lastly, of having brought loss and shame on the common- 
wealth, by his ill conduct in his late expedition against the Volscians. His 
bloody executions were not charged as a crime against him ; but every friend or 
relation of his victims would feel, that he who had dealt such severe justice to 

1 Livy, IT. 5ft, 50. Pinnvsius, IX. 50. the consuls at this period began their year on 

3 Livy, II. 61. Dionysius, IX. 51-54. the first of August (Livy, III. 6); when the 

3 These were two of the tribunes elected tribunes began theirs, before the decemvirate, 

when the Publilian law was passed. The trib- is uncertain. See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 227, ana 

unes and consuls came into office, it should note 4'J2, 2d edit. 

be remembered, at different times of the year ; 



Chap. XIII] PERIOD OF PESTILENCE. 85 

others, could claim no mitigation of .justice towards himself; and Appius felt 
this also, and neither expected mercy from the commons, nor would yield to ask 
it. A most extraordinary difference prevails, however, in the accounts of his 
subsequent fate. The common story says that he died in prison before his trial, 
implying that he killed himself to escape his sentence ; but, according to the Fasti 
Capitohni, 4 it was this same Appius who, twenty years afterwards, became de- 
cemvir ; and we must suppose, therefore, that he now fled from Rome, and lived 
for some years in exile at Regillus, till circumstances enabled him to return, and 
to take part in public affairs once more. 

The two following years were marked 5 by continued contests about the agra- 
rian law of Cassius, which still led to no result. The fortune of A . u, c . . 285 . A . c. 
war, however, gave some relief to the necessities of the poorer porttakm k bythe d Ro- 
commons : for, in the year 285, the port 6 of Antium was taken, mans ' 
and a quantity of merchandise was found there, which was all given up to the 
soldiers ; and the year following Antium itself fell into the hands of the Romans ; 
and on this occasion, also, the soldiers derived some profit from their conquest. 

In the year 287, Ti. JEmilius, one of the consuls, supported the demand of 
the tribunes for the execution of the agrarian law ; and we are A . n . c . 286 A . c , 
told that the senate, 1 in order to pacify the commons by a partial 466 - 
compliance, proposed to send a colony to Antium, and to allow the commons, as 
well as the burghers, to enrol themselves amongst the colonists. But as the 
colony was to consist equally of Romans, 8 Latins, and Hernicans, and would be 
placed in a position of great insecurity, being, in fact, no other than a garrison, 
which would have at once to keep down the old population of the city within, 
and to defend itself against enemies without, the relief thus offered to the com- 
mons was neither very considerable in its amount, nor in its nature very desirable. 

The next year began a period of distress and suffering so severe, and arising 
from such various causes, that political disputes were of necessity Severe Tisitation8 o{ 
suspended, and for four years no mention is made of any demands P estilenoe - 
for the agrarian law, or of any other proceeding of the tribunes. The middle of 
the fifth century before, the Christian era was one of those periods in the history 
of mankind which, from causes to us unknown, have been marked by the ravages 
of pestilence ; when a disease of unusual virulence has, in a manner, travelled up 
and down over the habitable world during the space of twenty, thirty, or even 
fifty years ; returning often to the same place after a certain interval ; pausing 
sometimes in its fury, and appearing to* sleep, but again breaking out on some 
point or other within its range, till, at the end of its appointed period, it disap- 
pears altogether. Rome was first visited by one of these pestilences, as has 
been already mentioned, in the year 282, when it caused a very great mortality ; 
it now returned again in 288, 9 and crippled the operations of the Roman army 
against the ^Equians. Whether it continued in the following year A v _ c . 289- A . c> 
is uncertain, but the ^Equians plundered the Roman territory with 466- 
great success ; and although the Roman annalists pretend that, towards the end 
of the year, the consul, Q. Fabius, cut off the main body of the plunderers, and 
then in turn ravaged the lands of the enemy, yet it is manifest that the cam- 
paign was on the whole unfavorable to the Romans. So it was the next year 

4 It had _ been long known that the Fasti 6 Livy calls this place Ceno ; the Antiates, it 
called Appius the decemvir, " Ap. F. M. N." seems, already had begun the piracies, of which 
" Appii Filius, Marci Nepos ;" whereas the Demetrius Poliorcetes complained long after- 
common story makes him the grandson, as well wards to the Eomans ; and the merchandise 
as the son. of an Appius. But one of the re- taken by the Eomans was partly, it is said, ob- 
cently discovered fragments of the Fasti calls tained in this manner, probably from the Car- 
the decemvir, under the year 302, "Appius thaginians. The situation of Ceno is unknown: 
Claudius, Ap. F. M. N. Crassin. Eegill. Sabi- Strabo speaks of Antium itself as being with- 
nus, II.," clearly showing that by calling the out a harbor, as standing high upon cliffs, 
consulship of 302 his second consulship, the 7 Livy, III. 1. 
author ot the Fasti considered him to be the 8 Dio'nysius, IX. 59. 
same man who had been consul in 283. 9 Livy, III. 2. 

6 Livy, II. 63-65. Dionysius, IX. 56-58. 



86 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIIL 

also : the united forces of the Romans, Latins, and Hernicans, could not prevent 
the total ravaging of the Roman territory ; and the crowding 10 of the fugitives 
from the country into the city was a cause or an aggravation of the return of the 
pestilence, which broke out again in the autumn, soon after the appointment of 
the consuls for the year 291, with unparalleled fury. During the whole of this 
fatal year, the Romans were dying by thousands within the city, while the iEqui- 
ans and Volscians were ravaging the whole country without opposition, and de- 
feated with great loss the Latins and Hernicans, who vainly attempted to defend 
the territory of their allies and their own. At last the pestilence 
abated, and the new consuls, in the autumn of 292," took the field, 
and made head against the enemy with some effect. Immediately on this first 
gleam of better times, the political grievances of the commons began again to ex- 
cite attention and to claim redress. 

We are told that one of the tribunes' 2 again brought forward the question of 
First proposal of the the agrarian law ; but that the commons themselves refused to 
Terentiiian law. entertain it, and resolved to put it off till a more favorable oppor- 

tunity. This is ascribed by Dionysius to the zeal which all orders felt to take 
vengeance on their foreign enemies ; but he forgets that another measure, no 
less obnoxious to the burghers, was brought forward in this year, and readily 
received by the commons : and the better explanation is, that the leaders of the 
commons began to see that they must vary their course of proceeding ; that to 
contend for the agrarian law under the actual constitution, was expecting fresh 
and pure water from a defiled spring ; the real evil lay deeper, and the commons 
must obtain equal rights and equal power with the burghers, before they could 
hope to carry such measures as most concerned their welfare. Accordingly, 
Caius Terentilius 13 Harsa, one of the tribunes, proposed a law for a complete re- 
form of the existing state of things. Its purport was, that 14 ten commissioners 
should be chosen, five by the commons and five by the burghers, and that those 
so chosen should draw up a constitution, which should define all points of con- 
stitutional, civil, and criminal law ; and should thus determine, on just and fixed 
principles, all the political, social, and civil relations of all orders of the Roman 
people. 

Now, as a popular cry of reform has never originated in the love of abstract 
Actual grievances of the justice, or in the mere desire of establishing a perfect form of gov- 
comnious. eminent, but has been always provoked by actual grievances, and 

has looked especially for some definite arfd particular relief, so the Roman com- 
mons, in supporting the Terentiiian law, were moved by certain practical evils, 
which lay so deep in the existing state of things, that nothing else than a total 
reform of the constitution could remove them. These were, the extreme separa- 
tion and unequal rights of the burghers and the commons, the arbitrary powers 
of the consuls, and the uncertainty and variety of the law ; evils which affected 
every part of men's daily life ; and the first of them, in particular, was a direct 
obstacle to that execution of Cassius' agrarian law, on which the actual subsist- 

10 Livy, III. 6. Terentiiian law, 6ixa aitpas iXiaOm ^vyypa^ini 

~ n Livy, III. 8. ahroKpiiropiii — *«(?' o n apiara >) rrfXif oiKi'iatTai. 

22 Dionysius, IX. 69. The name of the trib- We are so accustomed to distinguish between a 

unc is corrupt, St'^rou TiVou. Gelenius propo- constitution and a code of laws, that we have no 

bos to read TitIov. one word which will express both, or convey a 

13 Livy, 111. 9. Niebuhr writes the tribune's lull idea of the wide range of the commission- 
name "Terentilius," according to some of the er's powers; which embraced at once the work 
best MSS. of Livy. Dionysius rails him " Te- of the French constituent assembly, and that of 
rentius." Napoleon when he drew up his code. But this 

11 Livy Bpeaka only of five ; Dionysius often: comprehensiveness belonged to the character of 
Niebuhr reconciles the two statements in the the ancient Imogwers; a far higher term than 
manner given in the text. legislators, although etymologicaUy the same; 

These "high commissioners," "Decemviri they provided for the whole lira of their citizens 

legibus scribendis," were like the Greek vo^oOi- in all its relations, social, civil, political, moral, 

rat, or, in the language of Thucydides (VIII. and religious. 
57), which exactly expresses the object of the 



C^ap. XIII] THE TERENTILIAN" LAW. 87 

ence of the poorer commons after the late times of misery and ruin might be 
said to depend. 

Society has almost always begun in inequality, and its tendency is towards, 
equality. This is a sure progress; but the inequality of its first Their original political 
stage is neither unnatural nor unjust ; it is only the error of pre- Xto'tTek^iterVdc^ 
serving instead of improving which has led to injustice ; the folly cumstfmce3 - ^ 
of thinking that men's institutions can be perpetual when every thing else in the 
world is continually changing. When the conquered Latins were first brought 
to Rome by those who were then the only Roman citizens, when they were al- 
lowed to retain their personal liberty, to enjoy landed property, and to become so 
far a part of the Roman people, it was not required that they should at once 
pass from the condition of foreigners to that of perfect citizens ; the condition of 
commons was a fit state of transition from the one rank to the other. But after 
years had passed away, and both they and their original conquerors were, in 
fact, become one people ; above all, when this truth had been already practically 
acknowledged by the constitution of Servius Tullius, to continue the old distinc- 
tions was but provoking a renewal of the old hostility : if the burghers and the 
commons were still to be like two nations, the one sovereign and the other sub- 
ject, the commons must retain the natural right of asserting their independence 
on the first opportunity, of wholly dissolving their connection with those who re- 
fused to carry it out to its full completion. That their desire was for complete 
union, rather than for independence, arose, over and above all other particular 
causes, from that innate fondness for remaining as we are, which nothing but the 
most intolerable miser)*' can wholly eradicate. 

The burghers resolved to resist the Terentilian law, but they wished, apparent- 
Jv, as in the case of the Publilian laws, to prevent its beinff passed „ , t J v 4 . 

J ' . ' * , o l Means adonterl by the 

bv the commons in their tribes, rather than to throw it out in their bprgiie™ to oppose the 

J . ' . Terentilian law. Im- 

own assembly ot the curiae or in the senate. Accordingly, they peachment of kkuo 
again proceeded by an organized system of violence ; the younger 
burghers were accustomed to have their brotherhoods or clubs, like the young 
men of the aristocratical party in Athens ; the members of these clubs were ready 
to dare any thing for the support of their order, and being far more practised in 
martial exercises than the commons, were superior in activity, if not in actual 
strength, and, by acting in a body, repeatedly interrupted all business, and drove 
their antagonists from the Forum. At the head of these systematic rioters was 
Keeso Quinctius, ! the son of the famous L. Quinctius Cincinnatus ; and he made 
himself so conspicuous, that A. Virginius, one of the tribunes, impeached him 
before the assemby of the tribes, and named a day on which he was to appear to 
answer to the charge. 

This is the fifth instance of impeachment by the tribunes, which we have met 
with in the course of fifteen vears, besides the famous case of Co- 

. , m , ....'' , -. 1 _ .. Of the Icilian law, on 

nolanus. I lie right in the present case was grounded on the leu- which his impeachment 
ian law, brought forward by a tribune, Sp. Icilius, which I have 
not noticed before, because the time at which it passed is doubted. Dionysius, 
who alone mentions it, places 16 it as early as the year 262, in the year after the 
first appointment of the tribunes ; while Niebuhr thinks that it could not have 
been earlier than the year 284, and that it was one of the consequences of the 
success of the Publilian laws. It established the important point, that if any 
burgher interrupted a tribune when speaking to the commons in their own assem- 
bly, the tribune might impeach him before the commons, and might require him 
to give sureties to such an amount as the accuser should think proper ; if he re- 
fused to give security, he was to be put to death and his property confiscated ; 
if he demurred to the amount of the sum required, this question also was to be 
tried by the commons. The great object in this law was to assert the jurisdic- 

16 Livy, III. 11. Dionysius, X. 4, 5. w Dionysius, VII. 17. 



88 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIII. 

tion of the commons over a burgher ; hence the severity of the punishment if the 
accused refused to give the required security ; he was then to be put to death as 
an open enemy ; but if he complied, and appeared to answer to the charge, the 
ordinary sentence for a mere interruption of the business of the assembly of the 
tribes, would probably be no more than a fine ; and this seems to have caused 
the confusion of Dionysius' statement, for he represents the sureties as required, 
not for the accused person's appearance at his trial, but for his payment of such 
a fine as the tribunes might impose, as if the sentence could, in no case, exceed 
a fine. Whereas the case of Appius Claudius, as well as that of Kbbso, proved 
the contrary ; and of Keeso, Livy says 11 expressly that the tribune impeached him 
for a capital offence, before the alleged charge of murder was brought against 
him. In fact, where there is no fixed criminal law, awarding certain punishments 
for certain offences, the relation of judge implies a power of deciding not only as 
to the. guilt or innocence of the prisoner, but also as to the degree of his guilt, 
and the nature of the punishment to be inflicted. And much more would this 
be the case when the judgment was exercised, not by an individual magistrate, 
but by the sovereign society itself. 

According to the Icilian law, the tribune called upon Kaeso Quinctius to give 
Kaeso goes into exile sureties for his appearance, and the amount of the security required 
before his trki. w ^ g heavy ; he was to find ten sureties, 18 at three thousand ases 

each. But in the mean time a witness, M. Volscius Fictor, who had been trib- 
une some years before, came forward to charge Kseso with another and a totally 
distinct crime. " During the time of the plague," he said, " he and his brother, 
a man advanced in years, and not completely recovered from an attack of the 
pestilence, had fallen in with Kaeso and a party of his club in all the license of 
riot in the Suburra. An affray had followed, and his brother had been knocked 
down by Kseso : the old man had been carried home, and died, as he thought, 
from the injury; but the consuls had every year refused to listen to his com- 
plaint, and try the offender." Outrages of this sort on the part of the young 
aristocracy were common even at Athens ; 19 in aristocratical states they must have 
been far more frequent ; and in all ordinary cases there is a sympathy with youth 
and birth, even amongst the people themselves, which is against any severe deal- 
ing with such excesses. But Kasso's offence was gross, and seemed to belong to 
his general character; the commons were indignant to the highest degree at this 
new crime, and could scarcely be prevented from tearing the offender to pieces. 
Even the tribune thought that no money security was sufficient when the charge 
was so serious ; the body of the accused must be kept safe in prison, that he 
might abide the sentence of the law. But some of the other tribunes Avere pre- 
vailed on by the powerful friends of the criminal to extend to him their protec- 
tion ; they forbade the attachment of his person. Being thus left at huge, ho 
withdrew from justice, and fled across the Tiber into Etruria before his trial came 
on.-" His relations, by whose influence justice had been thus defrauded, paid the 
poor compensation of their forfeited bail ; and even here the punishment would 
not fall on the guilty, for when a burgher was fined, his clients were bound to 
contribute to discharge it for him. 

Kseso's flight provoked his associates to dare the last extremities. From mere 
conspiracy to effect hi* rioters they became conspirators; and they played their game 
deeply. Still continuing their riots whenever the assembly of the 
tribes met, but taking care that no one of their body should be especially conspicu- 
ous, they, on all other occasions, 21 endeavored to make themselves popular: they 
would speak civilly to the commons, would talk with them, and ask them to their 

17 "A. Virginius Kcesoni capitis diem dicit." non. See, too, the stories told in Plutarch of 

111. 1 1. tin' manifold excesses of Aloibiades. 

a Livy. in. 18. M Livy, III. L8. 

a Bee tin' well-known speech of Demosthenes ai Livy, 111. 14. 
flfiahist Midios{and also the speeeh against Co- 



Chap. XIII] K.ESO QUINCTIUS. 89 

houses, well knowing how readily the poor and the humble are won by a little 
attention and liberality on the part of the rich and noble. Meanwhile, a darker 
plot was in agitation : Kseso held frequent communication with them ; he had 
joined himself to a band of exiles and runaway slaves from various quarters, such 
as abounded in Italy then no less than in the middle ages : with this aid he would 
surprise the Capitol by night, his associates would rise and massacre the tribunes 
and the most obnoxious of the commons, and thus the old ascendency of the 
burghers would be restored, such as it had been before the fatal concessions made 
at the Sacred Hill. 

Such was the information which the tribunes, according to Dionysius, 22 laid be- 
fore the senate, soon after Kaeso's flight from Rome. From what 

' o , A party of exiles and 

annalist he copied this statement does not appear; but Livy, who staves surprise <^cap ; - 
has followed some author far more partial to the Quinctian family, recovered the next any, 

. r , . . , , • l j. and the party who had 

makes no mention of it, although it is really essential to the right s^ed it are cut to 

° ** . -n ■ i pieces. 

understanding of his own subsequent narrative, h or in the next 
yeai-, according to the account of both Livy and Dionysius, 23 the Capitol was sur- 
prised by night by a body of slaves and exiles, and the leader of the party made 
it his first demand that all Roman exiles should be restored to their country. 
The burghers had great difficulty in persuading the commons to take up arms ; 
till at last the consul, P. Valerius, prevailed with them, and relying on his word 
that he would not only allow the tribunes to hold their assembly for the consider- 
ation of the Terentilian law, but would do his best to induce the senate and the 
curiae to give their consent to it, the commons followed him to the assault of the 
Capitol. He himself was killed in the onset ; but the Capitol was carried, and 
all its defenders either slain on the spot, or afterwards executed. 

The leader of this desperate band is said to have been a Sabine, Appius Her- 
donius : and in the story of the actual attempt, the name of Kasso ■ , \ . a 

. i ' -r» i . i 24 r ~r> Kffiso's share m the en- 

is not mentioned. But we hear, m general terms, of Roman ex- terprire not opcniy ac- 

,. , . n i . /i n . i knowledged. 

lies, whom it was the especial object of the enterprise to restore to 
their country; and we may be sure that Kasso was one of them. Appius Her- 
donius was, probably, a Sabine adventurer in circumstances like his own, whom 
he persuaded to aid him in his attempt. Had we the real history of these times, 
Ave should find, in all likelihood, that the truth in the stories of Kseso and Corio- 
lanus has been exactly inverted ; that the share of the Roman exile in the sur- 
prise of the Capitol has been as unduly suppressed as that of the Roman exile in 
the great Volscian war has been unduly magnified ; that Kebso's treason has been 
transferred tr Appius Herdonius, while the glory of the Volscian leader, Attius 
Tullius, has been bestowed on Coriolanus. 

The burghers, as a body, would certainly be opposed, both from patriotic and 
selfish motives, to the attempt of Kseso ; an exile forcing his return l. Quinea™, the M»r 
by the swords of other exiles, and seizing the citadel, was likely to TeSii'an ¥aw e vehe- 
set himself up as a tyrant alike over the burghers and the com- mentl >'- 
mons; and even his own father, L. Quinctius, would have been the first to resist 
him. But when he had fallen, and this danger was at an end, other feelings re- 
turned ; and L. Quinctius would then hate the commons with a deeper hatred, 
as he would ascribe to them the miserable fate of his son ; Kaeso's guilt, no less 
than his misfortune, would appear the consequence of their persecution. So when 
he was elected consul in the room of P. Valerius, he seemed to set no bounds to 
his thirst for vengeance. The promise by which Valerius had prevailed on the 
commons to follow him to the recovery of the Capitol was utterly disregarded ; 
L. Quinctius 25 openly set the tribunes at defiance, told them that they should 
never pass their law while he was consul, and declared that he would instantly 
lead forth the legions into the field against the ^Equians and Volscians. 

38 Dionysius, X. 10, 11. M See chap. XI. note 11. 

33 Livy, III. 15. Dionysius, X. 14-16. M Livy, III. 19. 



90 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIIL 

The tribunes 25 represented that they "would not allow him to enlist any as sol- 
. . . diers : but Quinctius replied, that he needed no enlistment ; "the 

His violent measures. , . ± , -,-. TT . . 

men who took up arms under r. Valerius swore to assemble at the 
consul's bidding, and not to disband without his orders. The consul never dis- 
banded them ; and I, the consul," he said, " command you to meet me in arms 
a. u. c. 294. a. c. to-morrow at the lake Regillus." But more was said to be de- 
458- signed than a simple postponement of the Terentilian law : the 

augurs were to attend, 27 in order to inaugurate the ground where the soldiers were 
to meet, and thus convert it into a lawful place of assembly ; then the army, in its 
centuries, would be called upon to repeal all the laws which had been passed at 
Rome under the influence of the tribunes ; and none would dare to oppose the 
consul's will, for,, beyond the distance of one mile from the city, the tribunes' 
protection would be of no avail, nor did there exist any right of appeal. More 
than all, Quinctius repeatedly declared that, when his year of office was expired, 
he would name a dictator, that the tribunes might be awed by the power of a 
magistrate from whom there lay no appeal, even within the walls of Rome. 

The Roman annalists who recorded these events 2s loved to believe that, in spite 
He is prevailed upon to of all their provocations, the commons so respected the sacredness 
abandon ti,e m . of an ^ t k at they vyould have kept the letter of it to their own 

hurt, even when its spirit in no way bound them to obedience. They say that the 
tribunes and the commons felt that they could not resist as a matter of right : 
that they appealed 29 to the mercy of the senate, and that the senate only prevailed 
with the consuls to abandon their purpose of taking the field, on condition that 
the tribunes would promise not to bring forward the question of the law again 
during that year. It may be, however, that the senate knew how far they could 
safely tempt the patience of the tribunes ; threats might be held out, in order to 
claim a merit in abandoning them ; but an actual attempt to march the legions 
out of the city, with the avowed purpose of making them the helpless instruments 
in the destruction of their own liberties, would be too bold a venture ; at the last 
excess of insolent tyranny, Nemesis would surely awake to vengeance. 

At any rate, 30 it appeared that neither the tribunes nor the commons were dis- 
posed to let the Terentilian law be forp-otten ; for when the elec- 

A. U. C. 295. \. C. 457. * o ' 

The law is delayed by tions came on, the same tribunes who had already been in office for 
two years were re-elected for a third year, and again began to 
bring forward the disputed question. But again they gave way to the pressure 
of foreign war ; for the danger from the JEquians and Volscians wa$|igjminent : 
the former had surprised the citadel of Tusculum ; the latter had expelled the 
Roman colony from Antium, and recovered that important city. After a series 
of operations, which lasted for several months, the ^Equians were dislodged from 
Tusculum, but Antium still remained in the possession of the Volscians. 

Thus the Terentilian law was again delayed : : '' but, in the mean time, the burghers, 
who retained a lively resentment for the fate of Kaeso, were trying 

Cliariri- against M. W- ,. . . r r- l •. . ■»«■ TT 1 i i 

Mim for false witness to establish a charm' oi raise witness against M. V olscius, by whose 

in the trial ill' Kltso. . l • 1 1 ) l i /• TT ) • l i l 

testimony, as to his brothers murder, the event ot Kaesos trial had 
been chiefly decided. The two quaestores parricidii, or chief criminal judges, 
proposed to impeach Volscius before the curice ; but the tribunes refused to allow 
the trial to come on till the question of the law had been first decided. Thus the 
year passed away : but the tribunes were again, for the fourth time, re-elected. 

In the following year is placed the story already related of the dictatorship of 
a. u. c. 296. a. c. L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, and his deliverance of the consul and his 
4 ' 6- army, when they were blockaded by the ./Eqiiians. The continued 

20 Livy, HI. 20. apt as faeicbat, sod suos potius mores ad ea ac- 

27 Livy, III. 20. commodabat. 

'■* Livy, HI. 20. Nontlum litre, qntv nunc to- '"•' Livy, 1 1 1. 21. 

net sfficulum, aegligentia Deura veneral i nee in- ;i " Livy, III. 21-23. 

torpretaudo sibi quiflque jusjiiian.lum ot loyos 31 Livy, III. 24. 



Chap. XIII] NUMBER OF TRIBUNES INCREASED TO TEN. 91 

absence 32 of fclie legions, which kept the field nearly the whole year, afforded the 
burghers a pretence for opposing the introduction of the law ; but D . tatorshi of L _ 
L. Quinctius availed himself of his dictatorial power to hold the Quinctius. voiscma 

1 r> 1 • 1 J o oes mt0 exile. 

comitia for the trial of Volscius, in defiance of the tribunes; and 
the accused, feeling his condemnation to be certain, left Rome, and availed him- 
self of the interchange of citizenship between the Romans and Latins, to become 
a citizen of Lanuvium. The tribunes were again re-elected for a fifth time. 

The year 297 33 was marked by the same dangers from the iEquians ; and the 
Sabines are said, in this and in the former year, to have joined A . v , c . 29 i. a. c. 
them, and to have carried alarm and devastation into a new part numbeJ n oTthe m tribt 
of the Roman territory, that which lay between the Tiber and the unes - 
Anio. ' Thus the law made no progress : but the tribunes obtained an important 
point, that their number should henceforth be doubled. Ten tribunes were from 
this time forward annually elected ; two from each of the five classes. 

There can be no doubt that the annals of this period, as we now have them in 
Livy and Dionysius, present a very incomplete picture of these The annals have not 
dissensions. The original source of the details must have been the fj^dMrd'irs^f'Xw 
memorials of the several great families ; each successive version of tunes- 
these, as men's notions of their early history became more and more romantic, 
would omit whatever seemed inconsistent with the supposed purity and noble- 
ness of the times of their forefathers ; and acts of bloody vengeance, which the 
actors themselves, and their immediate descendants, regarded with pride rather 
than compunction, as Sulla gloried in his proscriptions and recorded them on his 
monument, were carefully suppressed by historians of a later age. The burghers 
of the third and fourth centuries thought it no dishonor that their own daggers, 34 
or those of their faithful clients, should have punished with death the insolence 
and turbulence of the most obstinate of the commons ; they would glory in 
breaking up the assemblies of their adversaries by main force, and in treating them, 
on other occasions, with all possible scorn and contumely ; ejecting them from 
their houses 35 with a strong hand, insulting them and their families in their 
nightly revels, or in open day ; abusing them in the streets, or besetting their 
doors 36 with armed slaves, and carrying off their wives and daughters. 37 Their 
own houses, built mostly on the hills of Rome, which were so many separate 
fortresses, and always, by their style of building, secure at once from public no- 
tice and from attack, favored the perpetration of all acts of violence. Others, 
besides insolvent debtors, might be shut up in their dungeons ; and if hatred or 
fear prompted them to consign their victims to a yet surer keeping, the dungeon 
might readily become a grave, 38 and who would dare to search for those whom it 
contained, whether alive or dead ? 

One act in particular, in which its authors doubtless gloried as in a signal ex- 
ample of public iustice, has been so concealed by the later annal- 

■i r J _ ' _ /••I'll Obscure story about tbe 

ists, that from the taint and contused notices ot it which alone re- burning of nine men as 

.... . _ . traitors. 

main to us, we can neither discover its date, nor its cause, nor any 

32 Livy, III. 29. 33 Livy, III. 30. wealth, we may judge of that shown to the 

34 Zonaras, VII. 17, who, as we now find, commons at an earlier period. 

borrowed his statement from Dion Cassius. 37 The famous story of Virginia cannot have 

Dion's words are, ol evTzarpibm ^>avepSg ph oh been a solitary instance. Virginia was the 

■kcLm, it\r)v Ppaxtuv, hi8cidX,ovTis riva, avriiTpaT- daughter of a centurion, and betrothed to no 

tov, \d6p'i ic ovxvoiis rdv dpaavrdruiv i<povevov. less a man than L. Icilius, the famous proposer 

Fragm. Vatic. XXII. of the law, "de Aventino publicando." If 

35 This is implied in the "forcible occupa- such an outrage could be ventured against a 
tion" noticed in the law, " de Aventino publi- woman of such birth, and so connected, we 
cando." may conceive what those of humbler condition 

36 Such outrages must be alluded to in the were exposed to. 

speech ascribed to L. Quinctius, Livy, III. 19. 3B The body of a murdered man was discov- 

"Si quis ex plebe domum suam obsessam a fa- ered to have been buried in the house of P. 

milia armata nunciaret, fereudum auxilium pit- Sestius, a burgher, in the first year of the de- 

taretis." The conduct of Verres at Lampsa- cemvirate. Livy, III. 33. The discovery oi 

cus illustrates this ; from the treatment of the one such case implies that there were many 

provincials in the later times of the common- others which were not discovered. 



92 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XIIL 



of its particulars. We only know, that at some time or other during the latter 
half of the third century of Rome, nine eminent men, 39 who advocated the cause 
of the commons, were burned alive in the Circus, such being the old punishment 
of the worst traitors. It appears, however, from the fragment of Festus, which 
undoubtedly relates to this event, that some of the victims in this execution were 
of patrician houses ; and there is an obscure and corrupt passage of Dion Cas- 
sius in the Vatican fragments, which seems to indicate that some of the burghers 
did take part with the commons, whether from a sense of justice or from per- 
sonal ambition. 

The year 298, to return to our annals, was marked, on the part of the trib- 
unes, by an important measure. First of all, 40 to prevent their in- 
454. Law of l. icfiiiisl creased number from being a source of weakness, by making dif- 
Aventine to the com- ferences amongst themselves more likely, they bound themselves 
to each other by solemn oaths, that no tribune should oppose the 
decisions of the majority of his colleagues, nor act without their consent. Then 
Lucius Icilius, one of their number, brought forward his famous law for allotting 



'Evi/fa rorf itjjiaPxoi irvpi v-nb tov &rj/jiov f<5<5- 

Bricmv. Dion Cassius, Frag. Vatic. XXII., and 
copied by Zonaras, VII. 17. A confused ves- 
tige of the same story maybe found in Valerius 
Maximus (VI. 3, 2) ; and the mutilated pas- 
sage in Festus, beginning, in the common edi- 
tions, with " Nauti consulatu," must clearly 
refer to it. Niebuhr's restoration and explana- 
tion of this last fragment may be found in his 
note 265 to the 2d volume of his History, p. 
144, 2d edition. Both arc highly ingenious, 
and that the fragment began with the word 
"novem," and not with "nauti," seems cer- 
tain; inasmuch as the article before it begins 
with the word " novalis," and that which fol- 
lows it begins with " novendiales." All the 
words now to be found in the MS. of Festus, 
half of the page having been accidentally de- 
stroyed by fire, are the following, and ranged 
in the following order as to lines : 

T. Sicini Volsci 

inissent adversus 

co eombusti feruntur 
ne quae est proxime cir- 

pide albo constratus. 
Opiter Verginius 
j-jarnnus, Postumus, Col- 
lins Tolerinus, P. Ve- 
onius Atratinus, Ver- 
tius Scacvola, Sex. Fu- 

"Who can profess to fill up such a fragment with 
certainty ? But I observe that Mutius Scsevola 
belonged to a house which, so far as we know, 
was never patrician ; and the preceding name, 
of which only the first syllable remains, Ver-, 
may also have denoted a plebeian, as we meet 
with a Virginius amongst the tribunes as early 
as the year -J'.'::. | Livy, III. 11.) But as all the 
Others are patrician names, how can they have 
been tribunes; or how can there have been 
nine tribunes earlier than the year 297; or how 
can we find a place for Buch an event between 
297 and the appointment of the decemviri; 
after which time it becomes wholly inconceiva- 
ble? The words "adversarii" and "adversus 
eum," seem to me the mos1 unlikely parts of 
Niebuhr's conjectural addition. The criminals 
would hardly have been described simply as 

the adversaries of T. Sieiuius, nor their Crime 
called a conspiracy against him. The story in 

Valerias Maximus represents one tribune as 
being a principal agent in the execution of his 



nine colleagues. "VVe can thus explain the po- 
sition of the name of Sicinius, if we read, ''no- 
vem collegaa T. Sicinii Volsci," and " cum con- 
jurationem" (or " consilia") " inissent adver- 
sus Eemp." But what are we to call the office 
in which these ten men were colleagues to- 
gether ? Can it really have been the tribune- 
ship ? and are we to take Cicero's statement, 
in the fragments of his speech for Cornelius, 
that the number of tribunes was increased from 
two to ten in the very year after the first insti- 
tution of the office ? and is it possible that the 
patricians named in Festus' Fragments were 
the very persons whom Dion Cassius had in 
his mind, when he said that " many of the 
highest patricians renounced their nobility from 
being ambitious of the great power of the office, 
and became tribunes ?" If this were so, T. 
Sicinius Volscus would be a member of the 
house of the plebeian Sicinii, and not the pa- 
trician who was consul in the year 267. The 
time of the execution I should place about the 
same time as the death of Cassius ; and it is 
not incredible that even the people in their 
centuries may have believed that accusation of 
a conspiracy against the common liberty which 
was brought against Cassius, and may have 
sentenced nine of the tribunes to death as his 
accomplices, especially if one of their own col- 
leagues, and a genuine plebeian, had denounced 
them as being really enemies to liberty, under 
the mask of opposing the aristocracy. And 
such a circumstance as the alleged treason of 
nine out of ten of the tribunes would have af- 
forded a good pretence for again reducing their 
number to two or five, from which it was again 
finally raised to ten in the year 297. It must 
be remembered, that the whole period between 
the first institution of the tribuneship and the 
death of Cassius is one of the greatest obscu- 
rity, and that the remaining accounts arc full 
of variations. Sempronius Atratinus is men- 
tioned by Dyonisiusas speaking in favor of the 
appointment of a commission of ten men to 
carry into effect the proposed agrarian law of 
Cassius, at least in a modified form: this was 
in the year 26S. (Dionysiu's, Vlll. 74.) 1 have 
Sometimes thought whether the nine men may 

not have been members of this commit 
and accused by their tenth colleague, T. Sicin- 
ius, the patrician, of abusing their powers to 
favor the tyranny of Cassius. 
40 Diony'sius, X. 81. 



Chap. XIII.] LAW DE AVENTINO PUBLICAJSTDO. 93 

the whole of the Aventine Hill to the commons forever, to be their exclusive 
quarter and stronghold. This hill was not, as we have seen, a part of the origi- 
nal city, nor was- it even yet included within the pomserium, or religious boun- 
dary, although it was now within the walls ; much of it was public or demesne 
land, having neither been divided out among the original citizens, the burghers, 
nor having in later times been assigned in portions to any of the commons. The 
ground, which was thus still public, was occupied, according to custom, by indi- 
vidual burghers ; some had built on it, but parts of it were still in their natural 
state, and overgrown with wood. Yet this hill was the principal quarter in 
which the commons lived, and large parts of it had doubtless been assigned to 
them in the time of the kings, as the freeholds of those to whom they were 
granted. It appears that encroachments were made on these freeholds by the 
burghers ; that the landmarks, which, according to Roman usage, always distin- 
guished private property from common, were from time to time forcibly or 
fraudulently removed ; the ground was then claimed as public, and, as such, oc- 
cupied only by burghers ; and in this way the ejectment of the commons, from 
what they considered as their own hill, seemed likely to be accomplished. Again, 
the Aventine is one of the steepest and strongest of the hills of Rome ; if wholly 
in the hands of the commons, it would give them a stronghold of their own, such 
as the burghers enjoyed in the other hills ; and this, in such stormy times, when 
the dissensions between the orders might at any instant break out into open war, 
was a consideration of the highest importance. Such were the reasons which 
induced the tribunes to suspend for a time the question of the Terentilian law, 
and to endeavor to obtain at once for their order the secure and exclusive prop- 
erty of the Aventine. 

A new course 41 was also adopted in the conduct of this measure. Instead of 
bringing it forward first before the commons, where its consider- „ 

. •ii-ir»'iii 11 1 • i • • c New m °de °f proeeed- 

ation might be indefinitely delayed by the violent interruptions ot mg to procure the P ass- 

i i i ttm- hi i iii- .. ■ ,i ing of the law. 

the burghers, L. Icilms called upon the consuls to bring it in the 
first instance before the senate, and he claimed himself to sp^k as counsel in its 
behalf. This was asserting not merely the right of petitioning, but the still 
higher right, that the petition should not be laid on the table, but that counsel 
should be heard in defence of it, and its prayer immediately taken into consider- 
ation. A story is told that the consuls' lictor 42 insolently beat away the tribunes' 
officer who was going to carry to them his message ; that immediately Icilius 
and his colleagues seized the lictor, and dragged him off with their own hands, 
intending to throw him from the rock for his treason against the sacred laws. 
They spared his life only at the intercession of some of the oldest of the senators, 
but they insisted that the consuls should comply with the demands of Icilius ; 
and accordingly the senate was summoned, Icilius laid before them what may be 
called his petition of right, and they proceeded to vote whether they should ac- 
cept or reject it. 43 

The majority voted in its favor, moved, it is said, by the hope that this con- 
cession would be, accepted by the commons instead of the execu- 
tion of the agrarian law. Then the measure thus passed by the 
senate was submitted by the consuls to the comitia of centuries, which, as rep- 
resenting the whole nation, might supersede the necessity of bringing it separ- 
ately before the curiae and the tribes. Introduced in a manner by the govern- 
ment, and supported by the influence of many of the burghers, as well as by the 
strong feeling of the commons, the bill became a law : its importance, moreover, 
led to its being confirmed with unusual solemnities ; the pontifices and augurs 
attended ; sacrifices were performed, and solemn oaths were taken to observe it ; 
and, as a further security, it was engraved on a pillar of brass, and then set up 
in the temple of Diana on the Aventine, where it remained till the time of Dio- 
nysius. 

41 Dionysius, X. 31. « Dionysius, X. 81. 48 Dionysius, X. 82. 



94 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIIL 

The provisions of the law were, " that so much 44 of the Aventine Hill as was 
public or demesne property, should be allotted out to the com- 

Its provisions. - 1 . 

mons, to be their freehold forever. That all occupiers of this 
land should relinquish their occupation of it ; that those who had occupied it, 
forcibly or fraudulently, 45 should have no compensation, but that other occupiers 
should be repaid for the money which they might have laid out in building upon 
it, at a fair estimate, to be fixed by arbitration." Probably also, as Niebuhr 
thinks, there was a clause forbidding any burgher to purchase or inherit property 
on the hill, that it might be kept exclusively for the commons. It is mentioned 
that the commons began instantly to take possession of their grant, and the space 
not sufficing to give each man a separate plot of ground, an allotment was given 
to two, three, or more persons together, who then built upon it a house, with as 
many flats or stories 46 as their number required, each man having one floor for 
himself and family as his freehold. The work of building sufficiently employed 
the commons for the rest of the year ; the Terentilian law was allowed to rest ; 
and an unusual rainy season, which was very fatal to the crops, 47 may have helped 
to suspend the usual hostilities with the ^Equians and Volscians. 

The same tribunes were re-elected for the year following, and the Terentilian 
Fresh disputes about l aw was now again brought forward, but still, as formerly, before 
the Terentilian law. t ] ie assemD i y f f^g tiibes ; its rejection by the senate being sup- 
posed to be certain, if it were proposed there in the first instance. The con- 
suls 48 headed the burghers in their opposition, and in their attempts to interrupt 
the assembly of the commons by violence ; the tribunes, in return, brought some 
of the offenders to trial for a breach of the sacred laws, and, not wishing to press 
for the severest punishment, enforced, according to Dionysius, only the confisca- 
tion of the criminal's property to Ceres, whose temple Avas under the special 
control of the aediles of the commons, and was the treasury of their order. But 
the burghers, it is said, advanced money out of their own treasury to buy the 
confiscated estates from those who had purchased them, and then gave them 
back to their original owners. 

The consuls of the year 300, Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius, appear to have 
been moderate men ; and not only were the two consuls of the preceding year 

44 Dionysius, X. 82. 48 Dionysius, X. 33-42. The events of this 

45 In Dionysius' Greek version, (3cPtavnivoi year are given by Dionysius at great length, xq 
(or with the codex Vatieanus PiacdnEvoi), J) fifteen chapters ; in Li vy they do not occupy as 
k\oxjj XupovTts- in the original language " vi many lines. The story of L. Siccius, under a 
aut clam," as in the well-known form of the somewhat different form, is given by the former 
praetor's interdict, "eumfundum quern nee vi, under this year; although in its common ver- 
nec clam, nee preeario alter ab altero possidetis, sion it occurs again in his history in its usual 
ita possidentis." See Festus in "Possessio." place under the decemviri. Whoever was the 

48 Dionysius, X. 32. Houses thus divided writer from whom Dionysius copied, he must 
amongst several proprietors, each being the have been one who had no wish to disguise the 
owner of a single floor, were the /-wokim of the injustice of the burghers, but rather, perhaps, 
Greeks; and these were the " insuhe" of which to exaggerate it; for they never appear in a 
we hear at Rome, and which are distinguished more odious light than in the transactions of 
by Tacitus from " Junius," the houses of a sin- this year. One statement, however, is curious ; 
gle proprietor, just as/Thucydides speaks of the that the houses most violent against the corn- 
rich Corcyneans setting on fire r«f oiicias ical t<U mons. and most formidable from the strength of 
^vvoixlas, 111. 74. Compare Tacitus, Anna!. XV. their brotherhoods or societies, eraiplat, were the 
41,43. The original sense of the word "insu- Postumii, Sempronii, and Clcelii. The former 
la," as given by Festus, "quae non junguntur of these was an unpopular house, as may be 
communibus parietibus cum vicinis, circuitn- seen from the story of the severity of L. Postu 
que publico aut private cinguntur," seems to mius Tubertus to Lis son (Livy, IV. 29), and of 
show that the insula was ordinarily built like the murder of M. Postiunius by his soldiers 
our colleges, or like the inns of court in Lon- (d-ivy, IV. 49). The Sempronii also appear as 
don, a complete building in itself, and so large a family of importance during the next fifty 
as to occupy the whole space from one street to years ; but the Clcelii are very little distinguish- 
thenext which ran parallel to it. ed either in the early or in the later Soman his- 

47 Livy, III. 31. Annona propter aquarum tory, only four members of this house occurring 

intempenem laboratum est. Such notices of in the Fasti, and none of them being personally 

the weather and seasons come from the oldest remarkable. Their coins, however, are nu- 

and simplest annals, whether of the pontifiees merous. 
or of private families, and may safely bc4ooked 
upon as authentic. 



Chap. XIII] APPOINTMENT OF TEN COMMISSIONERS. 95 

accused before the commons by the tribunes, and fined, without The A i ern!an ]aWi « d9 
any opposition on the part of the burghers ; but the new consuls malt ' e saoram8 » 1;o -" 
themselves brought forward a law, which was intended probably to meet some 
of the objects of the Terentilian law, by limiting the arbitrary jurisdiction of the 
patrician magistrates. The Aternian law, 49 de multae sacramento, fixed the max- 
imum of the fines, which the consuls could impose for a contempt of their au- 
thority, at two sheep and thirty oxen ; nor could this whole fine be imposed at 
once, 50 but the magistrate was to begin with one sheep, and if the offender con- 
tinued obstinate, he might the next day fine him a second sheep, and the third 
day he might raise the penaltj r to the value of an ox, and thus go on, day by 
day, till he had reached the utmost extent allowed by the law. It would ap- 
pear also by the use of the term sacramentum, 51 which was applied to money 
deposited in the judge's hands by two contending parties, to be forfeited or re- 
covered, according to the issue of the suit, that this fine was not absolute, but 
might be recovered by the party who paid it, either on his subsequent submis- 
sion, or on his appeal to the judgment of his peers, whether burghers or com- 
mons, and on their deciding in his favor. 

But with regard to the Terentilian law itself, the tribunes could make no 
progress. The burghers absolutely refused to allow the com- Tnreo commi66 ionera 
mons any share in the proposed revision of the constitution; but are sent t0 Grecce - 
they consented to send three persons beyond the sea 52 into Greece, to collect 
such notices of the laws and constitutions of the Greek states as might be ser- 
viceable to the Romans. These commissioners were absent for a whole year ; 
ana in this year the pestilence 63 again broke out at Rome, and car- A- n Ci 301 _ A> G 
ried off so many of the citizens, amongst the rest four out of the 451- 
ten tribunes, that there was a necessary cessation of political disputes. And as 
the pestilence spread also amongst the neighboring nations, 64 they were in no 
condition to take advantage of the distressed state of the Romans. 

In the next year the pestilence 55 left Rome free ; and on the return of the 
commissioners from Greece, the disputes again began. After a 
long contention, the commons conceded the great point at issue ; 453. it u resolved to 
and it was agreed that the revision of the laws and constitution vL°the iu"-s m and "con- 
should be committed to a body of ten men, all of the order of the 
burghers, who should supersede all other patrician magistrates, and each admin- 
ister the government day by day in succession, as during an interregnum. Two 
of these were the consuls of the new year, who had been just A . p. c . 303. a. c. 
elected, Appius Claudius and T. Genucius ; the warden of the m - 
city and the two qusestores parricidii, as Niebuhr thinks, were three more ; and 
the remaining five were chosen by the centuries. 56 

Such was the end of a contest whifh had lasted for ten years ; and all its 
circumstances, as well as its final issue, show the inherent strength 

e ., - • r , i .iiii Conclusion of the struff- 

01 an aristocracy in possession 01 the government, and under what gie about the Terentii- 
manifold disadvantages a popular party ordinarily contends against 
it. Nothing less than some extraordinary excitement can ever set on a level two 
parties so unequal ; wealth, power, knowledge, leisure, organization, the influ- 
ence of birth, of rank, and of benefits, the love of quiet, the dread of exertion 
and of personal sacrifices, the instinctive clinging to what is old and familiar, and 
the indifference to abstract principles so characteristic of common minds in every 

49 Cicero de Kepublica, II. 35. The reading 51 See Varro, Ling. Lat. V. 180, and I'estus 

of the consul's name, as given in this passage in voce. 

of Cicero, Aternius, enables us to account for B2 Livy, III. 31. 

and to correct the corrupt reading in Dionysius, M Livy, III. 32. 

Tepufjvws. We find it also correctly given in one M Dionysius, X. 53. 

of the recently discovered fragments of the 65 Dionysius, X. 54. Livy, III. 32. 

Fasti Capitolini. M Vol. II. p. 350, 2d ed. 

60 See Varro, de Ling. Latina, V. 177, and 
Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 341, 2d ed. 



96 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV. 

rank of life ; all these causes render the triumph of a dominant aristocracy sure, 
unless some intolerable outrage, or some rare combination of favorable circum- 
stances, exasperate or encourage the people to extraordinary efforts, and so give 
them a temporary superiority. Otherwise the aristocracy may yield what they 
will, and retain what they will ; if the)'' are really good and wise, and give freely 
all that justice and reason require, then the lasting greatness and happiness of a 
country are best secured ; if they do much less than this, yielding something to 
the growing light of truth, but not frankly and fully following it, great good is 
still done, and great improvements effected ; but in the evil which is retained, 
there are nursed the seeds of destruction, which falls at last upon them and on 
their countsy. The irritation of having reasonable demands refused, provokes 
men to require what is unreasonable ; suspicion and jealousy are fostered beyond 
remedy ; and these passions, outliving the causes which excited them, render at 
last even the most complete concessions thankless ; and when experience has 
done its work with the aristocracy, and they are disposed to deal justly with 
their old adversaries, they are met, in their turn, with a spirit of insolence and 
injustice, and a fresh train of evils is the consequence. So true is it, that nations, 
like individuals, have their time of trial ; and if this be wasted or misused, their 
future course is inevitably evil ; and the efforts of some few good and wise citi- 
zens, like the occasional struggles of conscience in the mind of a single man when 
he has sinned beyond repentance, are powerless to avert their judgment. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE FIKST DECEMVIRS, AND THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 



; The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history." — Gibbon, Chap. XLIV. 



The appointment of a commission invested with such extraordinary powers as 
those committed to the decemvirs, implies of itself a suspension of 

App^intmfnt of llie de- n i i • • 11* 1 • l 1, 

ce.nvirs. s.isj.™aionor all such authorities as could in any degree impede or obstruct its 
operations. It was natural, therefore, that the tribunate 1 should 
be suspended as well as the patrician magistracies ; besides, the appointment of 
the decemvirs was, even in its present form, a triumph for the commons, and they 
would be glad to show their full confidence in the magistrates whom they had so 
much desired. Again, the tribunes had been needed to protect the commons 
against the tyranny of the consuls; but now that there were no consuls, why 
should there be tribunes? And who could dread oppression from men specially 
appointed to promote the interests of freedom and justice ? Yet, to show that 

1 This is Dionysius' statement in the most ex- a question whether the tribuneship was prop- 
press terms (X. 56), ad finem. 1. ivy's language erly willed magistratus or no: and, at any rate, 
appears to me to admit i>t'a doubt; for lie says, it would not in these times be colled "niagis- 
when speak i mr of the wish of the commons to tratnspopuli," hut only " plebis:" further, l.ivy 
have decemvirs elected for another year, "Jam expressly adds, that the "sacratffl leges" were 
plebs ne tribunicium quidem auxihum, ceden- rrol to be abolished, Niebuhr believes that the 
tihns in viccm rtppellationi [ codd. 'appellatione' | tribuneship was not given tip till the Becond dc- 
decemviris quarebat." (HI. 84. ad nnein.) And cemvirate. I think, on the whole, that Livy 
although, when mentioning the appointment of meant to agree with Dionysius ; and the state- 
the Aral decemvirs, he had said. " Placet oreari ment does not appear to me to possess any in- 
decemviros et ne quia eo anno alius magistra- ternal improbability. 
tus esset" (III. 32), yet it was sometimes made 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 97 

the tribuneship was not to be permanently surrendered, the sacred laws were 
specially exempted from the decemvirs' power of revision, as was also that other 
law, scarcely less dear to the commons, or less important, which had secured to 
them the property of the Aventine. • 

With the ground thus clear before them, and possessing that full confidence 
and cheerful expectation of the people, which is a government's Th? dece mvirs begin 
great encouragement, the ten proceeded to their work. They had their le e'siation. 
before them the unwritten laws and customs of their own country, and the infor- 
mation, partly, we may suppose, in writing, which the commissioners had brought 
back from Greece. In this there would be much which, to a Roman, would re- 
quire explanation : but the ten had with them an Ionian sophist, 2 Hermodorus of 
Ephesus, who rendered such important services in explaining the institutions of 
his countrymen, above all of the Athenians, the great glory of the Ionian race, 
that a statue was erected to his honor in the comitium. 

The result of these labors, after a few months, was submitted .0 the examina- 
tion of the people. 3 Ten tables were published, and set up in a They complete ten ^ 
conspicuous place for all to read them. Every man was then in- blesofla " s - 
vited to make known to the ten such corrections as he might think needed ; these 
were considered, and adopted as far as the ten approved of them : and the ten 
tables, thus amended, were then laid before the senate, the centuries, and the curiae, 
and received the sanction of both orders of the nation. The laws were then en- 
graved on tablets of brass, 4 and the tablets were set up in the comitium, that all men 
might know and observe them. 

It cannot be doubted that the ten tables were a complete work, and intended 
to be so by their authors. All the circumstances of their enact- 

.*',.. . ill* i I'lii O n O' fragments of them 

ment show this ; it seems shown also by their number, which had have been preserved to 
reference to that of the ten commissioners, as if each commissioner 
had contributed an equal portion of their joint work. It is clear, also, that they 
satisfied the expectations of the people, and were drawn up in a spirit of fairness 
and wisdom ; for whatever the Romans found fault with in the laws of the twelve 
tables, was contained in the two last of them ; and the laws, as a whole, are 
spoken of with high admiration, and remained for centuries as the foundation of 
all the Roman law. Unhappily, we ourselves know little of them beyond this 
general character. Some fragments 5 of them have been preserved by ancient 
writers ; but these are far too scanty to allow us to judge either of the substance 
or the order of the whole code. 

Still 6 we may fitly avail ourselves of the occasion offered by this great period 

2 Pornponius, de origine juris, § 4, in the Di- lse" ■would lead one to suppose that they were 
gest or Pandects, 1 Tit. ii. Strabo, XIV. 1, § 25, written on wood. 

p. 642. Hermodorus was the friend of Heracli- 6 The authentic remains of the twelve tables 

tus, the philosopher, who reproached the Ephe- are given by Haubold in his " Institutionum 

sians for having banished him from mere jeal- Juris Eomani privati Lineamenta," as repnb- 

ousy of his superior merit. See the story in lished after his death by Dr. Otto, Leipzig, 

Strabo, as already quoted, and in Cicero, Tus- 1826. They are given also by Dirksen, with an 

culan. Disputat. V. 36. Diogenes Laertius says elaborate criticism as to the text and the sources 

that Heraclitus flourished in the sixty-ninth of each fragment. "Ubersicht der bisherigen 

Olympiad, but Syncellus makes him contempo- Versuche zur Kritik und HersteUung des Tex- 

rary with Anaxagoras, the elder Zenon, and tesderZwolf-Tafel-Eragmente." Leipzig, 1824. 

Parmenides, which would render it very pos- The earlier collections of them contain clauses 

sible for his friend Hermodorus to have vis- ascribed to the twelve tables on insufficient au- 

ited Eome in the time of the decemvirs. Stra- thority. 

bo expressly identifies the Hermodorus of whom 8 I am well aware of the difficulty of writing 

Heraclitus spoke, with the man of that name on legal details without a professional knowl- 

who helped the decemvirs in drawing up their edge of the subject. But history must embrace 

laws. Arid the fact of his having been honored the subject-matter of every profession ; and as 

with a statue in the comitium (Pliny, Hist. Nat. no man can be properly qualified to write on all, 

XXXIV. 11) would seem to prove that the story the necessity of the case must excuse the pre- 

of his having helped the decemvirs was not sumption. It will bo proficr here to mention 

without foundation. the works from which the present chapter has 

3 Livy, HI. 34. been chiefly compiled. 1st. The Institutes of 
* So Dionysius, crrjXats vaAicaTs iXxapd^avrei Gaius. An epitome of the three first books of 

avrovs. X. 57. Livy's simple expression " tabu- this great work had been long known, but the 



98 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV. 

in Roman legislation, to jrive something of a view of the Roman 

State of the Roman law , . ° i 1 1 i l _t l l • • i • i 

in its earliest kuo»-n law as it was settled by the twelve tables, or as it existed in the 
oldest form in which it is now possible to trace it. And I shall 
adopt that division of constitutional law on the one hand, and civil law on the 
other, which Livy had in his mind when he called the twelve tables " fons omnis 
publici, privatique juris." 

To begin, then, with "Jus privatum," or the civil law of Rome. This, accord- 
jus Privatum divided m g to the Roman lawyers, related either to persons, or to things, 
Tas!u. liwofThin^ or to actions, in the legal sense of the term. Let us first examine 
ondiii. Law of Actions. some f th e principal points in the law as it regarded persons. 
I. In later times the lawyers had occasion to notice three descriptions of per- 
sons : those born free, those who had been made free, and slaves. 
sins bom free, nersons The distinctions of burghers and commons, patricians and plebe- 

made free, and slaves. . -it, • ■ i i inri -r> • . • 

ians, had long since vanished ; and all tree- born Roman citizens 
were legally regarded as equal. On the other hand, the condition of slaves ad- 
mits of little variation so long as they remain slaves ; and thus, with regard to 
these, the lapse of centuries produced little change. But the freedmen of a later 
age appear to represent the clients of the period of the twelve tables. 

That the relation of the freedman to his former master very nearly resembled 
The freedmen of « later that of the client to his lord, might be conjectured from this, that 
emsof^peno^ottke wheQ a slave obtained his freedom, his former master, "dominus," 
twelve tables. became his "patronus," the very same name which expressed his 

relation to his clients. Previously to the decemvirate, this class of persons voted 
indeed in the comitia of centuries, which comprehended the whole Roman people, 
but they did not belong to any tribe, and therefore had no votes in the separate 
comitia of the commons. The decemvirs 7 procured their enrolment in the tribes, 
and thus added greatly to the influence of the aistocracy over the popular assem- 
blies ; for the tie between a patron and his clients or freedmen seems to have been 
a very kindly one, and much stronger, as yet, than any sense of the duty of ad- 
vancing the cause of the great mass of the nation. Indeed, the freedman was 
held to belong so much to his patron, that if he died intestate, and without direct 

whole work, in its genuine state, was first dis- works which I have consulted will he noticed in 

covered by Niebuhr in 1S16, in a palimpsest, or their several places. 

rewritten manuscript, of some of the works of " The Fragments of Ulpian discovered and 
S. Jerome, in the Chapter Library at Verona, published by Mai" are not correctly described, 
I have used the second edition, published by as I had not seen the book when this note was 
Goschen, at Berlin, in 1824: and I have derived written. I have only been able to procure it 
great assistance from Goschen's continued ref- since the completion of the present volume, and 
erences to parallel passages in the other extant I tind that it contains the remains of several 
works of the Roman lawyers. 2d. The fragment treatises by an unknown lawyer, on various 
of Ulpian from a MS. hi the Vatican, published legal subjects ; these treatises consisting, for the 
by Hugo in his " Jus Civile Antejustinianeum." most part, of quotations from the works of the 
Berlin, 1815. The fragments of Ulpian more most. eminent lawyers, arranged in order, as in 
recently discovered and published by Mai, I have the Pandects. Amongst the rest there are. nat~ 
not seen. 3d. I have read the Institutes of Jus- urally, citations from Ulpian, and some of these 
tinian, and referred continually to the Digest or were not known to us before Mai's discovery ; 
Pandects; but I cannot pretend to have read others had been already preserved in the Pan- 
through the Digest, or to he deeply acquainted dects. The manuscript in which these trear 
with its contents. 4th. Hugo's Geschichte des tises were found was a palimpsest, now in the 
RomischenRechts. 9th edit. Berlin, 1824. 5th. Vatican library, and marked in the catalogue 
Haubold's Institutionum juris Romani linea- VMDCCCLXVI. It was brought to Rome from 
menta, and I >irksen's work on the Twelve Ta- the library of the monastery at Bobbio, near Pla- 
bles, noticed in a preceding note; as also Han- centia, and these treatises were first published 
hold's edition of the well-known work of Hei- from it by Mai in 1828: they have been since 
neccius, " Antiquitt. Romanar. jurisprudentiam reprinted at Bonn, in 1888, under the Buperin- 
illustrantium syntagma." 6th. Savigny, " Recht tendence ofBethmann Hollweg; and 1 know 
des Bcsitzes," 5thedition; and some articles by them only in this German edition. Thc\ do not 
the same great writer in the "Zeitsohrift fur give us any additional information as to the laws 
geschichthche Bechtswissenschaft." In point of the Twelve Tables. 

of excellence, I could not, I suppose, have eon- " On this point see Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 818. 

suite, l higher authorities than these; but I am Eng.Transl. Lt is admitted also by Haubold, in 

perfectly conscious ofthe insufficiency of a few his Tabulae Chronologic®, as one of the institu- 

montlis' study, even ofthe best writers, on a tions of the decemvirs, 
subject so vast as the Roman law. The other 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 99 

heirs, 8 his patron inherited all his property ; a law which applied also, as we can- 
not doubt, though perhaps with some qualification, to the client. 

Looking at the domestic relations of free citizens, we find that the absolute, 
power of a father over his children was in some slight degree Powei . ofa 
qualified by the twelve tables ; inasmuch as they enacted, 9 that if *" 
a father had sold his son three times, he should have no further control over 
him. Formerly, it appears, the independence of a son during his father's life- 
time had been regarded as monstrous and impossible ; he never could become 
sui juris. The father might transfer his right to another by selling his son ; but 
if his new master set him free, the father's right revived, and the son became 
ao-ain in potestate. But by the new law, the father's right became terminable ; 
and if, after he had thrice sold his son, the last purchaser gave him his freedom, 
then the son no longer reverted to his father's power, but remained his own mas- 
ter. Still, as if to show the peculiar sacredness of the father's power, he could 
not, by any one act of his own, make his son independent ; he could not give 
him his liberty like a slave, but was obliged, if he wished to emancipate him, to 
go through the form of thrice selling him ; and it was only when, according to 
the common practice, the son, after the third sale, was resold to his father, that 
then, the fatherly power being extinct, he could give him his freedom by a di- 
rect act of manumission. It should be remembered, also, that an emancipated 
son lost his relationship to his father, and could no longer inherit from him ; and 
further, that by having been sold, and so passed into the state of slavery, he in- 
curred 10 that legal degradation which the Romans called diminutio capitis, 
and consequently, remained liable, during the remainder of his life, to certain pe- 
culiar disqualifications.- 

As the father of a family enjoyed absolute power over his- children in his life- 
time, so was he equally absolute in his choice of a guardian for HU powe r of disposing 
them, and in his disposal of his property after his death. 11 He of his property by wm. 
might bequeath his whole fortune to any one child, to the exclusion of the rest, 
or to an absolute stranger, to the exclusion of them all. In this respect the 
twelve tables gave, probably, a legal sanction to a power which was become com- 
mon in practice, but, strictly speaking, was as yet only a matter of indulgence, 
not of right. Hitherto, the will of every citizen had been read before the comi- 
tia, 12 whether of the curise or of the centuries ; that the former in the case of a 

8 Gaius, Institut. III. § 40. A man's direct virilis sexus personas ;" such as his father's 
heirs, " sui heredes," were, according to the Bo- hrother, or brother's son, or the son of an un- 
man law, his children " in potestate," whether cle by the father's side. These inherited in 
male or female, by birth, or by adoption ; his preference to the cognati, or relations derived 
son's children; his son's son's children; his "per foeminei sexus personas;" and thus an 
wife in manu ; and his daughter-in-law. See emancipated son could not be heir or guardian 
Gaius, Institut. III. § 2. For the application of to his nephew on his brother's side, by virtue 
this law to clients, see Nieuport, Eitt. Eomanor. of the jus agnationis, as he had lost that right 
Sect. I. ch. IV. § 3, and the defence of his state- by having gone through the state of mancipatio 
ment in Eeiz's preface to the 5th edit, of Nieu- during the process of his release from his fa- 
port's work. Niebuhr also is of the same opin- ther's authority. 

ion. Hist. Eom. Vol. I. p. 320, Eng. Transl. n Uti legassit super pecunia tutelave suse rei, 

The qualification alluded to is supposed by Eeiz ita jus esto. Fragm. duodec. Tabb. 13, apud 

to have consisted in this, that a client's agnati Haubold. See Gaius, Institut. II. § 224. 

would have inherited before his patron, whereas I2 Testamentorum autem genera initio duo 

a freedman could have no agnati, his natural re- fuerunt ; nam aut calatis comitiis faciebant, quee 

lationships in his state of slavery being reckoned comitia bis in anno testamentis faciendis desti- 

as nothing. nata erant, aut in procinctu, id est cum beUi 

9 Si pater filiumter venum duit, filius a patre causa ad pugnam ibant: procinctus est enim 
liber esto. Fragm. duodec. Tabb. 12, apud expeditus et armatus exercitus. Gaius, Insti- 
Haubold, Institut. jur. Eom. lineamenta. tut. II. § 101. Ulpian, Fragm. XX. 2. " Ca- 

10 Minima capitis diminutio acciditin his qui lata comitia" are defined by Labeo to be those, 
mancipio dautur, quique ex mancipatione man- " quas pro collegio pontificum habentur aut 
umittuntur ; adeo quidem ut quotiens quisque regis aut flaminum inaugurandorum causa." 
mancipetur aut manumittatur, totiens capite "lisdem comitiis," says Gehius, by whom the 
diminuatur. Gaius, Institut. I. § 162. The passage from Labeo has been preserved, "et 
disqualifications incurred by a diminutio capi- sacrorum detestatio et testamenta fieri sole- 
tis included a forfeiture of the jus agnationis. bant." Noct. Att. XV. 27, § 1, 3. And Labeo 
A man's agnati are his relations derived " per tells us that these calata comitia were either 



100 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV 

burgher, the latter in the case of a plebeian, might confirm or reject it. The 
confirmation was generally, as we may suppose, become almost a matter of 
course ; still it is evident that it might have been refused. But from this time 
forward it became a mere formality ; the right of the father to dispose of his 
property as he chose was fully acknowledged ; and it was conferred on him with 
such full sovereignty, that it was only when he died intestate that the next of 
kin could take the management of his inheritance out of the hands of his sons, 
if they were squandering it extravagantly ; no degree of waste on the part of a 
son could justify the interference of his relations," if he had succeeded by virtue 
of his father's will. The principle of this distinction is plain : when the father 
of a family had waived his right of bequeathing his property, it seemed, in some 
"measure, to revert to the community, as a member of which, he or his ancestor 
had originally received it. This community was the gens in the last resort, and 
more immediately the family of which he was the representative. As then his 
property would go to the male representatives of his family in default of his own 
direct heirs, so they had an interest in preserving it unimpaired, and were allowed 
to enforce it when the son's title to his inheritance rested, like theirs, only on the 
general award of the law. But where the father had disposed of his property 
by will, then the individual right of ownership passed in full sovereignty to his 
children, and no one might interfere with their management of what was wholly 
their own. The later law did away with this distinction ; and the preetor was 
accustomed to deprive an extravagant son of the administration of his inherit- 
ance, even when he had succeeded to it by his father's will. And this is natu- 
ral, for as society advances in true civilization, its supremacy over all individual 
rights of property becomes more fully recognized ; and it is understood that Ave 
are but stewards of our possessions with regard to the commonwealth of which 
we are members, as well as with respect to God. 

We shall not be surprised to find that the usages of a rude people paid but 
little respect to women. A man could acquire a right over a wo- 

Law with respect to lii-vi'ii-p l r 

women.- i, as to mar- man by her navmp- lived with him tor a year ; exactly as a year s 
possession gave him a legal title to a slave, or any other article of 
movable property. Here again the twelve tables so far interfered, 14 as to give 
the power to the woman of barring this prescription, by absenting herself from 
her husband during three nights in each year. By so doing, she avoided passing 
under her husband's power, " in manum viri ;" and could not, therefore, like a 
wife in the fullest sense, inherit from him as a daughter. Still the connection 
was recognized as a lawful marriage, 15 " connubium ;" and the children accord- 
ingly followed their father's condition, and were subject to his power, which was 
the case only with such children as were born in "connubium." 

Again, the old Roman law, confirmed in this instance also hy the twelve ta- 
, . , . , bles, obliged all women, at all times of their lives, and under all 

2, ns to their heing al- . ° „ ' ' _. _ , 

ways under guardian- circumstances, to be under guardianship. It a lather died in- 
testate, his daughters immediately became the wards of their 

"curiata" or " eenturiata ;" so that we may scription, " usus," or by coemptio, because 

safely conclude that the will of a patrician was then they lost their control over Tier property, 

read at the former, that of a plebeian at the and their right of inheriting from her (see 

latter. See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 336, Eng. Cicero pro Flacco, 34) ; but only her father's 

Trans. refusal of consent hindered her from forming n 

13 A prsetore constituitar curator — ingenuis connubium, if her connection was with a Ko- 

qui ex testamento parentis hseredes facta male man citizen, and one not related to her in any 

dissipant bona: his euim ex lege (soil. XII. prohibited degree. See TJlpian, Fragm. V. 2-7. 

Tabularum) curator dari non potorat. Ulpian, M Gains, I. § 144. The vestal virgins were 

Fragm. XII. 3. alone excepted by the twelve tables, " in hono- 

M Gains, Institut. I. § 111. rem sacerdotii." Afterwards, by the later law. 

u TBe formalities of a marriage, according to a woman obtained the same privilege by ac- 

the Roman law, seem onlj to have affected the quiringthe "justrium liberorum," which did 

wife's property, and her power of inheriting not, however, always imply that she had really 

from her husband, not the legitimacy of the borne three children, but thai by the emperor's 

children. A woman's guardians might pre vent favor she had acquired the right granted oy law 

her from passing in manum viri either by pre- to one who had actually been a mother. 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 101 

brothers, or of their nearest male relations on their father's side ; ir nor could 
they, without their guardian's sanction, contract any obligation, 18 or alienate 
their land, or make a will. If a woman married, she became, in law, her hus- 
band's daughter ; he could appoint her guardians by his will, or, if he died in- 
testate, her nearest male relations succeeded by law to the office ; so that it was 
possible, in despite of the laws of nature, that a mother might be under the 
guardianship of her own son. By these institutions, the apparent liberality of 
the law, which enabled a man's daughters to inherit on an equal footing with his 
sons, was in great measure rendered ineffectual. 19 A daughter might, indeed, 
claim an equal share with her brother of her father's land ; but as she could 
neither alienate it during her lifetime, nor bequeath it by will without his con- 
sent, and as he was her legal heir, there was little probability of its passing out 
of the family. All this was greatly modified by the later law ; but there were 
always found persons who regretted the change, and upheld the old system, 
with all its selfishness and injustice, as favorable to a wholesome severity of 
manners, and a proper check upon the weakness or caprice of a woman's judg- 
ment. 

II. If from persons we now turn to property, or, according to the language 
of the law, to things, our curiosity as to the provisions of the n . Law of Things, im. 
twelve tables, and the state of things which they recognized, can Id^'ofV/uw o?°reii 
be but imperfectly gratified. Yet there are few points of more gpTonV^ 1 mISS^S 
importance in the history of a nation : the law of property, of real every people - 
property especially, and a knowledge of all the circumstances of its tenure and 
divisions, would throw light upon more than the physical condition of a people ; 
it would furnish the key to some of the main principles prevalent in their so- 
ciety. For instance, the feudal notion that property in land confers jurisdiction, 
and the derivation of property, either from the owner's own sword, or from the 
gift of the stronger chief whose sword he had aided, not from the regular as- 
signment of society, has most deeply affected the political and social state of the 
nations of modern Europe. At Rome, as elsewhere among the free common- 
wealths of the ancient world, property was derived from political rights, rather 
than political rights from property ; and the division and assignation of lands to 
the individual members of the state by the deliberate act of the whole commu- 
nity, was familiarly recognized 20 as the manner in which such property was most 

17 Quibus testamento quidem tutor datus non to have been rather the rule in theory, and, in 
sit, iis ex lege XII. agnati sunt tutores. Gaius, the earliest recorded settlement of a people, to 
I. § 155. have been often actually carried into practice. 

18 A woman's agnati, by the old law, were The division of Canaan amongst the Israelites 
her tutores legitimi. And it was a well-known is a well-known example. Let any one corn- 
rule of law that she could make no valid will pare this with the utterly capricious manner in 
without their consent. Gaius, II. § 118. The which the Norman chiefs, from duke William 
whole right of her agnati to become her guar- downwards, appropriated to themselves, or 
dians was done away by the emperor Claudius, granted away to their followers, the lands of 
(Gaius, I. § 171.) But her father, and, if she England. Again, a similar equal division is 
were a freed woman, her patronus, still retained said to have existed at one time in Egypt (He- 
the same power ; and even in the time of the rodotus, II. 109) ; and even after the period of 
Antonines, her will was good for nothing if it the distress, noticed in Genesis, had brought 
had not their sanction. most of the property into the_ hands of the 

19 See Hugo, Geschichte des Bomischen kings, yet still we find the principle of regular 
Eechts, p. 209. division recognized ; for even in the last years 

w This is one of those general statements of the Egyptian monarchy, the class of lauded 

which I think the reader of ancient history will proprietors who received their land as an he- 

readily admit, although it is not possible to reditary fief, .on the tenure of military service, 

bring any particular passage of an ancient wri- enjoyed each man an equal portion. (Herodo- 

ter as the authority for it. Nor is it to be de- tus, II. 164, et seqq.) In all the Greek colonies 

nied, that conquest, and the lapse of years, in- there was the same system ; each citizen had 

troduced the greatest inequalities of property, his kX^oj or portion, and in many states these 

quite as great as those subsisting in modern were not allowed to be alienated. (Aristotle, 

Europe. But the notion of an equal division Politic. VI. 4.) Thus the well-known division 

of the land of a country amongst its citizens, of Laeonia, ascribed to Lycurgus, was nothing 

which in modern Europe is so without example unprecedented : the remarkable feature in it 

that it is looked upon as one of the wildest of was, that it was a return to the principle of 

impossible fancies, seems, in the ancient world, regular assignation, after a long departure from 



102 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV 

regularly acquired. This act conveyed the property of the land so granted in 
complete sovereignty ; no seignorial rights were reserved on it ; all on the soil, 
and under it, was alike made over to the proprietor ; and, as he was the abso- 
lute owner of it in his lifetime, so he could dispose of it to whom he would after 
his death. But he must leave it as unfettered as he had himself enjoyed it : 
he could not control the rights of his successor by depriving him of his power 
of disposing of it in his turn according to his pleasure ; for this seemed an un- 
just encroachment on the power of posterity, and an unnatural usurpation on 
the part of any single generation. And a man's civil rights and duties were de- 
rived, not from his possession of property, but from his being a citizen of that 
society from whose law his property itself had come to him. He was bound to 
defend his country, not as the holder of lands, but as a member of the common- 
wealth ; as a master, he had power over his slaves ; as a father, over his chil- 
dren ; as a magistrate, over his fellow-citizens ; as a free-born citizen he had a 
voice in public affairs ; but as a proprietor of land he enjoyed only the direct 
benefits of property, and no power or privilege, whether social or political. 

Yet the sword had won no small portion of the actual territory of Rome, no 
ah property in una at less than of the feudal kingdoms of a later period. The sword 
^n3i y Xm e a?^t won it f° r tne state, but not for individuals. Slaves, cattle, money, 
of the state. clothing, and all articles of movable property, might be won by 

individuals for themselves ; and the law 21 acknowledged this as a natural method 
of acquiring wealth ; but whatever land 22 was conquered belonged immediately to 
the commonwealth. It could be converted into private property only by pur- 
chase or by assignation ; and assignation always proceeded on regular principles, 
and awarded equal portions of land to every man. But the mass of the con- 
quered territory was left as the demesne of the state ; and it was out of land sim- 
ilarly reserved to the kings in the conquests of the German barbarians that fiefs 
were first created. This system was prevented among the Romans, by the gen- 
eral law, strengthened apparently by the sanctions of religion : the law which 
prescribed to all grants of land made out of the state demesne the one form of 
common and equal assignation. The land then was not granted away, its prop- 
erty remained in the state ; it was sometimes left as a common pasture, sometimes 

it ; it -was the bringing back of an old state to terference, if a citizen having had land, neg- 
a new beginning, as it were, of its social exist- lected it and followed any other calling ; it 
ence. 1 think, then, it may be stated, as one certainly did not follow that every citizen re- 
of the characteristic points of the ancient world, ceived a grant of land, much less that his pos- 
that landed property was not merely sanctioned session of land beforehand qualified him to 
and maintained by iaw, but had originally been become a citizen. 

derived from it ; and that even where the peo- 21 Gains, II. § 69. Qure ex hostibus capiun- 

Jns- 
to 




. .17 

chiefs, but from the deliberate act of society, De rerum divisiones, &e 

which proceeded, on regular principles, to allot B Gains, II. § 7. In provinciali solo domini- 

a portion of its common property to each of its um popuh Eomani est, vel Csesaris; nos autem 

members. With respect to the statement at possessionem tantum et usum fructum habere 

the end of this paragraph, that land conferred videmur. Accordingly no laud, in provinciali 

no political power, it may be objected that solo, could be sold by mancipatio. because it 

power was connected with landed property, was not res mancipii. "Provinciate solum'' 

inasmuch as the commons, it is said, were lia- was opposed to " Italicnm solum," andexpress- 

ble to be removed from their tribe by the ecu- ed the condition of land which remained still 

sors, it they followed any other calling but in the state of a conquest, and had not been in- 

Iture. But thi4 and other Buchregula- corporated with the territory, "ager," of the 

tions went on the principle, that it was desira- conquerors. But, as is well known, all the land 

ble that a citizen should live by agriculture in the provinces in the imperial times was not 

rather than by trade; a principle very general- "provmciale solum;" particular spots enioyed 

ly admitted in the ancient world, but rounded the privileges of " [tanoum solum, - ' and this 

on considerations of what was supposed to be was the famous jus [taliee which was so eom- 

for the moral good of the community; and pletely misunderstood by all writers on the Bo- 

verj different from the notion that he who had man law and constitution before Savigny. lie 

hind onghl to have jurisdiction and power, first showed that it was a privilege attached to 

Besides, it was only aground of censonan in- land, not, as had been supposed, to persons. 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 103 

farmed, sometimes occupied by individuals, in the same manner and under the 
same circumstances as in later times it was granted in fiefs, but with this essen- 
tial difference, that this occupation was an irregular, and as far as regarded the 
state, a wholly precarious tenure. The occupiers possessed large tracts of land, 
and derived as much profit from them as if they had been their property ; but 
they were only tenants at will, and there was nothing to give to these permitted 
rather than authorized possessions, the dignity and political importance which 
were attached to the great fiefs of modern Europe. 

This occupation of the public land could by no length of prescription be con- 
verted into private property ; lapse of time could never bar the Pr0 pe r ty acquired by 
rights of the commonwealth ; and therefore the " possessions" of P re »« i i> tion - 
the Roman patricians in early times, within a few miles of Rome, were on the 
same footing with all land in the provinces afterwards : in neither case could pre- 
scription or usucapio 23 confer a legal title on the possessor, because in both in- 
stances the property of the soil lay in the state. But with respect to the lands 
of private persons, the early Roman # law 24 allowed possession to become property 
after a lapse of only two years, provided that the possession had not been ob- 
tained in the first instance 23 either by force or fraud. The object of this enact- 
ment was supposed to have been the speedy settlement of all questions of own- 
ership ; 26 one year's possession gave a right of property in a slave, or any other 
movable, and twice that time was thought sufficient for the owner of the land to 
establish his right against the occupier in a territory so small as that of Rome, 
unless through" his own neglect. Probably, also, it was judged expedient to pre- 
vent the risk of any lands lying long uncultivated, by regarding land thus neg- 
lected as returned, in a manner, to a state of nature, and open to the first occu- 
pant. Another reason would sometimes operate strongly ; the duty of keeping 
up the religious rites attached to particular places, which would fall into disuse 
during the absence of an owner. This feeling was so powerful in the case of the 
religious rites of particular families, 27 that if the heir neglected to enter upon his 
inheritance, another person might step in and take possession, and after the lapse 
of a single year, he acquired a legal title to the estate. But it cannot be doubted 
that the effect of this encouragement given to possession was favorable to the 
burghers, or patricians as we must now begin to call them, at the expense of the 
commons. The twelve tables 28 utterly denied the right of possession to a foreign- 
er ; against such a one the owner's title remained good forever. And although 
the commons were no longer regarded as altogether foreigners, yet they were 
still excluded from the right of occupying the public land ; and we may be cer- 
tain that they could neither take possession of the inheritance of a patrician, nor 
of any portion of his land on which there was any temple or altar ; for it would 
have been a direct profanation, had a stranger ventured to perform the religious 
rites peculiar to his family and race. Besides, in point of fact, the patricians' 
lands were far less likely to be left open to occupation. A plebeian, whose land 

23 Provincialia prajdia usucapionem non reci- quired the possession of any thing bona fi de> 

piunt. Gaius, II. § 46. It need not be repeated yet he could not acquire the property of it by 

that the provinciale solum of Gaius' time, of prescription or usucapio, if it had been origin- 

which the property was vested only in the Eo- ally obtained by force or fraud ; "si quis rem 

man people or the emperor, while individuals furtivam aut vi possessam possideat." Gaius, 

could only have the occupation and usufruct of II. § 45. 

it, was exactly in the condition of the ager pub- 26 Ne rerum dominia diutius in incerto es- 

licus of the time of the XII. tables. Afterwards sent. Gaius, II. § 44. 

the distinction between provinciale and Itali- w Gaius, II. § 53, 55. Voluerunt veteres ma- 

cum solum was done away by Justinian, and turius hereditates adiri ut essent qui sacra fa- 

usucapio was admitted alike in each; but it cerent, quorum illis temporibus summa obser- 

could be completed not in two years, but, ac- vatio fuit. 

cording to various circumstances, in ten, twenty, M "Ad versus hostem seterna auctoritas." 

or thirty. See Justinian's Code, VII. Tit. 31. Fragm. XII. Tabular. 19, apud Haubold. "Auc- 

De usucapione transformanda. toritas" is the right of claiming our own prop- 

M Gaius, II. § 42. Ulpian, Fragm. XIX. § 8. erty, to prevent another from acquiring it by 

25 Simodo eas bona fide acceperimus. Gaius, prescription. 
II. § 43. But even if the actual possessor ae- 



104 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV 

had been laid waste by the enemy, whose house had been burnt, and his sons 
killed or swept off by the plague, might often be actually unable to cultivate his 
property again, and might leave it in despair, to be possessed by the first person 
who chose to occupy it. Or if he were detained prisoner for debt in some patri- 
cian's prison, the same result might happen ; his wife and children might seek 
protection with some relation or friend, and their home might thus be abandoned. 
And supposing justice to have been fairly administered, yet the delays of legal 
business, or the want of friends to undertake the cause, or the fear of provoking 
a powerful enemy, might often hinder the owner from making good his claim 
within two years, and so the property might be lost forever. 

As the Roman law attached no political power to landed property, so neither 
Distinctions as to van- did it make a distinction between it and all other kinds of property, 
Kes^dpii^nTnec as to the formalities required in conveying it to another. Yet 
mancipU - there was a distinction recognized ; some things might be conveyed 

by bare delivery, a title to others could only be given by selling them with cer- 
tain solemn formalities, known by the nam* of mancipatio and in jure cessio. 
This latter class' 29 included not only land and houses, but also slaves, and all tame 
animals of draught or burden, and all these were classed under one common 
name, as res mancipii or mancipi ; every other article of property was nee man- 
cipii. The formality of mancipatio was one of the peculiar rights of Roman citi- 
zens ; 30 no magistrate's presence was required, nor was there need of any written 
instrument : but five Roman citizens of an adult age were to be present as wit- 
nesses, and a sixth, called the weigher, or scalesman, was to produce a pair of 
scales to weigh the copper, which was, at this time, the only money in circula- 
tion. Then the purchaser laid his hand upon the thing which he was buying, 
and said, " This thing I declare to be mine according to the law of the Quirites ; 
and I have bought it with this money duly weighed in these scales." In later 
times, when this form was still preserved, only slaves and animals were required 
to be literally seized by the purchaser ; land might be disposed of at a distance. 31 
But in the days of the decemviri, we cannot doubt that every sale of land by 
mancipatio was transacted on the spot, and that the purchaser laid his hand upon 
the house or ground which he was buying, no less than on the slave or the ox. 
The form called " in jure cessio" took place before a magistrate : 82 the purchaser 
claimed, " vindicavit," the purchase as his property ; the seller, when asked by 
the magistrate if he disputed the claim, answered " that he did not ;"' and then 
the magistrate awarded the article in question to the purchaser or claimant. 
These transactions, by word of mouth only, without writing, were especially sanc- 

29 Mancipi res sunt prsedia in Italieo solo — conveyance, and thus gratified the commons by 

item jura praediorum rusticorum, vclut via, iter, recognizing their custom as law, we can under- 

actus, aquseductus ; item servi et quadrupedes stand why there should have been afterwards 

qua; dorso collove domantur, velut boves, muli, a sort of pride felt in the exercise of this right 

equi, asini. Cseterae res nee mancipi sunt. Dl- of mancipatio. and why it should have been 

pian, Fragm. XIX. 1. It lias been doubted kept as one of the peculiar rights of Roman 

whether this distinction was as old as the citizens. And if it were originally the mode of 

Twi'i". ' Tables (see Hugo, Gesehichte des conveyance practised by the plebeian landown- 

Rom. IJechts, p. 425) ; but it is, at any rate, rce- ere, we can account fbx its being restricted to 

ognized by the Cineiali law, passed in the year land, ami t<> what constituted the most valua- 

550 (see Hugo, p. 821), and was. in all proba- ble part of the livestock of land, slaves, horses, 

bility, coeval with the earliest state of the Eo- mules, asses, and oxen. In particular, we can 

man law, except as far as regards the jura prffl- thus understand why ships were res ucc man- 

diornm : for these, being res incorporates, could cipii, because foreign commerce was whollj un- 

not pass by actual bodily seizure, and mancipa- know a to the agricultural commons, and *hips 

tio no doubt always in its original meaning un- were neither bought nor sold amongst them. 

plied this. It may he conjectured that inanei- 1 may observe that in the MS. published hy 

patio was at firsl a matter of usage amongst the Mai. entitled " De donationibus, ad legem <"mei- 

plebekui landowners, a method of effecting a am," we have the true form " res mancipii," 

purchase in the country before a man's imme- instead of "mancipi." Sec Hugo, p. 321, and 

diatc neighbors, withoul the necessity of his Niebuhr, Vol. 1. p. 447. Note U 

going up to Rome and transacting the business 3 " Gaius, 1.?' L19. 

before a magistrate. If the law of the Twelve :,] Gaius, 1. £ 121. 

Tallies gave a legal sanction to this mode of m Gains, 11. § ^4. Clpian, Fragin. XIX. 9. 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 105 

tioned by the twelve tables, which declared, that in buying and selling, " even 
as the -tongue had spoken, so should be the law." 33 

The principle of the law of descent was that of qualified male succession with- 
out primogeniture. 34 All children who had not been emanci- 

i,..- . -.,.„, , . i .. •-. , Law of succession. 

pated' 5D indented their father s estate in equal portions, without 
distinction of sex or eldership. A man's wife, if she had fully come under his 
power (in manum convenerat), inherited as a daughter ; and his son's children, 
if the son were dead, or had been emancipated, 36 succeeded to that son's share, 
and divided it equally amongst them ; even the children of his son's son inher- 
ited on the same condition, if their father had ceased to be in his grandfather's 
power, either by death or by emancipation ; but daughters' children, as belong- 
ing to another family, had no right of succession. All these were called a man's 
own heirs, "sui heredes ;" and in default of these, his agnati, 37 or relations by 
the father's side, succeeded ; the nearer excluding the more remote, and those in 
the same degree of relationship receiving equal shares. In default of agnati, 38 a 
man's inheritance went to the members of his gens. 

III. The last division of the Roman private law relates to actions. " Legis 
actio" signifies, " the course of proceeding which the law prescribes ni . Law • ao ti ns. 
to a man, in order to settle a dispute with his neighbor, or to ob- Fi ^ SOTtsof& " ts ™ 8 - 
tain the redress of an injury." It stands opposed to all those acts of supersti- 
tion or violence, by which the ignorance or passion of man has sought to obtain 
the same end; to the lot or the ordeal on the one hand, to the dagger of the 
assassin or the sword of the duellist on the other. But a proceeding at law, ac- 
cording to the notion of the decemvirs, was bound to follow the law to the very 
letter ; nothing was understood of construction or of deductions, insomuch 
that he who brought an action against another for cutting down his vines 59 
was held to have lost his cause, because the twelve tables forbade only 
the cutting down of fruit trees generally, without any particular mention of 
vines. The modes of action were five: 40 1. Sacramento; 2. Per judicis postu- 

33 Quum nexum faciet mancipiumque, uti in the MS. It was to be found in his first book, 
lingua nuncupassit ita jus esto. Fragm. XII. between the 164th and 165th sections of the 
Tabular. 17, apud Haubold. See Dirksen, p. present division. There is no more difficult 
397-406. question in Eoman law than to ascertain when 

34 I call it "qualified male succession," be- and to what extent the plebeians acquired "jura 
cause although a man's daughters inherited gentilitatis." The whole institution of the 
along with his sons, yet his daughters' sons gentes seems ,to have been essentially patri- 
were altogether excluded-, and his daughters, cian ; and it was the boast of the patricians, 
being under their brothers' guardianship, could " se solos gentem habere," Livy, X. 8. Who, 
not dispose of or devise their inheritance with- then, in the succession to the property of an 
out their consent. By the Athenian law the intestate plebeian, stood in a position analogous 
sons alone inherited, but they were obliged to to that of the members of his gens in the suc- 
portion out their sisters, and public opinion cession to the property of a patrician ? For the 
would not allow this to be done niggardly. noblest of the plebeian families, the Caecilii, for 

35 Gaius, III. § 2. instance, or the Decii, could have had no con- 

36 The reason of this restriction was, that if nection with any patrician gens such as subsist-, 
the son were in his father's power, he was him- ed between the plebeian and patrician Olaudii, 
self his father's heir, and his children were, of so that it does not appear who would have suc- 
course, excluded; if he had lost his succession, ceeded to the property of an intestate Ceecilius, 
either by death or by emancipation, then his in defaidt of sui hsere'des and agnati. Was it, 
children succeeded to his share as his repre- as in the Athenian law, that cognati, a term 
sentatives. which included relations by the mother's side 

37 Gaius, III. § 9, 10. By the law of the XII. as well as by the father's, were capable of in- 
fcables, all relations by the father's side, wheth- heriting ? And if no relations at all were to be 
er male or female, were alike included under found, had the tribe any claim to the succession, 
the title of agnati ; but afterwards the meaning or was the property considered to be wholly 
of the term was more limited, and female rela- without an heir, and thus capable of being ac- 
tions were excluded beyond the ■ degree of a quired by a stranger by occupation, possessio, 
sister. A man's mother, if she had passed "in and two years' prescription, usucapio '! In this 
manum mariti," acquired the rights of a daugh- case there would be a possibility of the property 
ter, as regarded her husband, and-' thus was of a plebeian being acquired by a patrician, 
considered in the light of a sister^o her son. whereas, so long as there existed a single mem- 
See Justinian, Institutes, III. Tit. 2, §3. ber of his gens, the property of a patrician could 

38 Gaius, III. § 17. It is provoking that the never be without a patrician heir, 
part of Gaius' work, in which he had defined 39 Gaius, IV. § 11. 

who were a man's "gentiles," is wholly illegible 40 Gaius, IV. § 12. 



106 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV, 

lationem ; 3. Per condictionem ; 4. Per manus injectionem ; 5. Per pignoris 
captionem. 

1. The first 41 of these was the most generally adopted where no other specific 
ist Action : sacmmen- action was prescribed by law. The contending parties each staked 

a certain sum of money, " sacramentum," on the issue of their 
suit, five hundred ases, if the value of the disputed property amounted to one 
thousand ases or more ; and fifty, if it fell below that sum. Only if the suit 
related to the establishing of the freedom of any one claimed as a slave, 42 , the sac- 
ramentum was fixed at the lower sum of fifty ases, lest his friends might be 
deterred from asserting his liberty, by the greatness of the sum they would have 
to forfeit if they failed in proving it. For the party who lost his cause forfeited 
his stake besides, and it went not to the other party, but to the state. Accord- 
ingly, the magistrate having named a judge to try the cause, the parties appeared 
before him, and first briefly stated to him the nature of their respective claims. 
Then the object in dispute, if it were any thing capable of moving or being 
moved, was brought into court also, and the plaintiff, holding a rod or wand in 
one hand, 43 and laying hold of the object which he claimed with the other, as- 
serted that it belonged to him according to the law of the Quirites, and then 
laid his rod upon it. The defendant did the same, and asserted his own right to 
it in the same form of words. Then the judge bade them both to loose their 
hold, and this being done, the plaintiff turned to the defendant, and said, " Wilt 
thou tell me wherefore thou hast claimed this thing as thine ?" The other an- 
swered, " I have fulfilled what right requires, even as I have made my claim." 
Then the plaintiff rejoined, " Since thou hast made thy claim wrongfully, I defy 
thee at law ; and I stake five hundred ases on the issue." To which the de- 
fendant replied, " In like manner, and with a like stake, do I also defy thee." 
Then the judge awarded possession of the object in dispute to one or other of 
the parties till the cause should be decided, and called upon him to give security 
to his adversary, "litis et vindiciarum," that is, that he would make good to him 
both the thing itself, " litem," and the benefit arising from his temporaiy posses- 
sion of it, "vindicias," if the cause were finally decided against him. Both par- 
ties also gave security to the judge that their stake, or sacramentum, should be 
duly paid. But if the dispute related to the personal freedom of any man, wheth- 
er he were to be adjudged to be a slave or a freeman, the twelve tables expressly 
ordered that the vindicias, or temporary possession, 44 should be awarded in favor 
of freedom, that the man should remain at liberty, till it- were proved that he 
was lawfully a slave. I have given all these details, partly from their affording 
so curious an illustration of the legal proceedings of the fourth century of Rome, 
partly from the light which they throw on the famous story of Virginia, presently 
to be related, and partty also from their novelty ; our whole knowledge of the old 
actions at law being derived from the Institutes of Gaius, which in their entire 
and original form were first discovered by Niebuhr at Verona, in the year 1816. 

2. 3. The account of the second and third modes of action has been lost out 
2d anri 3<i Actions: °f the MS. of Gaius, so that we can neither fully understand their 
^m^'ipJ'emui^u- nature, nor how they differed from one another. So far as we 
nem- can judge, the latter, actio per condictionem, appears to have 
been a sort of serving a notice on the adversary, calling on him to appear at the 
end of thirty days, to submit his cause to the judge. The former, per postula- 

41 Gains, IV. § 13-17. " " Festucam tenebat." This was apparent- 

42 In the ease of a slave's liberty, it was not ly a rod or wand, as Gains says afterwards, 
necessary that the person who Drought the "Festucfl autem utebontur quasi hostse loco, 
question to issue Bhould have any connection Bigno quodam justi dominii, § 16. It cannot, 
with the slave, or any personal interest for him: therefore, Higmfv the wisp of straw or chaff, 
it was the duty, or rather the privilege, of cv- which Plutarch says was thrown on a slave 

cry man to save a freeman from the perpetual when he received his liberty. See Fucciolati in 

loss of his liberty. "In his qua asserantur in Festuca. 

libertatem, quivis lego agcre potest." Livy, " Vindioiffl secundum libertatem. See Livy, 

III. 45. III. 44, 45. 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 107 

tionem judicis, was an application to the magistrate that he would name a judge 
to try the matter in dispute. 

4. The summary process, per manus injectionem, was allowed by the twelve 
tables 45 as a method of enforcing the fulfilment of the judge's sen- 4th Action . Per ma . 
tence. If the defendant, after having lost his cause, and having nns in J ectionem - 
been sentenced to pay a certain sum to the plaintiff, had neglected to do so, the 
plaintiff might lay actual hands on him, and unless he could find a vindex, or de- 
fender, to plead his cause for him, he being himself not allowed to do it, he was 
dragged to the plaintiff's house, and there kept in chains till he had paid all that 
was due from him. 

5. Lastly, the action per pignoris captionem 46 was a rude method of distress, 
in which a man was allowed, in certain cases, to compel his adver- 6th Acdon: Per pig . 
sary to pay him what he owed him by carrying off articles of his ™™<^<™- 
property as a pledge. In some instances it rested solely on old unwritten cus- 
tom, such as that which allowed the soldier, 41 if his pay were withheld, to dis- 
train in this manner upon the goods of the officer whose business it was to give 
it him. The twelve tables allowed it in cases connected with religious worship ; 
as, for instance, it was permitted against him who had bought a sheep or an ox 
for sacrifice, and had not paid for it ; or against him who had not paid for the 
hire of a beast, which the owner had let for the very purpose of getting money 
to enable him to offer a sacrifice himself. In the first case, there was an impiety 
in a man's offering to the gods that which was not his own ; in the second, the 
gods themselves were defrauded of their sacrifice, inasmuch as their worshipper 
was deprived of the means to offer it. 

I have purposely postponed my notice of one part of the law, that which re- 
lates to obligations, because it affords an easy transition to another . 

o 7 ..,, /»i i it • haw of obligations. 

branch of the subject, the criminal law or the twelve tables ; in- 
asmuch as several offences, which we regard as crimes, or public wrongs, were 
by the Romans classed under the head of private wrongs, and the compensation 
which the offender was bound to make to the injured party, followed from one 
species of civil obligation, technically called obligationes ex delicto. 

Over and above our general duties to our fellow-citizens, we put ourselves 
often, by our own voluntary act, under certain new and specific obligations excontwo 
obligations towards them, either from some particular engage- * u and ex delicto - 
merit contracted with them, or from our having done them some wrong. In the 
first case, there arises an obligation to fulfil our agreement ; in the second, an 
obligation to repair our injustice. Hence the Roman law 48 divided all legal obli- 
gations into those arising from engagement, ex contractu, and those arising from 
a wrong committed, ex delicto. 

I. It will not be necessary to go minutely into the subdivisions of the former 
of these two classes of obligations. To the head of oblierationes ,. . 

,,,° /-it i v .1 *■ Obligations ex con- 

re contractee belonged the law ot debtor and creditor : the mere traotu. Debts, interest 

fact of having borrowed money 49 constituted the obligation to pay 
it, without any promise to that effect, verbal or written, 59 on the part of the bor- 
rower. But as the remarkable provisions of the law of the twelve tables, with 
regard to debtors, have been already noticed, it will not be needful to state them 

45 Gains, IV. § 21-25. tuum," when the thing, whatever it be, is given 

46 Gains, IV. § 26-29. "With regard to the to another for his nse, with the understanding 
orthography of the word, the text of Gaius va- that he shall return to us hereafter not that very 
ries, exhibiting in one passage the form " cap- same thing, but one of the same nature and 
tionem," § 12, and in another that of " capio- quality. "Commodatum" expressed that which 
hem," § 26. If the expression be made one is lent to another, with the understanding that 
single word, the form would be pignoriscapio. the very same thing shall be restored to us again. 
See Cato, as quoted by Genius, Noct. Att. 50 The English law considers an obligatio re 
VII. 10. contracta as an implied contract; such a con- 

47 Gaius, IV. § 27. tract " as reason and justice dictate, and which, 

48 Gaius, III. § 88. therefore, the law presumes that every man un- 

49 Or any thing else which can be weighed, dertakes to perform." Blackstone, Comment, 
counted, or measured. This was called "mu- Book II. c. 30, §IX. 



108 HISTORY OF ROME. [Cuap. XIV 

again. One part, however, of the engagements of debtors, theii being bound to 
pay the interest as well as the principal of their debt, belonged to obligations of 
another class, those contracted by direct words of covenant; for whereas the 
payment of the principal was an obligation re contracta, the payment of interest 
was a matter of distinct stipulation between the contracting parties. 61 Yet al- 
though this may seem to be as much a matter of voluntary bargain as any deal- 
ing between man and man, still the contracting parties meet often on so unequal 
a footing, and the weaker is *so little in a condition either to gain more favorable 
terms, or to do without the aid of which they are the price, that legislators have 
generally interfered either to prohibit such engagements altogether, or at any 
rate to prevent the stronger party from making an exorbitant use of his advan- 
tages ; they have either made all interest of money illegal, or have fixed a maxi- 
mum to its amount. Accordingly, the decemvirs, while they enforced the pav- 
ment of debts with such fearful severity, thought themselves bound to save the 
debtor, if possible, from the burden of an extravagant interest ; they forbade any 
thing higher than unciarium foenus, 52 an expression which has been variously in- 
terpreted as meaning, in our language, either one per cent., or cent, per cent. ; 
but which, according to Niebuhr, 53 signifies a yearly interest of one-twelfth, or 
eight and one-third per cent. ; and this, being calculated for the old cyclic year 
of ten months, would give ten per cent, for the common year of twelve months, 
which was in ordinary use in the time of the decemvirs. This, according to our 
notions, is sufficiently high ; yet the common rate of interest at Athens, at this 
time, was twelve per cent. ; M and Niebuhr observes, that from this period for- 
ward for sixty years, till the distress which followed the Gaulish invasion, we 
hear no more of the misery of insolvent debtors. 

A third class of obligations, 55 ex contractu, contained all promises or covenants 
„ ,. . . . expressed in a certain form of words ; and here the Roman law 

Obligations arerner from - 1 ill i i i i -ii i • i • 111 

the force of certain pe- acknowledged such only to be legally binding as were concluded 

■culiax words or forms. • i c c i o J o _ 

in the toixn ot question and answer, the party with whom the 
covenant was made asked him who made it, " Dost thou engage to do so and 
so ?" And he answered, " I do engage." It is a curious circumstance, that as 
the Romans had a peculiar form of sale, mancipatio, which none but Roman cit- 
izens might use, so also they had one peculiar word to express an engagement, 
which was binding only on Roman citizens, and lost its force even on them if 
translated into another language. This favorite word was spondeo.* 6 A Roman 
might make a binding covenant with a foreigner in any language which both 
parties understood ; if it were drawn up in Latin, the words promitto, dabo, fa- 
ciam, or any others to the like effect, retained their natural and reasonable force, 
and constituted an agreement recognized by law ; but if he used the word 
spondeo, or its supposed equivalent, in any other language, the engagement was 
null and void. This, undoubtedly, is to be referred to the religious origin of 

61 Gibbon, Vol. VIII. chap. xliv. p. 85, 8vo. Atbens we have t6kos tVirpiroy. t<!voj t^turros. etc., 
ed. 1807, considers the payment of interest to to express respectively " Interest of a third ana 
follow from an obligation ex consensu, and to of a sixth part of the sum borrowed." And as 
come under the general head of letting and hir- the Greek expressions denote the interest for a 
iiiLT. Locatio and eonductio, inasmuch as interest year, although interest was, in fact, paid every 

ic considered as the hire paid for the tern- month, so the unciarium foenus, in like man- 

porary use of money. The view given in the ner, may mean interest of a twelfth part, or 

fcexj is thai of Hcineecius, III. 15, § 6, and of eight and one third per cent, per annum, al- 

Hugo, Geschichte des Rom. Reehts, p. 230, though a part of it was at Rome also paid 

Ed. '■'. monthly. 

62 Tacitus, Annal. VI. 16. " Duodeciin tabu- 63 Sec Ins chapter " fiber den Unzialzinsfuss," 
lis sanctum, ne quia nnciario fcenore ampliua in the third volume of his history, p. 61. 
exercerei." New, the uncia being the well- w s.r Bockh, "Staatshaushaltung der Athe- 
known twelfth part of the Roman as, or pound, ner," Vol. I. p. 143. In Demosthenes 1 time, 
and the heavy copper coinage of the old times twelve per cent, at Athens was considered low. 
being still the standard at Borne, unciarium fos- w " Obligationes verbis contracts. " Gaius, 
nus would bea very natural expression for "in- III. 92. 

terest of an ounce in the pound," that is, of a M Guius, III. §93. 
twelfth part of the sum borrowed. Thus, at 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 109 

the term ; it is clearly connected with tfirivSu, and denoted, probably, an oath 
taken with the sanction of certain peculiar rites, such as a stranger could not 
witness without profanation. We may be sure that spondeo was a word as pecu- 
liar to the patricians originally as it was afterwards to the united Roman people 
of patricians and commoners : there was a time when it could have been no 
more used in a covenant with a plebeian, than it was afterwards allowed to be 
addressed to a Greek or an Egyptian. 

II. The second division of obligations included those which arise from our 
having; wronged our neighbor, the obligation of making good, or tt _,. . 

o O , p . . > i-i i t -v*t n - Obligations ex de- 

making reparation for, the injury which we have done. We may «cto. Law- of theft and 

. . & . , r i i'n i j* v law of libel. 

injure either the person, or the property, or, thirdly, the feelings 
and character of another. 1. Injuries 51 to the person were divided by the twelve 
tables into three classes, a. If a limb or any member were irreparably injured, 
the law ordered retaliation, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," unless the injured 
party chose to accept of any other satisfaction. (3. If a bone were broken or 
crushed, the offender was to pay three hundred ases. y. And all other bodily 
injuries were compensated by the payment of twenty-five ases. The poverty of 
the times, says Gaius, made these money penalties seem sufficiently heavy ; but 
twenty-five ases could never have been a very heavy penalty to the majority of 
the patricians ; and such a law was well calculated to encourage the outrages 
which Kseso and his associates and imitators were in the habit of committing 
against the poorer citizens. 2. Injuries 68 against property, on the other hand, 
were visited severely. A thief in the night 59 might be lawfully slain ; or by day, 69 
if he defended himself with a weapon. If a thief was caught in the fact, he was 
to be scourged and given over, 61 addicebatur, to the man whom he had robbed ; 
and the lawyers doubted whether he was only to be kept in chains by the injured 
party till he had made restitution, probably fourfold, or whether he was to be 
his slave forever. Theft not caught in the fact was punished with twofold resti- 
tution. 62 If a man wanted to search a neighbor's house for stolen goods, he was 
to search naked, 63 with only a girdle round his loins, and holding a large dish or 
platter upon his head with both his hands ; and if he found his goods, then the 
thief was to be punished as one caught in the fact. 3. But in no provision of 
the twelve tables does the aristocratical spirit of their authors appear more man- 
ifest than in the extreme severity with which they visited attacks upon character, 
and in the large extent of their definition of a punishable libel. They declared 
it an offence for which 64 a man should be visited with one of their heaviest 

57 Gains, III. § 223. precise penalty awarded to libels in the twelve 

88 Gains,, III. § 189. tables. The foundation of our knowledge on 

59 " Sei nox furtum factum esit, sei im occisit this subject, is the passage quoted by Augus- 
joure caisus esto." Fragin. XII. Tabular. § 10, tine (de Civit. Dei, II. 9), from the fourth book 
apud Haubold. of Cicero's treatise, De Republics,. " Duodecim 

60 Gaius, ad edictum provinciale, quoted in tabulae cum perpaucas res capite sanxissent, in 
the Digest, XLVII. De furtis, 1. 54, § 2. his banc quoque sanciendam putaverunt, si 

61 Gaius, III, § 189. quis occentavisset, sive carmen condidisset, 

62 Gaius, III, § 190. quod infamiam faceret flagitiumve alteri." And 

63 Gaius, III. 192, 193. The notion of this Augustine in another place, II. 12, referring to 
strange law was, that the man who searched, this passage, expresses what he supposed to be 
by being naked, and having his hands occu- its meaning in his own words thus : " Capite 
pied, coidd not conceal any thing about him, plectendum sancientes tale carmen condere si 
which he might leave secretly in his neighbor's quis auderet." Augustine, living in an age 
house, and then charge him with theft. It is when capital punishments, in our sense of the 
curious that this extraordinary custom seems to term, were common, understands Cicero's words 
have existed also at Athens. See the folio wing as signifying: the "punishment of death." But 
passage from the Clouds of Aristophanes, v. in Cicero's time, when the punishment of death 
497, ed. Dindorf. was, so far as Roman citizens were concerned, 

unknown to the law, the expressions, capite 

SilKPATES. — "IQi wv, Karddov Bolpdriov. sancire, and res capitalis, generally, as is well 

STPEi'lAAHS. fiSiKriKdrl; known, have a milder meaning, and caput re- 

SliKP. ovk. a\Xd yvpvobs ritnivan vojii^tTai. fers to the civil rather than to the natural life of 

2TPE1 r . <iXX' obxi tywpdvwv eywy' elaep^ojiai. a citizen. Thus Gaius says expressly, " Poena 

manifesti furti ex lege XII. tabulamm capitalis 

64 There have been various opinions as to the erat," III. § 189. And then he goes on, "Nam 



110 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIV. 

punishments, involving a diminutio capitis, if he publicly uttered in word or 
writing any thing that tended to bring disgrace upon his neighbor. Cicero re- 
fers to this law, as proving the existence of something of a literature in the times 
of the decemvirs ; and he contrasts it with the license enjoyed by the comic 
poets at Athens. No doubt satirical songs are sufficiently ancient, and these 
were the literature which the decemvirs dreaded ; the coarse jests which were 
uttered in the Fescennine verses, and which were allowed, as at a kind of Satur- 
nalia, to the soldiers who followed their general in his triumph. But the effect 
of this law was to make the ancient poetry of Rome merely laudatory ; and af- 
terwards, when prose compositions began, they caught the same infection. If 
the poet Nsevius could be persecuted by the powerful family of the Metelli, and 
obliged to leave Rome for no severer satire than his famous line, "Fato Romee 
fiunt Metelli consules," we may readily understand how little an humble writer, in 
recording the actions of a great patrician house, would dare to speak of them 
truly. And hence it has happened that the falsehood of the Roman annals is 
so deeply rooted, and that there is scarcely an eminent person in the Roman 
history who is spoken of otherwise than in terms of respect. It may be said 
that the license of Athenian comedy spared neither the innocence of Nicias, nor 
the pure and heroic virtue of Pericles. But has history, therefore, done justice 
to their merit ? And how different is the value of praise when given, on the 
one hand, by the free pens of the great historians of Greece, and on the. other, 
by that uniform adulation which saw, even in Marius and Sulla, more matter for 
admiration than for abhorrence ! 

All the offences hitherto enumerated were considered as private rather than 
Penalla public wrongs ; and if they were in any case punished capitally, 

it was rather that the law allowed the injured party to take into 
his own hands the extremest measure of vengeance, than that the criminal suffered 
death in consequence of the deliberate sentence of the judge. But some offences 
were regarded as crimes, or public wrongs in the strictest sense ; they were tried, 
either by the people in the comitia of centuries, or by judges, like the qunss- 
tores parricidii, specially appointed by the people. Of this sort were parricide, 65 

liber verberatus addicebatur ei cui furtum fece- ment-of a libeller involved in it a diminutio ca- 
rat." On the other hand, not to insist on Hor- pitis, and was thus, in the Roman sense of the 
ace's line, " Vertere modum formidine fastis," term, capital. It may be, also, that the scn- 
Cornutus, the scholiast on Persius, says ex- tence " ut fuste ferietur," not being limited with 
pressly, " Lege XII. tabularum cautum est, ut the careful humanity of the Jewish law, was, 
/(/stilus feriretur, gui publice invehebatur," when executed withseverity, fatal ; and that a 
&c. Yet still there is another question, for the man who had thus died under his punishment 
military punishment of the fustuarium was no- was considered as jure csssus. It might thus 
toriously often fatal; and it may be, that the be truly said, that libels were punished capital- 
expression " fusti ferire," included even a beat- ly, in the later sense of the term, if the punish- 
ing to death. Thus we read of Egnatius Metel- ment might, in fact, be made to amount to a 
lus. "quiuxorem fuste percussam interemit," sentence of death, at the discretion of those 
Valcr. Max. VI. 3, § 9, where the words fuste who inflicted it. But the law meant only, that 
percussam are, I think, meant to describe the the libeller should be beaten, and incur also a 
manner of the death, rather than a punishment diminutio capitis; and this was sufficiently se- 
inflicted previously to the capital one. And vere, when we find that the most grievous hod- 
yet fustigatio, in the estimate of the later law, ily injuries, although visited by punishment in 
was a milder punishment than nagellatio; and kind, yet did not involve any forfeiture of civil 
the Digest calls it " fustigationis admonitio." — rights. 
See Hemeccius, IV. 18, §7. "** Every one knows the famous punishment 

[fwe look to the later law, in order to learn of the parricide, that he should be scourged, 
what was then the punishment of libel, we then sewn up in a sack, in company with a dog, 
shall find that, according to Ulpian (Digest. he a viper, and a monkey, and thrown into the 
injur, et famosis libellis, 1. . r >, § 9), the libeller sea. But it is not certain that this was a law 
was to be intestabilis, that is. he could neither of the twelve tables. Cicero mentions only the 
give evidence in Q court of justice, nor make a sewing up of the parricide in a Back, and throw- 
will. And in the somewhat vague language of ing him into the river. And he merely says, 
the Theodosian Code, IX. 34, § 10, libellers are "Majorca nostri supplicium in parricides sin- 
to dread "ultorem suis cervicibua gladium." gulare excogitaverunt," pro Roscio Amerino, 
But " famosi libelli," in the Theodosian Code, 25. It may have been a traditional punish- 
meansj perhaps, something different from the ment, older than even the twelve tables. So, 
libellous canmna of the XII. tables. again, nothing is known of the law of the 

On the whole, it is certain that the punish- twelve tables respecting murder. Pliny only 



Chap. XIV.] THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 1 1 1 

and probably all murder, arson, 66 false witness, 61 injuring a neighbor's corn 
by night, 68 witchcraft, 69 and treason.™ The punishment for these crimes was 
death, either by beheading, hanging, throwing the criminal from the Tarpeian 
rock, or in some cases by burning alive. This last mode of execution was 
adjudged by the twelve tables to the crime of arson : but a memorial has been 
preserved by the lawyers, confirmatory of the story already mentioned of the 
execution of the nine adversaries of the consul T. Sicinius, that there was a time 
when burning alive was the punishment of enemies and deserters. 11 The " ene- 
mies" here meant could not have been merely foreigners taken in war, for their 
punishment could have found no place in the civil or domestic law of Rome ; 
they must rather have been those Roman traitors who, according to a form pre- 
served till the latest period of the commonwealth, were solemnly declared to be 
enemies of their country. 

When we read of capital punishments denounced by the Roman law, and yet 
hear of the worst criminals remaining at liberty till the very end 

o J J Law of bail 

of their trial, and being allowed to escape their sentence by going 
into voluntary banishment, we are inclined to ask whether the law meant to 
threaten merely, and never to strike an offender. Niebuhr has explained this 
seeming contradiction with his usual sagacity ; it will be enough to say here, 
that although the Roman law, like the old law of England, did not refuse bail 
for a man accused of treason or felony, 12 yet it was by no means a matter of 
course that it should be granted ; and ordinary criminals, at least in these early 
times, were, in the regular course of things, committed to prison to abide their 
trial, nearly with as much certainty as in England. 

And now we come to the constitutional law of the twelve tables, a subject 
almost of greater interest than the common law, but one involved 

. ° i ■ , -n r» in Constitutional law. 

m much greater obscurity, rour or five enactments alone have 
been preserved to us : 1. That there should be an appeal to the people 13 from 
the sentence of every magistrate. 2. That all capital trials 74 should be conduct- 
ed before the comitia of the centuries. 3. That privilegia, 15 or acts of pain and 
penalties against an individual, should be unlawful. 4. That the last decision 16 
of the people should supersede all former decisions on the same subject. 5. That 
the debtor whose person and property were pledged to his creditor, nexus, 11 and 

says that the turning cattle into a neighbor's were bailable." Blackstone, Vol. IV. p. 298. 
corn by night was punished by the twelve ta- The statute law has greatly restricted this pow- 
bles more severely than murder ; insomuch as er, so far, at least, as justices of the peace are 
the offender was hanged up as devoted to Ce- concerned; for "the court of King's bench 
res, and so put to death. Histor. Natur. XVIII. may bail for any crime whatsoever, be it trea- 
3. Of course murder was punished, and prob- son, murder, or any other offence.", Black- 
ably with death; but the criminal was be- stone, IV. p. 299. This last doctrine, however, . 
headed, we may suppose, and this would be was contested by Junius, in his famous letter 
considered as a less punishment than hanging, to Lord Mansfield, in which he contends, 

66 Gaius, IV. ad ~Leg. XII. tabularum apud agreeably to the notion of the Greek and Bo- 
Digest. XLVII. Tit. IX. § 9. De incendio, man law, that no power could bail a thief taken 
ruinA, naufragio. with the manner, that is, with the thing stolen 

07 Aldus Gellius, XX. 1. upon him. In cases of crimes committed by 

68 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XVIII. 3. persons of high birth, like Kasso Quinctius, the 

69 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXVIII. 2. being allowed to offer, bail was a means of 

70 Digest. XLVIII. Tit. VI. § 2. Ad Le- evading justice ; and so it was found to be in 
gem Juliam Majestatis. England, before parliament interfered to amend 

71 Digest. XLVIII. Tit. XIX. De pcenis, the common law. But humble and ordinary 
1. 8, § 2. Hostes autem item transfugae ea poe- criminals would not equally be allowed to profit 
na. afnciuntur, ut vivi exurantur. Godefroy by it. 

remarks that we never read of enemies so pun- 73 Cicero, de Bepublica, II. 31. 

ished, and some have proposed to read " hos- 74 Cicero, de Legibus, III. 19. 

tes, *. e. transfugas," as if deserters alone were 75 Cicero, de Legibus, III. 19. 

intended. I believe that the common reading 76 Livy, VII. 17 ; IX. 34. 

is right, but that it relates, as I have observed, 77 See Festus in " Sanates." — But it is right 

to the Bomans, who were declared enemies of to say that the sentence has been conjecturally 

their country. That a foreign enemy, how- restored by Scaliger, all the words actually re- 

ever, might be sometimes so treated, is not im- maining in the MS. being these, which 1 have 

possible, as is shown by the story of Cyrus' printed in the Eoman character : 

treatment of Croesus. in xii nexo solutoque 

n " By the ancient common law all felonies forti sanative idem jus esto. 



112 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XIV. 



he who remained the free master of both, solutus, should be equal in the sio-ht 
of the law ; that is, that the nexus should not be considered to be infamis. And 
the same legal equality is given, also, to the fortis and the sanas ; 18 terms which 
were merely guessed at in the Augustan age, and which it is hopeless to attempt 
to understand now. A sixth enactment is expressly ascribed to the last two 
tables, which Cicero described as full of unequal laws, 119 namely, that between 
the burghers and the commons there should be no legal marriages ; if a burgher 
married tbe daughter of a plebeian, bis children followed their mother's condi- 
tion, and were not subject to their father, nor could inherit from him if he died 
intestate. 

With no further knowledge than of these mere fragments, we can judge but 
The . little of the tenor of the whole law ; but yet, if we had the entire 

changes effected by the text of the twelve tables before us, we should probably find in 

decemvirs were proba- i on v -• p i i i • 

ti.v not contained in the therm" no direct mention ot the great constitutional changes which 
the decemvirs are, with reason, supposed to have effected. Their 
code of laws was the expression of their legislative, rather than of their constit- 
uent power ; it contained the rules hereafter to be observed by the Roman peo- 
ple, but would not notice those previous organic changes by which the very 
composition, so to speak, of the people itself, was so greatly altered. 

These changes were wrought by virtue of that particular branch of their sov- 
ereign power, which was afterwards perpetuated in the censorship. When we 



The words in Italics, which complete the lines, 
were supplied by Soaliger. It has already been 
mentioned, Chap. XIII. note 39, that the only 
existing MS. of Festus has suffered from a fire", 
by which half of many of the pages has been 
burnt away vertically from top to bottom, so 
that every line is left mutilated. 

78 Our 'whole knowledge of this enactment is 
derived from the mutilated article in Festus, 
on the word " Sanates." The epitome of Pau- 
lus gives a foolish etymology, and says that the 
Sanates were people dwelling above and below 
Rome, who first revolted, but soon afterwards 
returned to their duty, and were called "Sa- 
nates:"' "quasi sanata mente." And the 
" Fortes," according to Paulus, were " boni 
qui nunquam defecerant a populo Romano." 
This is all improbable enough ; but Niebuhr 
says that the terms sanas and fortis must prob- 
ably be understood either of bondmen and free- 
men, or of those who had hitherto been vassals 
in the ancient colonial towns, and the colonists. 
It is impossible, in the present state of our 
knowledge, to give any thing more certain on 
the subject. 

19 Cicero, de Republics, II. 37. 

80 The twelve tables were extant down to the 
latest age of Roman literature, and their con- 
tents were familiarly known. Had they con- 
tained, therefore, many regulations of a con- 
stituent cast, such, for instance, as related to 
the powers of the several orders in the state, 
enrolment of the burghers and their 
clients in the tribes, the Roman writers could 
not possibly have showed such great ignorance 
of the early state of their constitution, as they 
have done actually. On one point, however, 
on which the twelve tahles appear to have 
spoken expressly, the practice and the law in 
after limes maj seem to have hem al variance. 
I allude to the famous provision, " De capite 
civis nisi per maximum comitiatnm ne ferun- 
to," a provision which appears to make the 
oenturiea i he sole criminal court, and to require 
that every ordinary felon should be tried before 

them; which we know was not the ease, and 
would have been, in fact, absurd and impossi- 



ble. But, in the first place, the institution of 
the judices seleeti, in later times, was intended 
to be a sort of representation of the whole peo- 
ple for judicial purposes ; so that a condemna- 
tion by these judges was final, and could not 
be appealed against, like the sentence of a 
magistrate (Cicero, Philipp. I. e. 9). And, 
again, there was taken out of the jurisdiction 
of the centuries all those cases of flagrant and 
evident guilt, which, according to the Roman 
notions, needed no trial at all. The difference 
in the penalty affixed to the crimes of furtum 
manifestum and nee manifestum, is very re- 
markable : in the former ease, the thief was 
scourged and given over, addietus, to the party 
whom he had injured ; in the latter case he 
had only to restore twofold. So the man who 
attacked, his neighbor in satirical songs, the 
murderer caught " red hand," the incendiary 
detected in setting: fire to his neighbor's house 
or corn, would, like the fur manifestus, be hur- 
ried off' at once to condign punishment, and all 
trial would be held unnecessary. And the 
same summary justice would be' dealt to the 
false witness and to the rioter. It is probable, 
also, that the magistrates, using that large dis- 
cretion which the practice of Rome gave them, 
would punish summarily crimes as to which 
the guilt of the accused was perfectly clear, 
even though he might not have been caught in 
the fact. When it is further remembered, that 
slaves and strangers were wholly subject to the 
magistrates' jurisdietion, and that there are 
states of society in which crimes of a serious 
description are extremely rare, it may be con- 
ceived that the criminal business of the centu- 
ries would not be very engrossing. 
•However, if M. Manlius was, as Niebuhr 

thinks, tried and condemned by the comitia of 
eurhe, and not by the centuries, it would have 
he,n a direct violation of the law of the twelve 
tahles. Put the story of Manlius. as we shall 
see hereafter, is too uncertain to be argued 
upon ; and it will not, perhaps, be found ne- 
cessary to suppose that he was really sentenced 
by the curiae. 



Chap. XIV.] POWERS OF THE DECEMVIRATE. 113 

find the censor Q. Maximus 81 annihilating at once the political influ- 
ence of a great portion of the people, by confining all freedraen to virtue ^ilLfi^orw 
four tribes only ; when we read of another censor, M. Livius, 82 dis- 
franchising the whole Roman people, with the exception of one single tribe, an 
exercise of power so extravagant indeed as to destroy itself, yet still, so far as 
appears, perfectly legal, we can scarcely understand how any liberty could be con- 
sistent with such an extraordinary prerogative vested in the magistrate. But if 
common censors in ordinary times possessed such authority, much more would it 
be enjoyed by the decemviri. They therefore altered the organization of the Roman 
people at their discretion ; the clients of the burghers, and even the burghers them- 
selves, were enrolled in the tribes ; and the list of citizens was probably increased 
by the addition of a great number of freedmen, and of the inhabitants of the 
oldest Roman colonies, mostly the remains of the times of the monarchy. But 
whether it was at this time that the comitia of centuries assumed that form in which 
alone they existed in the historical period of Rome, whether the tribes were now 
introduced to vote on the Field of Mars as well as in the Forum, is a question not 
to be answered. We may be more sure that whilst the patricians were admitted 
into the tribes of the commons, they still retained their own comitia of curiae, and 
their power of confirming the election of every magistrate by conferring on him 
the imperium, and of voting upon every law which had been passed by the tribes 
or centuries. 

But Niebuhr has further conjectured that the decemvirs were intended to be a 
perpetual magistracy, like the archons at Athens in their original 
constitution ; that the powers afterwards divided amongst the mili- as°3nh"p?rLi P ency oi 

i ,-i ,i l ,i , . . ,..° _ the decemvirate. 

tary tribunes, the censors, and the quaestores parricidn, were to be 
united in a college of ten officers, chosen half from the patricians, and half from 
the plebeians, and to remain in office for five years. And as the plebeians were 
thus admitted to an equal share in the government, the tribunitian power, intended 
specially to protect them from the oppression of the government, was no longer 
needed, and therefore, as Niebuhr supposes, the tribuneship was not to exist in 
the future constitution. 

Niebuhr's conjectures in Roman history are almost like a divination, and must 
never be passed over without notice. But as the decemvirate, whether intended 
to be temporary or perpetual, was soon overthrown, it does not seem necessary to 
enter further into the question ; and the common story appears to me to contain 
in it nothing improbable. Its details, doubtless, are traditional, and are full of 
the variations of traditional accounts ; still they are not like the mere poetical sto- 
ries of Cincinnatus or Coriolanus, and therefore I shall proceed to give the account 
of the second decemvirate, of the tyranny of Appius and the death of Virginia, 
not as giving full credit to every circumstance, but as considering it, to use the 
language of Thucydides, as being in the main sufficiently deserving of belief. 

Bi Livy, IX. 46. ■ Livy) XXIX> 37- 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SECOND DECEMVIRATE— STOKY OF VIRGINIA— REVOLUTION OF 305. 



MaAtora evXafltio-Sai iel robs vftpfyaSai vojaK,ovTai, rj avTov;, 17 w Kiqi6jitVM rvyxavovaiv' d0£i<5(Dj 
yap iavTuiv cxovoiv ol Sta Sv^on iirixcipovvTSi. — Aristotle, Politica, V. 11. 



The first decemvirs, according to the general tradition 1 of the Roman annalists, 
, . , governed uprightly and well, and their laws of the ten tables 

Decemvirs are elected ° ii -ni i i • 

for a second year. Ap- were just and good. All parties were so well pleased, that it was 

plus Claudius. -j, °. _ ' * ip 

resolved, to continue the same government at least for another 
year ; the more so as some of the decemvirs declared that their work was not yet 
complete, and that two tables still required to be added. And now the most 
eminent of the patricians, 2 L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, T. Quinctius Capitolim s, and 
C. Claudius, became candidates for the decemvirate ; but the commons had little 
reason to place confidence in any of them, and might well be afraid to trust un- 
limited power in their hands. Appius Claudius, on the contrary, had been tried, 
and had been found seemingly trustworthy : he and his colleagues had used their 
power moderately, and had done their duty as lawgivers impartially ; and such 
men were more to be trusted than the well-known supporters of the old ascend- 
ency of the burghers. Appius availed himself of this feeling, and exerted him- 
self strenuously to procure his re-election. But his colleagues, now becoming 
jealous of him, contrived 3 that he should himself preside at the comitia for the 
election of the new decemvirs ; it being considered one of the duties of the offi- 
cer who presided at, or, in Roman language, who held the comitia, to prevent 
the re-election of the same man to the same office two successive years, by re- 
fusing to receive votes in his favor if offered : and most of all would he be ex- 
pected to prevent it, when the man to be re-elected was himself. But the peo- 
ple might remember, that within the last few years they had owed to the repeated 
re-election of the same tribunes some of their greatest privileges ; and that then, 
as now, the patricians had earnestly endeavored to prevent it. They therefore 
elected Appius Claudius to the decemvirate for the second time, and, passing 
over all his former colleagues, and all the high aristocratical candidates, they 
elected with him four patricians, and, as Niebuhr thinks, five plebeians. The pa- 
tricians 4 were M. Cornelius Maluginensis, whose brother had been consul nine 
years before ; M. Sergius, of whom nothing is known ; L. Minucius, who had been 
consul in the year 296, and Q. Fabius Vibulanus, who had been already thrice 
consul, in 287, 289, and 295. Keeso Duilius, Sp. Oppius Cornicen, afnd Q. Pce- 
telius, are expressly said by Dionysius to have been plebeians ; and we know of 
none but plebeian families of the first and last of these names, nor, with one sin- 
gle exception, 5 of the second. The remaining two decemvirs were T. Antonius 
Merenda, and M. Rabuleius, and these we should judge from their names to have 

1 Livy, III. 33, 34. the Pcetelii, Antonii, and Rabuloii ; and the pa- 

a Livy, III. 35. ^k trician branches of these families may have oe- 

3 Livy, III. 35. fr come extinct long before the time when their 

4 Livy, HI. 85. Dionysius, X. 58. names became famous in history. Livy seems 
_ 6 A vestal virgin ofthe name of Oppiais men- to have regarded the decemviri as all patricians; 

tioned in the annals of the year 271 (Livy, II. and if their names had presented a manifest 

42), and she must have been a patrieian. Nor p n> of. if the contrary, he surely must have been 

is it improbable that there was, in the times of aware of it, the more so as the plebeian DuiliuS 

the decemviri, a patrieian as well as a plebeian aets an important part in his narrative of this 

family of Duihi, just as there were patrician and very period, 
plebeian Sicinii. And the same may be said of 



Chap. XV.] THE SECOND DECEMVIR ATE. 115 

been plebeians also ; but Dionysius distinguishes them from the three preceding 
them, and classes them with three of the patrician decemvirs, merely as men of 
no great personal distinction. 

Experience has shown that even popular leaders, when intrusted with absolute 
power, have often abused it to the purposes of their own tyranny. The . rt 
yet these have commonly remained so far true to their old principles 
as zealously to abate the mischiefs of aristocracy ; and thus they nave done scarcely 
less good in destroying what was evil, than evil in withholding -what was good. But 
to give absolute power to an- aristocratical leader is an evil altogether unmixed. 
An aristocracy is so essentially the strongest part of society, that a despot is 
always tempted to court its favor ; and if he is bounr? to it by old connections, 
and has always fought in its cause, this tendency becomes irresistible. So it was 
with Appius : the instant that he had secured his 'lection, he reconciled himself 
with his old party, 6 and labored to convince the patricians that not their own 
favorite candidates, the Quinctii, or his own linsman, C. Claudius, could have 
served their cause more effectually than himself. Accordingly the decemvirate 
rested entirely on the support of the patricUns. The associations or clubs, 7 Kse- 
so's old accomplices, were the tools and Carers of the tyranny ; even the better 
patricians forgave the excesses 8 of their party for joy at its restored ascendency ; 
the consulship, instead of being controlled, as the commons had fondly hoped, 
by fresh restraints, was released ev-n from those which had formerly held it ; 
instead of two consuls, there were now ten, and these no longer shackled by the 
Valerian law, nor kept in check oy the tribuneship, but absolute, with more than 
the old kingly sovereignty, ^'ow, indeed, said the patricians, the expulsion of 
the Tarquins was a real gair ; hitherto it had been purchased by some painful 
condescensions to the plebeians, and the growing importance of those half aliens 
had impaired the majesty of what was truly Rome. But this was at an end ; 
and by a just judgmer" upon their insolence, the very revolution which they had 
desired was become cheir chastisement ; and the decemvirate, which had been 
designed to level ?d the rights of the patricians, was become the instrument of 
restoring to then? their lawful ascendency. 

The decemviate seems, indeed, to have exhibited the perfect model of an aris- 
tocratical royalty, 9 vested not in one person, but in several, held 
not for life, out for a single year, and therefore not confined to one complete the code 8 !!? 
single fariily of the aristocracy, but fairly shared by the whole 
• order, Jo wards the commons, however, the decemvirs were, -in all respects, ten 
kinos. Each was attended by his twelve lictors, who carried not the rods only, 
but <she axe, 10 the well-known symbol of sovereignty. The colleges of ordinary 
niagistrates were restrained by the general maxim of Roman law, " melior est 
conditio prohibentis," which gave to each member of the college a negative upon 
the act of his colleagues. But the decemvirs bound themselves by oath" each 
to respect his colleagues' majesty ; what one decemvir did, none of the rest might 
do. Then followed all the ordinaiy outrages of the ancient aristocracies and tyr- 
annies ; insult, oppression, plunder, and blood ; and, worst of all, the license of 
the patrician youth was let loose without restraint upon the wives and daughters 
of the plebeians. 12 Meanwhile the legislation of the decemvirs was to complete 

6 Livy III. 36. Aliquandiu sequatus inter om- 9 Decern return species erat. Livy, III. 36. 
nes terror fait: paullatim totus VBrtere in pie- 10 Cum fascibus secures illigatas prseferebant. 
bem ccepit. Abstinebatur a patribus, in nu- Livy, III. 36. 

miiiores libidinose crudeliterque consulebatur. " Intercessionem consensu sustulerant, is 

7 Patriciis juvenibus sepserant latera, .eorum Livy's expression, III. 36. Dionysius adds, 
catervse tribunalia obsedcrant. Livy, III. 37. opxia Ttp6vres anrdp'pTjTa r<3 TrXrjdct, X. 59. These 
'Eratpeiav cKaaroi cwfiyov, iiriXeydpevoi miis dpacrv- oatlis resembled those which were sometimes 
rdrovs t&v vtuiv Kal wpiatv avrols imTti&eioTdTovs. taken by the ruling members of the Greek oli- 
Dionysius, X. 60. garchics : Ka*tTG>Srip.(!>KaK6vovs£<ToiJiai,KatPov\iia(t> 

8 P'rhnores Patrum — nee probare quse fierent, S ti Sv e'xw kok6v. Aristotle, Politica, V. 9. 
et credere haud indignis accidere ; avide ruen- 12 Dionysius, XL 2. 

do ad libertatem in servitutem elapsos juvare 
nolle. Livy, III. 37. 



116 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XV. 

the triumph of their party. The two tables which they added to the former ten 
are described by Cicero as containing " unequal laws ;" the prohibition of mar- 
riages between the patricians and plebeians is expressly said to have been amongst 
the number. Not that we can suppose that such marriages had been hitherto 
legal, that is to say, they were not connubia : and therefore if a patrician, as I 
have said, married the daughter of a plebeian, his children became plebeians. Still 
they were common in fact ; and as the object of the first appointment of the de- 
cemvirs was, in part, to unite the two orders into one people, so it was expected 
that they would henceforth be made legal. It was therefore like the loss of an 
actual right, when the decemvirs, instead of legalizing these marriages, enacted 
a positive law to denounce them, as if they intended for the future actually to 
prohibit them altogether. 

So passed the second yeai f the decemvirate. But as it drew near to its 
. close, the decemvirs showed no purpose of resio-nino; their offices, 

They resolve to retain - . . r r . O O ' 

t nd r of p the' er ear fter the or appointing successors. Whether it was really a usurpa- 
tion, or whether thty had been elected for more than a single 
year, 13 may be doubtful ; but it is coi^eivable that even in the former case the 
great body of the patricians, however personally disappointed, should have sup- 
ported the decemvirs as upholding the ascendency of their order, rather than in- 
cur the danger of reviving the power of tht. plebeians. At any rate, the govern- 
ment of the decemvirs seemed firmly establisi-ed ; and the outrages of themselves 
and their party became continually more and ftore intolerable, so that numbers 
of the people are said to have fled from Rome,* and sought a refuge amongst 
their allies, the Latins and Hernicans. 

In this state of things, the foreign enemies of tome proved again her best 
friends. Since the year 297 external w^ s seem to have been sus- 
ans e invad n e e3 tht Roman pended, partly, perhaps, from the wasting effects of the great 
plague on the neighboring nations, partly because the Romans 
themselves were engrossed with their own affairs at home. But now we hear of 
an invasion both from the Sabines and the JEquians ; the foriLer assembled their 
forces at Eretum, 15 and from thence ravaged the lands along the left bank of 
the Tiber : the latter encamped as usual on Algidus, and plundered the terri- 
tory of Tusculum which lay immediately below them. Then the decemvirs called 
together the senate, which, hitherto, it is said, they had on no occasVm thouo-ht 
proper to consult. The high aristocratical party, headed by the Quh.cui 16 and 
C. Claudius, showed symptoms of discontent with the decemvirs for stili retain- ' 
ing their power ; L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus" were celebrated 
by posterity for following a more decided course, and upholding the general \ib- 
erty of the Roman people. But the majority of the senate supported the de- 
cemvirs, and the citizens were called upon to enlist against the common enemy. 1 ' 
One army, commanded by three of the decemvirs, was led out to oppose the Sa- 
bines at Eretum ; another marched towards Algidus to protect the Tusculans ; 
Appius Claudius, with one of his colleagues, Sp. Oppius, remained in Rome to 
provide for the safety of the city. 

13 Niebuhr considers it as certain that tlic de- a magistrate of his office, "abrogare magistra- 
cemvirs were appointed for a longer period than turn," was accounted a most violent measure ; 
a year. Vol. II. p. 828. Eng. Transl. Other- it was to be resigned, and not wrested from him 
wise, he says, they would not have been re- by any other power. The senate ejected Cinna 
quired to resign their power, but intervenes from the consulship; but Patercuius remarks 
would, immediate!) on the expiration of their oa the act that " heeo injuria nomine quam ex- 
office, have stepped into their place. This, emplo dignior fuit." They were not disposed 
however, does uol seem to follow. In peace- to proceed to such an extremity against the de- 
able times, Appius Claudius the Blind held his cemvirs. 
censorship beyond the legal term of eighteen " DionysiuB, XI. 2. 
months, in defiance of the .-Kmilian law, and it 1& Dionysius, XI. 8. Livy, III. 88. 
does not appear that the tribunes, or any other "' Dionysius, XI. 15. 
power, could actually turn liim out of his otliee ; ]1 I. ivy. 111. 89. 
lie. was only threatened with imprisonment if 1B Livy, III. 41. 
he did not resign. Livy, IX. 34. To deprive 



Chap. XV.] STORY OF VIRGINIA. U7 

Both armies, however, were unsuccessful ; and both, after having been beaten 
by the enemy, fled, the one to Tusculum, the other to the neigh- The Roman armies am 
borhood of Fidenee, 19 within the Roman territory. Here they re- beatetu 
mained, or here, at least, the story leaves them, till the tidings of the last outrage 
of the decemvirs' tyranny aroused them, and showed them plainly that the worst 
enemies of their country were within the walls of Rome. 

Appius Claudius 20 had stayed behind from the war to take care of the city. 
He saw a beautiful maiden named Virginia, the daughter of L. story of Virginia. 
Virginius, 21 who was now serving as a centurion in the army sent piua Udi cikudbsf dn 
against the JEquians ; and her father had betrothed her to L. Icil- ^ irgmia M his ' slave - 
ius, who had been tribune some time since, and had carried the famous law 
for assigning out the Aventine to the commons. One day as the maiden, 
attended by her nurse, was going to the Forum to school (for the schools 
were then kept in booths or stalls round the market-place), Marcus Claudius, a 
client of Appius, laid hands on her, and claimed her as his slave. Her nurse 
cried out for help, and a crowd gathered round her, and when they heard who 
was her father, and to whom she was betrothed, they were the more earnest to 
defend her from wrong. But M. Claudius said that he meant no violence, he 
would try his right at law, and he summoned the maiden before the judgment- 
seat of Appius. So they went before the decemvir, and then Claudius said that 
the maiden's real mother had been his slave ; and that the wife of Virginius, hav- 
ing no children, had gotten this child from its mother, and had presented it to 
Virginius as her own. This he would prove to Virginius himself as soon as he 
should return to Rome ; meanwhile it was just and reasonable that the master 
should, in the interval, keep possession of his slave. The friends of the maiden 
answered, that her father was now absent in the commonwealth's service ; they 
would send him word, and within two days he would be in Rome. " Let the 
cause," they said, "wait only so long. The .law declares expressly, that in all 
cases like this, every one shall be considered free till he be proved a slave. 
Therefore the maiden ought to be left with her friends till the day of trial. Put 
not her fair fame in peril by giving up a free-born maiden into the hands of a 
man whom she knows not." But Appius said, " Truly, I know the law of which 
you speak, and I hold it just and good, for it was I myself who enacted it. But 
this maiden 22 cannot in any case be free ; she belongs either to her father or to 
her master. Now as her father is not here, who but her master can have any 
title to her ? Wherefore let M. Claudius keep her till L. Virginius come, and let 
him give sureties that he will bring her forth before my judgment-seat when the 
cause shall be tried between them." But then there came forward the maiden's 
uncle, P. Numitorius, and Icilius, to whom she was betrothed ; and they spoke 
so loudly against the sentence, that the multitude began to be roused, and Ap- 
pius feared a tumult. So he said, that for the sake of L. Virginius, and of the 
rights of fathers over their children, he would let the cause wait till the next 
day ; " but then," he said, " if Virginius does not appear, I tell Icilius and his 
fellows, that I will support the laws which I have made, and their violence shall 
not prevail over justice." Thus the maiden was saved for the time, and her 
friends sent off in haste to her father, to bid him come with all speed to Rome : 
and they gave security to Claudius that she should appear before Appius the 
next day, and then they took her home in safety. 

The messenger 23 reached the camp that same evening, and Virginius obtained 
leave of absence on the instant, and set out for Rome at the first virginius comes to 
watch of the night. Appius had sent off also to his colleagues, Kome from the army- 
praying them not to let Virginius go : but his message came too late. 

19 Livy, III. 42. ** In ea quae in patris manu sit, neminem esse 

20 Livy, III. 44, et seqq. alium cui dominus possessione cedat. Livy, 
M Cicero calls him Decimus Virginius. De III. 45. 

Republica, II. 37. 2S Livy, III. 46. 



118 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XV. 



Early in the morning Virginius, 24 in mean attire, like a suppliant, led his daugh- 
ter down to the Forum : and some Roman matrons, and a great 

Judgment of Appius, r r ' l • i i • tt l i n i 

awarding possesswn of company ot mends, went with him. He appealed to aJi the peo- 

Virgmia to to pn- . f J , .. ' ,. „ ., , ,,• . i i , 

tended master, virgin- pie tor their aid i "for this, said he, "is not mv cause only, but 

1U8 kills his daughter. *, _ „ „ n , , _ ... > . •> ' 

the cause or all. feo also spoke lcilius ; and the mothers who 
followed Virginius stood and wept, and their tears moved the people even more 
than his words. But Appius heeded nothing but his own wicked passion ; and 
before Claudius had done speaking, without suffering Virginius to reply, he hast- 
ened to give the sentence. That sentence adjudged the maiden to be considered 
as a slave till she should be proved to be free-born ; and awarded the possession 
of her in the mean while to her master Claudius. Men could scarcely believe 
that they heard aright, when this monstrous defiance of all law, natural and civil, 
was uttei-ed by the very man who had himself enacted the contrary. But when 
Claudius went to lay hold on the maiden, then the women who stood around her 
wept aloud, and her friends gathered round her, and kept him off; and Virgin- 
ius threatened the decemvir, that he would not tamely endure so great a wrong. 
Appius, however, had brought down a band of armed patricians with him ; and, 
strong in their support, he ordered his lictors to make the crowd give way. 
Then the maiden was left alone before his judgment-seat, till her father, seeing 
there was no other remedy, prayed to Appius that he might speak but one word 
with her nurse in the maiden's hearing, and might learn whether she were really 
his child or no. " If I am indeed not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter." 
Leave was given him, and he drew them both aside with him to a spot called 
afterwards the "new booths," for tradition kept the place in memory, and there 
he snatched a knife from a butcher, and said, "This is the only way, my child, 
to keep thee free," and plunged it in his daughter's heart. Then turning to Ap- 
pius, " On thee, and on thy head," he cried, " be the curse of this blood !" In 
vain did Appius call out to seize him: he forced his waj^ through the multitude, 
and still holding the bloody knife in his hand, he made for the gates, and hastened 
out of the city, and rode to the camp by Tusculum. 

The rest may be told more briefly. lcilius 25 and Numitorius held up the maid- 
_ , . ■ . en's body to the people, and bade them see the bloody work of 

Tumult in the city: the . - J . , ~ . * ' . i li i'i 7 

decemvirs are driven the decemvir s passion. A tumult arose, and the people gathered 

from the Forum. . ; ••/••i/-i-txt 

m such strength, that the patrician mends ot their cause, L. Va- 
lerius and M. Horatius, thought that the time for action was come, and put them- 
selves at the head of the multitude. Appius and his lictors, and his patrician 
satellites, were overborne by force, and Appius, fearing for his life, covered his 
face with his robe, and fled into a house that was hard by. In vain did his col- 
league, Oppius, hasten to the Forum to support him ; he found the people al- 
ready triumphant, and had nothing else to do but to call together the senate. 
The senators met, with little feeling for the decemvirs, but with an extreme dread 
of a new secession of the commons, and a restoration of the sacred laws, and of 
the hated tribimeship. 

The secession, however, could not be prevented. Virginius 26 had arrived at 

the camp, followed by a multitude of citizens in their ordinary 

marohea to Rome and dress. His bloody knife, the blood on his own face and body, 

occupies the Arentiiie. ,. . "'. . . . . , • i e 

and the strange sight ot so many unarmed citizens in the midst ot 
the camp, instantly drew a crowd about him : he told his story, and called on 
his fellow-soldiers to avenge him. One common feeling possessed them all : 
they called to arms, pulled up their standards, and began to march to Rome. 
The authority of the decemvirs was wholly at an end ; the army entered the 
city ; as they passed along the streets, they called upon the commons to assert 
their liberties and create their tribunes ; they then ascended the Aventine, and 
there, in their own proper home and city, they established themselves in arms. 

14 Livy, HI. 47, et seqq. ■ Livy, III. 48, 49. M Livy, III. 50. 



Chap. XV.] RESTORATION OF THE TRIBUNESHIP. H9 

When deputies from the senate were sent to ask them what they wanted, the 
soldiers shouted that they would give no answer to anj?- one but to L. Valerius 
and M. Horatius. Meanwhile, Virginius persuaded them to elect ten tribunes to 
act as their leaders ; and accordingly ten were created, who took the name of 
tribunes of the soldiers, but designed to change it, ere long, for that of tribunes 
of the commons. 

The army near Fidense was also in motion. 27 Icilius and Numitorius had ex- 
erted it by going to the camp, and spreading the story of the mis- The army frora Fldena , 
erable fate of Virginia. The soldiers rose, put aside the decemvirs joins lt- 
who commanded them, and were ready to follow Icilius. He advised them to 
create ten tribunes, as had been done by the other army ; and this having been 
effected, they marched to Rome, and joined their brethren on the Aventine. 
The twenty tribunes then deputed two of their number to act for the rest, and 
waited a while for the message of the senate. 

Delays, however, were interposed by the jealousy of the patricians. Had the 
senate chosen, it might, no doubt, in the fulness of its power, have Botll aTmieS) fo i lowed 
deposed the decemvirs, whether their term of office was expired pf e , t retrred S ^ t the P st 
or no ; as, long afterwards, it declared all the laws of M. Drusus cred HiU - 
to be null and void, and by its mere decree took away from L. Cinna his corral- 
ship, and caused another to be appointed in his room. But the patricians were 
unwilling to violate the majesty of the imperium merely to give a triumph to the 
plebeians ; and the decemvirs, encouraged by this feeling, refused themselves to 
resign. The commons, however, were thoroughly in earnest ; and finding that 
nothing was done to satisfy them, they quitted the Aventine, 28 on the suggestion 
of M. Duilius, not, however, we may presume, without leaving it guarded by a 
sufficient garrison, marched in military array through the city, passed out of it 
by the Colli ne gate, and established themselves once more on the Sacred Hill. 
Men, women, and children, all of the plebeians who could find any means to fol- 
low them, left Rome also and joined their countrymen. Again the dissolution 
of the Roman nation was threatened ; again the patricians, their clients, and 
their slaves, were on the point of becoming the whole Roman people. 

Then the patricians yielded, and the decemvirs agreed to resign. 29 Valerius 
and Horatius went to the Sacred Hill, and listened to the demands 
of the commons. These were, the restoration of the tribuneship and thTcommoS"'™- 
and of the right of appeal, together with a full indemnity for the 
authors and instigators of the secession. All this the deputies acknowledged 
should have been granted even without the asking ; but there was one demand 
of a fiercer sort.. "These decemvirs," said Icilius in the name of the commons, 
" are public enemies, and we will have them die the death of such. Give them 
up to us, that they may be burnt with fire." The friends of the commons had 
met this fate within the memory of men still living, and certainly not for greater 
crimes ; but a people, if violent, is seldom unrelenting ; twenty-four hours 
brought the Athenians to repent of their cruel decree against the Mytilenseans ; 
and a few words from Valerius and Horatius, men whom they could fully trust, 
made the Roman commons forego their thirst for sudden and extraordinary 
vengeance. The demand for the blood of the decemvirs was withdrawn : so 
the senate acceded to all that was required : the decemvirs solemnly resigned 
their power, and the commons returned to Rome. They occupied the Aventine 
as before, 30 and thither the pontifex maximus was sent by the senate to hold the 
comitia for the election of the tribunes ; but they occupied more than the Aven- 
tine; they required some security that the terms of the peace should be duly 
kept with them ; and accordingly now, as in the disputes about the Publilian law, 
they were allowed also to take possession of the Capitol. 31 

27 Livy, III. 51. 3 ° Livy, III. 54. 

28 Livy, III. 52. S1 Cicero pro Cornelio, I. Fragment. 

29 Livy, III. 52, 53. 



120 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XV 

In the comitia on the Aventine ten tribunes of the commons were elected, 
Election of tribunes and amongst whom were Virginius, Icilius, Numitorius, C. Sicinius, a 
ofconsius. descendant of one of the original tribunes created on the Sacred 

Hill, and M. Duilius. Then the commons were assembled on the spot afterwards 
called the Flaminian Meadows, 32 outside of the Porta Carmentalis, and just be- 
low the Capitol ; and there L. Icilius proposed to them the solemn ratification 
of the indemnity for the secession already agreed to by the senate. The consent 
of the commons was necessary to give it the force of a law ; and so, in like man- 
ner, Duilius proposed to the commons that they should accept another measure, 
already sanctioned by the patricians, the election of two supreme magistrates in 
the place of the decemvirs, with the right of appeal from their sentence. It is 
remarkable that now, for the first time, these magistrates were called consuls, 33 
their old title, up to this period, having been praetors or captains-general. Con- 
sul signifies merely "colleague," one who acts with others; it does not necessa- 
rily imply that he should be one of two only, and, therefore, the name is not 
equivalent to duumvir. And its indefiniteness seems to confirm Niebuhr's opin- 
ion, that the exact number of these supreme magistrates was not yet fully agreed 
upon, and that the appointment of two only, in the present instance, w T as merely 
a provisional imitation of the old praetorship, till the future form of the constitu- 
tion should be finally settled. Thus, as the commons had recovered their trib- 
unes, so the patricians had again their two magistrates with the imperium of the 
former praetors, limited, as that of the praetors had been, by the right of appeal ; 
but the final adjustment of the relations of the two orders to each other was 
reserved for after discussion. Be that as it may, the form of the old govern- 
ment was once again restored, and two patrician magistrates were elected with 
supreme power ; but an important change was established, that these two were 
both freely chosen by the centuries, whereas one had hitherto been appointed 
by the burghers in their curias, and had only been appointed by the centuries 
afterwards. 

The result of the election sufficiently showed that it was a free one. The 
new magistrates, the first two consuls, properly speaking, of Roman history, were 
L. Valerius and M. Horatius ; and the executive government, for the first time 
since the days of Brutus and Poplicola, was wholly in the hands of men devoted 
to the rights of their country rather than to the ascendency of their order. 

32 Livy, III. 64. and colonies of a later period, whose office was 

33 Zonaras, VII. 19. It may be observed that analogous to that of the consuls at Rome, were 
the two supreme magistrates in the municipia called duumviri. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

INTERNAL HISTOEY— CONSTITUTION OF THE YEAE 306— VALEEIAN LAWS, AND 
TEIALS OF THE DECEMVIES— EEACTION IN FAVOE OF THE PATRICIANS— 
CANULEIAN LAW— CONSTITUTION OF 312— COUNTEB-BEVOLUTION. 



" The seven years that followed are a revolutionary period, the events of which we do not find 
satisfactorily explained by the historians of the time." — Hallam, Middle Ages, Vol. II. p. 458. 



We read in Livy and Dionysius an account of the affairs of Rome from the 
beginning of the commonwealth, drawn up in the form of annals ; )bs nrityofthehutor 
political questions, military operations, what was said in the sen- ,fthis period - 
ate and the Forum, what was done in battle against the JEquians and Volscians, 
all is related with the full details of contemporary history. It is not wonderful 
that appearances so imposing should have deceived many ; that the Roman his- 
tory should have been regarded as a subject which might be easily and com- 
pletely mastered. But if we press on any part this show of knowledge, it yields 
before us, and comes to nothing. Nowhere is this more manifest than in the 
story of the period immediately subsequent to the decemvirate. What is related 
of these times is indistinct, meagre, and scarcely intelligible ; but scattered frag- 
ments of information have been preserved along with it, which, when carefully 
studied, enable us to restore the outline of very important events ; and these, 
when thus brought forward to the light, afford us the means of correcting or 
completing what may be called the mere surface-view contained in the common 
narrative. The lines, hitherto invisible, being so made conspicuous, a totally dif- 
ferent figure is presented to us; its proportions and character are all altered, and 
we find that, without this discovery, while we fancied ourselves in possession of 
the true resemblance, we should, in fact, have been mistaking the unequal pillars 
of the ruin for the original form of the perfect building. 

The common narrative of the overthrow of the decemvirs omitted, as we have 
seen, the important fact that the commons in that revolution occu- Coilstitution of the year 
pied the Capitol. It mentions, 1 however, that the two popular 306 - 
leaders, Valerius and Horatius, were appointed the two chief magistrates of the 
commonwealth, and that they passed several laws for the better confirmation of 
the public liberty, without experiencing any open opposition on the part of the 
patricians. In fact, the popular cause was so triumphant that all, and more 
than all, of the objects oi the Terentilian law were now effected; and a new 
constitution was formed, by which it was attempted at once to unite the two 
orders of the state more closely together, and to set them on a footing of entire 
equality. 

In the first place, the old laws for the security of personal liberty were con- 
firmed afresh, and received a stronger sanction. Whoever, while 
presiding at the comitia, 2 should allow the election of any magis- The ?' alenailkw3 - 
trate, Avith no right of appeal from his sentences, should be outlawed, and might 
be killed by any one with impunity. This was the law proposed and passed by 
Valerius ; but even this, as we shall see presently, did not content the commons : 
they required and carried a still stronger measure. A second Valerian law 3 for- 

1 Livy, III. 55. Dionysius, XL 45. neret. Livy, III. 55. Dionysius describes this 

3 Livy, III. 55. law correctly. He calls it vdjxov Ke\evtvTa rois 

8 Quod tributim plebes jussisset populum te- inb Tov bfijiov redivras iv ra'is (pvXtriKais iticXrioiats 



122 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVI 

mally acknowledged the commons of Rome to be the Roman people ; a Plebisci- 
tum, or decree of the commons, was to be binding on the whole people : so it is 
expressed in the annalists ; but Niebuhr supposes that there was a restriction on 
this power of which the annalists were ignorant ; namely, that the plebiscitum 
should have first received the sanction of the senate, and of the assembly of the 
curiae. It is, indeed, certain that the assembly of the tribes was not made the 
sole legislative authority in the commonwealth ; what was intended seems to have 
been nothing more than to recognize its national character ; its resolutions or 
decrees, 4 where not directly interfered with by another power equally sovereign, 
were to embrace not the commons only, but the whole nation. In the same 
way, in the later constitution, the senate was not all-powerful ; it could not legis- 
late alone, and its decrees were liable to be stopped by the negative of the trib- 
unes ; but no one doubted that its authority extended over the whole people, 
and not over the members of its own order only. And this appears to have 
been the position in which the Valerian law placed the assembly of the tribes. 

Thus far we follow the express testimony of the annals from which Livy and 
Division of nil the ma- Dionysius compiled their narratives. But we are warranted in 
SomvtithluveenZc saying that the revolution did not stop here. Other and deeper 
patricians aud commons. cnari g es were effected ; but they lasted so short a time, that their 
memory has almost vanished out of the records of history. The assembly of 
the tribes had been put on a level with that of the centuries, and the same prin- 
ciple was followed out in the equal division of all the magistracies of the state 
between the patricians and the commons. Two supreme magistrates, 5 invested 
with the highest judicial power, and discharging also those important duties 
which were afterwards performed by the censors, were to be chosen every year, 
one from the patricians, and the other from the commons. ' Ten tribunes of the 
soldiers, 6 or decemviri, chosen five from the patricians and five from the com- 
mons, were to command the armies in war, and to watch over the rights of the 
patricians ; while ten tribunes of the commons, also chosen in equal proportions 
from both orders, were to watch over the liberties of the commons. And as pa- 
tricians were thus admitted to the old tribuneship, so the assemblies, of the tribes 1 
were henceforth, like those of the centuries, to be held under the sanctions of 
augury, and nothing could be determined in them if the auspices were unfavora- 
ble. Thus the two orders were to be made fully equal to one another ; but at 
the same time they were to be kept perpetually distinct ; for at this very mo- 
ment 8 the whole twelve tables of the laws of the decemvirs received the solemn 
sanction of the people, although, as we have seen* there was a law in one of the 
last tables which declared the marriage of a patrician with a plebeian to be un- 
lawful. 

There being thus an end of all exclusive magistracies, whether patrician or 
Homtian and Duiiian plebeian ; and all magistrates being now recognized as acting in 
lflws - the name of the whole people, the persons of all were to be re- 

v6povs, arraai kuoOm Pu>//«io(s ff laov, ri)v airi/v represent the whole nation, and not only one 

s^oitiis ivva/tiv Toif iv t<uc \oxiTtatv iKic\rioiais single order of men. 

Ttflijo-ufu'i'oif. XI. 4"i. Now we kimw t lint at "Diodorus, XII. 25. 

this time laws passed by the comitia of centu- ° Diodorns, XII. 25. AfVa aipcloBai &viidpx°vs 

ilea were doI valid without the sanction of the ptylaTa% exovrat i^nvatas rdv kutu jhjAu. dpxiv- 

Benate, and, therefore, laws passed by the tribes run>. Kal tuvtovs brtapxi'v olovet QiXanas ri}s tC&v 

must equally have required it. noXirtiv IXtvdcpias. This description does not 

4 Compare the difference between a resolution suit the tribunes of the commons, and the ex- 

or an order, of the house of commons (although pression, rijj? r<3v iwXitwv i\evdepln(, instead oi 

that body cannot legislate without the consent rijs toP S>',pov ZXtvOipicis, seems to show that the 

of the house of lords and the king) and the patricians or burghers were intended rather 

canons of a bj 1 of the clergy. A law which than the commons. 

should enact that " quod clerus jussisset popu- ' Zonaras, VII. 19. Tie mentions the fact 

lumteneret" need not give to a synod the ex- without its connection; but it seems to me ex- 

dusive right of making laws; it would deserve tremely valuable, towards confirming the view 

its name if it merely placed it on a level with of all these arrangements which is given in this 

the house of commons; if it empowered it to history. 

6 Di'odorus, XII. 26. Livy, III. 57. 



Chap. XVI] IMPEACHMENT OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS. 123 

garded as equally sacred. Thus the consul Horatius proposed and carried a law 
which declared, that whoever harmed any tribune of the commons, any Eedile, 
any judge, or any decemvir, should be outlawed and accursed ; 9 that any man 
might slay him, and that all his property should be confiscated to the temple of 
Ceres. Another law was passed by M. Duilius, one of the tribunes, carrying 
the penalties of the Valerian law to a greater height against any magistrate who 
should either neglect to have new magistrates appointed at the end of the year, 10 
or who should create them without giving the right of appeal from their sen- 
tence. Whosoever violated either of these provisions was to be burned alive, as a 
public enemy. 

Finally, in order to prevent the decrees of the senate from being tampered 
with by the patricians, Horatius and Valerius began the practice 11 ^.^ rf tbe senate 
of having them carried to the temple of Ceres on the Aventine, **&& the temple <* 
and there laid up under the care of the sediles of the commons. 

This complete revolution was conducted chiefly, as far as appears, by the two 
consuls, and by M. Duilius. Of the latter we should wish to have The ^ rf ^ ^ 
some further knowledge: it is an unsatisfactory history, in which not ripe fortius co M ti- 
we can only judge of the man from his public measures, instead 
of being enabled to form some estimate of the merit of his measures from our 
acquaintance with the character of the man. But there is no doubt that the 
new constitution attempted to obtain objects for which the time was not yet 
come, which were regarded rather as a triumph of a party, than as called for by 
the wants and feelings of the nation ; and, therefore, the Roman constitution of 
306 was as short-lived as Simon de Montfort's provisions of Oxford, or as some 
of the strongest measures of the long parliament. An advantage pursued too 
far in politics, as well as in war, is apt to end in a repulse. 

As yet, however, at Rome, the tide of the popular cause was at full flood, for 
the decemvirs were still unpunished, and the fresh memory of im eachmentof A !ni 
their crimes excited a universal desire for vengeance. Virginius ciaudi..s. He « cast 

... 101 ~ . . .*? i into prison. 

singled out Appius and impeached him ; 12 but Appius, with the 
inherent pride of his family, scorned the thought of submission, and appeared in 
the Forum with such a band of the young patricians around him, that he seemed 
more likely to repeat the crimes of his decemvirate than to solicit mercy for them. 
But the tide was not yet to be turned, and Appius only hastened his own ruin. 

9 See this memorable law in Livy, III. 55. transferred to the tribunes of the soldiers, their 

" Qui tribunis plebis, asdilibus, judicibus, de- name of judiees, which they are allowed by 

cemviris nocuisset, ejus caput Jovi sacrum es- Livy himself to have borne afterwards (see also 

set, familia ad cedem Cereris liberi liberteque Cicero, de Legibus, III. 4), took its origin from 

venum iret." The different interpretations this period. 

given to the words "judicibus, decemviris," in I may add, also, that the supposition that 

this passage, are well known. Niebuhr under- there were to be ten tribunes of the soldiers 

stands the latter nearly as I do, but the "ju- and as many tribunes of the commons, would 

dices" he considers to have been the centum- agree with the otherwise puzzling statement of 

viri. But the order of the words is, I think, Pomponius, de Origine Juris, § 25, " that there 

decisive against this last notion ; the centum- were sometimes twenty tribunes of the sol- 

viri never could have been mentioned between diers," for the two tribuneships must, under 

the sediles and decemviri. Whereas, according the constitution of 306, have so resembled each 

to my interpretation, the two old plebeian of- other in many important points, that they may 

fices are mentioned first, and then the two new easily have been represented as one magistracy, 

offices which they were thenceforward to share, 10 Livy, III. 55. Diodorus, XII. 25. Livy 

those of judge or consul, and of decemvir, or says, "Tergo et capite puniretur ;" Diodorus, 

tribune of the soldiers. Livy himself informs more correctly, Z,S>vt<i<; KaraaavOnvai. The con- 

us that there were some who had extended this nection of this law with that mysterious story 

law to the patrician magistrates, and who ex- of the burning alive of nine tribunes, for not 

plained the "judiees" as I have done; but he providing successors for themselves in their 

objects that judex, as applied to the consul, was office (see Valerius Maximus, VI. 3, § 2, and note 

the later title, and that the consul at this time 39 to chap. XIII. of this history), cannot but 

was called praetor. To which the reply is easy : strike every one ; the clue, however, only goes 

that according to Zonaras, who derived his ma- far enough to excite curiosity, but will not en- 

terials from Dion Cassius, the consuls ceased to able us to satisfy it. 

be called prsetors at this very time, and were " Livy, III. 55. 

now first called consuls or coUeagues ; and it is n Livy, III. 56. 
very likely that their military power, being 



124 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVI. 

Virgirrius refused to admit the accused to bail, unless he could prove 13 before a 
judge duly appointed to try this previous issue, " that he had not, in a question 
of personal freedom, assumed that the presumption was in favor of slavery ; in 
having adjudged Virginia to be regarded as a slave till she was proved free, in- 
stead of regarding her as entitled to her freedom, till she was proved a slave." 
Appius dated not have this issue tried ; he only appealed to the tribunes, the 
colleagues of Virginius, to save him from being cast into prison ; and when they 
refused to interpose, 14 he appealed to the people. The meaning of this appeal 
was, that he refused to go before the judge as Virginius had proposed, and sub- 
mitted his whole case to the judgment of the people in the assembly of centu- 
ries. This he might legally do ; but on the other hand, his refusal to have the 
question of. fact, as to his conduct in the affair of Virginia, tried before a judge, 
enabled Virginius to assume his guilt as certain. But bail was not to be given 
to notorious criminals: it was thus that Kseso had defrauded justice, and Appius 
would certainly fly from Rome before his trial, unless he were secured within the 
walls of a prison. Accordingly, Virginius ordered him to be thrown into prison, 
there to await the judgment of the people. 

But that judgment he never lived to undergo. Livy chose to believe that he 
res death before hia killed himself, 15 despairing of the event of the trial. Another ac- 
trmh count implies, that it was the accusers, and not the accused, who 

feared to trust to the decision of the centuries ; the tribunes, it was said, ordered 
him to be put to death in prison. 1S It would be painful to believe that so great 
a criminal, like the dictator Csesar, was not executed, but murdered ; yet the 
utter uncertainty of a trial before the centuries, where so many other points were 
sure to be considered besides the fact of the criminal's guilt, and the strange lat- 
itude allowed by the Romans to their magistrates on the plea of the public safety, 
render it not improbable that the tribunes dealt with Appius as Cicero treated 
the accomplices of Catilina in the very same prison. Cicero's conduct on that 

K u jq-j judicem dices te ab libertate in servi- constitution, the act of one tribune could not 
tutem contra leges vindieias non dedisse, in vin- be stopped by another: in other words, that 
cula te duci jubeo." Livy, III. 56. Niebuhr the ordinary rnle of Roman law, " mclior est 
rejects the reading "judicem dices" as nonsense, conditio prohibentis," was, in the case of the 
and corrects "judicem <Zoc«-s." I should lay lit- tribunes, at this time reversed. The words are 
tie stress on the authority of our MSS. of Livy, lav &f ol Si'ifiapxoi n') av/jupuivwcn irpds dAA/iAous, kv- 
which are all extremely corrupt ; but in this in- pioi clvai rbv dvd pioov xeipitvov /o) *wXii£<r0«i, XII. 
stance the common reading is supported by the 25. Wesseling and the other interpreters under- 
similar expression " diem dicere" and the term stand tov aid fti(Tov xp 6tov - " m the interval." 
" condictio," qua " actor adversario denuntiabat which seems to me to be neither good Greek 
ut ad judicem capiendum die XXX adesset." nor sense. I am inclined to read to aid /ifoov 
Gaius, IV. § 18. " Ni judicem dices" signifies, Keiftevov, "the matter that was between them :" 
" Unless thou wilt give me notice to come be- " If the tribunes should disagree, they had au- 
fore a judge with thee, to have this issue tried." thority in the matter that was disputed between 

For the matter of the transaction itself it may them, so as not to be restrained by the veto of 
be observed, that the judge would have had to their colleagues." But 1 am not yet satisfied 
try simply the question of fact, whether Appius that this is the complete restoration of the pas- 
had given vinuicia?, or possession, in favor of sage. 
slavery or not. And it was manifest that if the 6 Livy, III. 58. 

judge found against Appius on this issue, such 16 Dionysius, XI. 46. "This," he says, "was 

a verdict would have weighed strongly against the general opinion." u>s uiv >) tZv -rroibwv vir6- 

him at his trial before the centuries. On the \tj\pu »>. He must have copied this from some 

other hand, Appius wished to reserve Iris whole annalist, although the oldest annalist could 

case for the judgment of the centuries; for know as little as Dionysius of the public opin- 

there, as lie well knew, the issue tried was far ion of the times of the decemvirs. Perhaps the 

Less narrow, and the sentence would depend, statement came from the memorials of the Clau- 

not on the evidence as to a particular fact, but dian family, which would naturalU bo glad to 

on the general impression produced on the impute such a crime to the hated tribunes. 

minds ofthe audience by the speakers on either But that Appius was put to death in prison, is 

side; and to produce this impression the feel- also the account .given b\ the author of the lit- 

iiiL r s ami interests ofthe judges were freely ap- tie work, " De Viris Illustrious ;" ami it is sta- 

pealed to, so that the greatest criminal might ted positively as a point which was not doubted, 

hope to be acquitted, if his eloquence and the And if this work was compiled, as Borghesi and 

influence of his friends were sufficiently pow- Niebuhr believe, from the inscriptions at the 

erful. base ofthe statues in the forum "f Augustus, it. 

" An obscure and corrupt passage of Diodo- may be supposed to express the prevailing opin- 

rus would appear to intimate, that, by the new ion in the Augustan age. 



Chap. XVI.] THE PROSECUTIONS STOPPED. 125 

occasion was sanctioned by Cato, and by tbe majority of the senate ; and cer- 
tainly the crimes of Appius were neither less flagrant, nor less notorious, than 
those of Cethegus and Lentulus. 

Another of the decemvirs, Spurius Oppius, 11 underwent a similar fate. He 
was particularly odious, because he had been left with Appius in Fate of the other de . 
the government of the city, while the other decemvirs were abroad eemvlrs - 
with the legions ; and because he had been a faithful imitator of his colleague's 
tyranny. His most obnoxious crime was his having cruelly and wantonly 
scourged an old and distinguished soldier, for no offence, as it was said, whatso- 
ever. Bail, therefore, was refused to him also ; he was committed to prison, and 
there died before his trial came on, either by the hands of the executioner or his 
own. The other decemvirs, 13 and M. Claudius, who had claimed Virginia as his 
slave, were all allowed to give bail, or to escape before sentence was executed ; 
and accordingly they all fled from Rome, and went into exile. Their property, 
as well as that of Appius and Oppius, was confiscated and sold at the temple of 
Ceres. 

From this point the reaction may be said to have begun. Vengeance having 
been satisfied, compassion arose in its place ; the patricians seemed „ . 

. 1 A pi v • l Reaction and division 

the weaker party, and any turther proceedings against them were among tie popular 
received with aversion, as a generous spirit cannot bear to strike 
an enemy on the ground. Accordingly, there seems from this moment to have 
been a division amongst the popular leaders ; some thinking that they had done 
enough, and that in order to carry into effect the new constitution, nothing was 
so much needed as conciliation; while others believed that the patricians would 
never endure an equal government, and that it was the truest wisdom, as they 
had once fallen, to keep them down forever. As far as we.- can discern any thing 
of individual character amid the darkness of these times, the two consuls and M, 
Duilius were of the former of these two opinions ; L. Icilius and L. Trebonius 
were of the latter. 

The state required, as Duilius thought, a general amnesty ; and accordingly he 
declared 19 that he would stop any further political prosecutions; Van:ma s top 8 an farther 
that he would allow no man to be impeached, nor to be thrown P roaecutIO<ls - 
into prison as unworthy of bail, during the remainder of the year. With the 
next year, as he hoped, the new constitution would come into force, and then the 
liberty of the commons, and the peace of the nation, would be secured forever. 

But, as far as appears, the patricians observed that there were symptoms of a 
turn of the tide ; and they hoped for better things than to be The con9uls take the 
obliged to submit to the constitution of Duilius. The two consuls 20 OTettoe d enemy° tor The 
went out to battle against the JEquians and the Sabines, and re- ^rumph"^"^^?^ 
turned, asserting that they had won great victories, and claiming ^nt it to them. 
the honor of a triumph. No doubt the boast of victories in that plundering war- 
fare was often very unsubstantial ; but in this case the defeat of the Sabines, at 
any rate, seems to have been real and signal, for we hear no more of wars with 
them for a hundred and fifty years afterwards. The patricians, however, would 
grant no honor to consuls whom they regarded as traitors to their order, and the 
triumphs were refused. But on this occasion the consuls threw themselves into 
the hands of the more decided popular party ; they summoned the people to 
meet in their centuries, 21 and there L. Icilius, the tribune, with the consuls' sanc- 

17 Livy, III. 58. of a tribune, and it is said that " omnes tribus 

1S Livy, III. 58. Dionysius, XI. 46. earn rogationem acceperunt." On the other 

J,J Livy, III. 59. hand, Dionysius says that the consuls summon- 

20 Livy, III. 60-63. ed the people to the assembly, and the tribunes 

21 It is not clear whether the vote in favor of are represented as seconding their representa- 
the consuls' triumph was passed by the centu- tion, rather than originating the question them- 
ries or by the tribes. Livy's expressions are, selves. tto^Xo. rrjs j3ouX^ Karriyopficavrts, awayo- 
"tulit ad populum," not " ad plebem,' n and pzvadvTuv airoTs riiv Srindpxuv. XI. 50. These 
"populi jussu triumphatum est, not " plebis circumstances suit best the comitia of centuries, 
jussu." Yet the vote is passed on the motion for the consuls could not enter the city without 



126 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chat. XVI 

tion, moved that the Roman people, by its supreme authority, should order the 
consuls to triumph. In vain did the patricians oppose the motion to the utmost : 
they had taken up an ill-chosen position, and the reaction here availed them 
nothing : the people ordered as Icilius proposed, and the consuls triumphed. 

This, if the consular Fasti may be trusted, took place in August. Again the 
Growing street, of the m i sfc closes over the events of the remainder of the year, and we 
aristocraticai party. can on ]y j uc lg e f their nature by the result. The reaction grew 
stronger, and was increased by all the inherent strength of an aristocracy, the 
most powerful of all governments so long as it retains any portion of its original 
vigor. The patricians were determined that the new constitution should never 
take effect ; that there should be no plebeian consul, and no plebeian tribunes of 
the soldiers : whether, if these points were carried, they might be forced also to 
have no patrician tribunes of the commons, they cared but little. 

To meet this determination, the bolder part of the leaders of the commons re- 
Proceedings of Damns solved that the magistrates for the present year should be re-elect- 
tribimps? c w ed. " If the patricians will not have the constitution," they said, 

" we will at least keep matters exactly as they now are ; we have two consuls 
whom we can trust to the death, we have ten true and zealous tribunes, the lead- 
ers of our late glorious deliverance. If we retain these, the patricians will gain 
little by their resistance." But here again the division in the popular party made 
itself manifest : the consuls shrunk from the odium of re-electing themselves ; 
Duilius was equally opposed to the re-election of himself and his nine colleagues. 
The lot for holding the comitia for the election of the new tribunes happened to 
fall to him. He resolutely refused 22 to receive votes for any of the last year's 
tribunes ; and as many of the voters would vote for no other candidate, it turned 
out that only five candidates could obtain that proportion of suffrages out of the 
whole number, 23 which was required to constitute the legal vote of a tribe. Ac- 
cordingly, when the sun set, he pronounced the comitia to be dissolved, and as 
all elections were to end in a single day, he declared 24 that the voting for tribunes 

laying aside their imperium, and so giving up have voted for no one, and there was no legal 

their claim to a triumph, and would necessarily return. • 

assemble the people without the walls. Besides, M There is much difficulty here in Liyy's nar- 

the question of a triumph might he more justly rative. After saying that Duilius dismissed the 

decided by the people in the military array of assembly when only five tribunes had been 

their centuries on the Campus Martins, than by elected, and that he would not go on with the 

the commons in their tribes in the Forum. If election on any future day, "concilium dimisit, 

Livy's expression, " omnes trllus rogationem nee deinde comitiorum causa habuit," Livy 

acceperunt," could be relied upon, it would go goes on as follows, " satisfactum legi aiebat, 

far to prove that the blending of the system of qua? numero nusquam praefinito tribunis, modo 

centuries with that of tribes, in the comitia cen- ut relinquerentur sanciret, et ab lis qui creati 

turiata, that most perplexing question of Roman essent cooptari collegas juberct. Reeitabati | ue 

constitutional history, began at least as early as rogationis carmen," &c. Now this evidently 

the time of the decemvirs", and probably accom- implies that Duilius referred to his own law, 

panied the admission of the patricians and their passed in this very year, by which it was made 

clients into the tribes. Fifty years later, in the a capital offence in any tribune to go out of of- 

year 350, Livy speaks of the "praerogativa tri- flee, or to let the year expire without providing 

bus," and the "jure voeataa tribus," at the co- for the election of new tribunes to succeed him : 

mitia of centuries, without the least intimation and it appears that this very law had contained 

that the system implied in those expressions a clause, authorizing the elected tribunes, it 

was then of recent introduction. See Livy, fewer than ten, to fill up their number by ehoos- 

V. 18. ing their own colleagues. Niebuhr, on the 

22 Livy, III. 64. "Cum ex veteribus tribu- other hand, supposes that this was a new law, 

nis, negaret ullius se rationem habiturum." now proposed by Duilius; and he therefore 

** *' Cum alii candidati tribus non cxplerent.'' reads, " et ab iis qui creati essent cooptari eol- 
"Explero tribun," and "explore centuriam," legas jubebat," referring the verb to Duilius, 
s'lLriiily the obtaining such an absolute number instead of the common reading "juberct," re- 
of votes out of the whole number contained in ferring to the former law. 1 think, however, 
the tribe or century, as was required to consti- that the grammar is against this construction, 
tute its suffrage : tor if the. votes of the tribes for if Livy had meant that Duilius broughl fbr- 
were divided amongst so many candidates, that ward a new measure, which must have been 
no one had an absolute majority of the whole done at a particular time and place, he would 
tribe in his favor, the tribe was held to have not have used the imperfect tenses "aiebat" 
voted for no one. And BO if no candidate had and "recitabat," but rather ''dixit!' ami "le- 
an absolute majority of the whole number of citavit." And besides, what likelihood is there 
tribes in his favor, the comitia were held to that such a measure would have been passed by 



Chap. XVI] THE TREBONIAN LAW. 127 

was duly finished ; that the commons had elected no more than five, and that it 
must remain with these five to complete their own number. Accordingly, the 
five elected tribunes chose to themselves five colleagues, and two 25 of these are 
expressly said to have been moderate patricians. We may safely conclude that 
all five were patricians, and that Duilius, hoping to prevail by moderation and 
conciliation, took this opportunity to carry into effect one part of the new consti- 
tution, in the confidence that, after this proof of honorable dealing, the patricians, 
for very shame, would be forced to fulfil the rest of it. 

In this, however, he was mistaken : they had no thought of fulfilling it, although 
by what means they were enabled to defeat it Ave can only conjee- The n<w constitutions 
ture. Many years afterwards the patricians habitually set the Li- setaside - 
cinian law at defiance, and prevented the election of a plebeian consul, when- 
ever the comitia were held by a magistrate devoted to their interests. But how 
could they persuade Horatius and Valerius, whom they had so recently insulted, 
to enter into their feelings, and when the day of election came on, to refuse all 
votes given in favor of a plebeian candidate ? Perhaps the opposition of the pa- 
tricians was so determined, that the consuls could not but yield to it ; they might 
know, that although the centuries should elect a plebeian, yet the curiae would not 
confirm the election by conferring on him the imperium, or sovereign power ; and, 
above all, they might feel that there was not in the mass of the commons so deep 
an interest in the point- as could overpower even the most resolute resistance. 
Thus they abandoned the new constitution to its fate : there was no election of 
tribunes of the soldiers, nor of a plebeian consul ; only two patricians of known 
moderation were chosen, Lars Herminius 26 and T. Virginius Caelimontanus, men 
who were not likely to abuse their power, and so to make the victory of the pa- 
tricians insupportable. 

Thus the hopes of Duilius were altogether disappointed, and the tribuneship 
had been laid open to the patricians for nothing. The most mod- 
erate men now saw that they had been deluded, and L. Trebonius, 
one of the five plebeians, was loud in his complaints of the treachery of the pa- 
tricians. He then proposed a law, 27 which enacted that the election of the trib- 
unes of the commons should from henceforth be continued till the whole num- 
ber of ten were elected. We read of no opposition to this law from any quarter; 
the patricians knew that they must abandon their hold on the tribuneship if they 
insisted on keeping all the curule offices to themselves, and probably they were 
anxious to leave no vestige of the new constitution in existence, lest the commons, 
while any part of it remained, should be tempted to demand the whole. Ac- 
cordingly, all things returned to their old state : except that the two orders were 
rendered more distinct than ever by the positive law enacted by the decemvirs, 
and introduced into the twelve tables, by which intermarriage between them was 
strictly forbidden. 

It was impossible, however, that matters should so rest. The moderate con- 
suls of the year 307 were succeeded by two men of a different a.u.c.308. a.c.444. 
character, M. Geganius Macerinus 28 and C. Julius. Immediately pawdans. 01 i e youns 

the commons at the very moment when they in a single day, if there was a very great num- 

were complaining of Duilius's conduct? Where- ber of candidates. And thus the tenses aiebat 

as it is very conceivable that the clause appealed and recitabat are quite right ; for they express 

to by Duilius had been inserted by him in his the defence which Duilius was in the habit of 

former law, perhaps with a view to the very ob- making, whenever his conduct was called in 

ject which he now proposed to gain by it; question. 

namely, the securing the admission of some pa- 25 These were Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius, 

tricians into the number of tribunes. And the the consuls of the year 300, who had passed the 

clause would then have been passed without law "De multse sacramento." Livy, III. 65, 

suspicion, as it involved no new principle, as and Cicero, de Eepub. II. 35. 

might seem intended merely to relieve the trib- 26 Livy, III. 65. The consuls at this time came 

une presiding at the comitia from the fearful into office on the Ides of December. Dionysius, 

Eenalty of the law, in a case in which he might XL 63. Livy, IV. 37. 

e perfectly innocent ; for it might not be in 27 Livy, III. 65. 

his power to secure the election of ten tribunes ™ Livy, III. 65. 



128 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XVL 

we hear again of the young patricians, as in the time of the decemvir Appius 
and of Kseso Quinctius. The tribunes in vain endeavored to break up their 
organization, by impeaching the most forward individuals : the consuls took their 
part, and repressed, says Livy, the combination among the tribunes without 
attacking the tribunitian power in itself, and yet without compromising the dig- 
nity of the patricians. This can only mean that private influence, corruption, or 
intimidation, were used to deter the accusers from proceeding. Thus relieved 
from all restraint, the patricians went on more boldly ; violence was constantly 
offered to individual plebeians ; the young patricians, organized in their clubs, 
supported each other in their outrages : and even the tribunes, far from being 
able to protect their constituents, were themselves, in spite of the sacred laws, 
insulted and assaulted. The commons complained that they wanted tribunes like 
Icilius ; that those whom they now had were no better than mere shadows. It 
requires, indeed, no ordinary man to act the part of popular leader against a 
powerful aristocracy. Even in the Forum the patrician clubs were now the strong- 
est party ; so great is the superiority of youth, high birth, training in martial ex- 
ercises, and organization, over mere numbers. But when they left the Forum, the 
tribunes were but individuals, often advanced in life, 29 with few slaves and no de- 
pendents ; exposed in their own persons, and still more in their families, to all the 
insults and oppressions which wealth, rank, and their numerous clients, enabled 
the patricians to offer. Whose spirit would not be broken by such a trial ? Who 
but the very boldest and firmest -of men would have scrupled to pm-chase secu- 
rity in private life from such constant persecution, by withdrawing, in his public 
capacity, that opposition which, after all, he might feel to be hopeless ? 

In the next year, a member of the Quinctian house was chosen consul, T. Quinc- 
a. u. c 309. a. c. tius Capitolinus. Accordingly, the story of the year is made up 
Quincth 1 s" SU Thl p c°a f nu: from some of the memorials of the Quinctian family, and is a mere 
leianuw. panegyric of the consul's great qualities in peace and in war. The 

real history of the year is lost almost entirely ; it is only said 30 that the irritation 
of the commons was continually becoming more violent, and that impeachments 
against individual patricians were constantly the occasion of fresh contests between 
the orders. Then the panegyric succeeds, and describes 31 how the iEquians and 
Volscians broke in upon the Roman territory, and carried their ravages up to the 
very walls of Rome ; how there was no one who went out to oppose them ; and 
how the consul then called the people together, and addressed them so earnestly, 
and with such effect, that all internal quarrels were suspended, every man fol- 
lowed the consul to the field, and a great victory was gained over the enemy. So 
ran the story ; but on this occasion it has not found its way into the Fasti, and 
the annals of the year contain no record of a triumph obtained by either consul. 
When Quinctius and his panegyric disappear from the state, the story of inter- 
nal disputes returns, and Ave find 32 the Equians and Volscians, to- 
gether with the Veientians and Ardeatians, again threatening Rome 
from without. But the new college of tribunes contained a man of resolution, 
C. Canuleius, and one, to all appearance, as wise as he was bold. He chose that 
particular reform out of many in which the commons felt a deep interest, and in 

29 Shakspearc has truly seized this point in cannot expect to be distinguished as early in 

the character of the tribuneship, that it was life as those who are recommended at once tc 

generally held by men of mature, or even of ad- public notice by the celebrity of their family, 

vanccd age ; the tribunes who oppose Coriola- Afterwards, when the tribunes, as in the case 

nus arc elderly men, like the city magistrates of of the Gracchi, were chosen from families, which, 

modern times'; and the aristocratical party taunt though not patrician, were yet in the highest 

them with their want of strength: "Aged sir, degree noble, youn.tr men might be elected to 

hands offi" "Hence, rotten thing! or I will the office, for then they enjoyed all the aristo- 

Bhake thv bones out of thy garments." So the cratical advantages of hereditary distinction, al- 

popular leader of Syracuse, Athenagoras, com- though their olnce was still a popular one. 

plains of the youth and presumption of Her- 30 Livy, III. 66. 

mocrates and his party. And this is natural; 31 Livy, III. 66. 

for he who has to make his own way to fame, B Livy, IV. 1. 



Chap. XVI] THE CANTJLEIAN LAW CARRIED. 129 

which many of the patricians sympathized with them ; the repeal, namely, of that 
law of the twelve tables which forbade connubia between the two orders. Many 
families must have felt the hardship of this law ; for marriages between patricians 
and plebeians were common, and as they were not in the highest sense legal, the 
children followed the mother's condition, not the father's, and were not subject 
to their father's power, nor could inherit from him if he died intestate. On this 
point there was a strong and general feeling ; but the other nine tribunes, 33 en- 
couraged by their colleague's boldness, attempted to revive the question of the 
admission of plebeians to the consulship, and they proposed a law, " that the 
consulship should be thrown open, without distinction, to the members of both 
orders." 

Here, again, the family memorials, and the annalists who compiled their narra- 
tives from them, have left a blank in the story. No patrician made ' , . T '. 

. •> r . . . Tumult on the Jariicn- 

himself remarkable, either by his magnanimous opposition to the |»m.. The canuieiao 

. . .."' ° - , . ■* A law is carried. 

commons, or by his patriotic support ot their claims ; no memora- 
ble tale of outrage or of heroism was connected with these events, and thus they 
have been passed by almost unnoticed. But the short statement of Zonaras, 34 
" that many violent things were said and done on both sides," acquires something 
more of distinctness from the mention made by Floras 36 of a tumult which broke 
out on the hill Janiculum, headed by the tribune Canuleius. It seems, then, that 
the commons again took up arms, and established themselves, not, as before, on the 
Aventine or the Sacred Hill, but beyond the Tiber, on a spot easily capable of 
being converted into a distinct city. Thus pressed, the patricians once more 
yielded, and the law of Canuleius, to repeal the decemvirs' 36 prohibition of inter- 
marriages between the two orders, was carried without further opposition. 

The success of Canuleius encouraged his colleagues ; and they now more ve- 
hemently urged their law for opening the consulship to the com- 
mons. But this measure, it seems, excited a less general interest proposed by his coi- 
in its behalf, while it awakened a yet fiercer opposition. We may consulship to the com- 
suppose, however, that the commons again occupied, in military 
order, either the Aventine or the Janiculum : for the patricians held meetings 
amongst themselves, 31 which neither Valerius nor Horatius would attend ; and C. 
Claudius, true to the spirit of his family, wanted to invest the consuls with full 
military power, and to commission them to attack the tribunes and the commons 
by force of arms. The Quinctii, however, so said their family accounts, would 
have no violence done on the sacred persons of the tribunes ; and their milder 
counsels led to a temporary settlement of the contest. The consulship was to be 
suspended, but tribunes of the soldiers, with consular power, were to be appointed, 
and these might be either plebeians or patricians. What was to be the number 
of these tribunes is uncertain ; three only were actually chosen ; but Zonaras says, 38 
that according to the constitution of the office there were to be six, three to be 
chosen from each order. Perhaps the number three had reference to the three 
old tribes of the Roman people, the Ramnenses, the Titienses, and Luceres, and 
as these, in the division of the centuries, were now six, the sex suffragia, it may 
have been intended, in like manner, that after three patrician tribunes had been 
elected, three plebeians should be added to their number, like the first and second 
centuries of the three tribes, according to the system ascribed to the elder Tar- 
quinius. At any rate, three tribunes were elected ; and, as Livy declares, three 
patricians : A. Sempronius Atratinus, L. Atilius, and Cloelius. 39 

33 Livy, IV. 1. 3 ' Livy, IV. 6. Dionysius, XL 55. 

34 UoXXd kolt aXXtjXuv Kal /3/aia l\ty6v re Kal 38 VII. 19. Dionysius also agrees with him, 
eUTtpaTTov. VII. 19. XL 60. 

34 Tertiam seditionem incitavit matrimonio- 39 In the MSS. of Livy, this last tribune is 

rum dignitas, ut plebeii cum patriciis jungeren- called " T. Celius," or " Cselius," or " Cseeilius ;" 

tur. Qui tumultus in monte Janiculo, duce Ca- Csecilius is the reading followed in Draken- 

iiuleio, tribuno plebis, exarsit. Florus, I. 25. borch's edition, but Bekker has adopted the 

36 Livy, IV. 6. correction of Sigonius, " T. Cloelius." In Dio- 
9 



130 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVI 

It is remarkable that two out of these three, Sempronius and Cloelius, were chosen 

from families especially noted, twelve years 40 earlier, for their vio- 

appoimment of consuls lent hostility to the commons, and for the great strength of their 

as before. t ^d <j 

bands of associated followers. This can hardly have been a mere 
accident : it looks as if the patricians had made every effort to bring them for- 
ward as efficient leaders in the struggle for which they were preparing. But 
again the details are lost ; and Livy's story 41 merely relates that within three 
months the tribunes were called upon by the augurs to resign, from an alleged 
religious informality in their election ; that there was then a dispute, whether 
other tribunes should be elected, or whether consuls should be appointed, as be- 
fore ; that T. Quinctius Barbatus, whom the patricians had appointed interrex, 
was on this occasion their leader ; that the commons, feeling that only patricians 
would be elected, whether under the name of consuls or tribunes, thought it vain to 
dispute for nothing ; and that thus, in the end, two consuls were appointed, L. Pa- 
pirius Mugillanus, and another, Sempronius Atratinus, and all mention of the laws 
proposed by the tribunes of the commons was thus for several years laid to sleep. 

Another account 42 represents T. Quinctius. not as interrex, but as dictator, and 
varying accounts of sa y s that in no more than thirteen days he put an end to the con- 
these transactions. tegtj an( j then laid down his office. And as we find the record of 
a treaty concluded in this year between Rome and Ardea, it has been conjectured' 13 
that the patricians may have availed themselves of foreign aid in putting down 
the opposition of the commons. It is certain that in the following year we meet, 
for the first time, with the name of a new patrician magistracy, the censorship ; 
and Niebuhr saw clearly that the creation of this office was connected with the 
appointment of tribunes of the soldiers ; and that both belong to what may be 
called the constitution of the year 312. 

This constitution recognized two points : a sort of continuation of the principle 
of the decemvirate, inasmuch as the supreme government was again, 

New constitution. Cen- , * -, •, t . l .. j j.1 i • l 

sors, quaestors, and trib- to speak in modern language, put in commission, and the kingly 

unes of the soldiers. L r i • , i • . i i ^ 1 

powers, formerly united in the consuls or praetors, were now to be 
divided between the censors and tribunes of the soldiers ; and, secondly, the eli- 
gibility of the commons to share in some of the powers thus divided. But the 
partition, even in theory, was far from equal : the two censors, who were to hold 
their office for five years, were not only chosen from the patricians, but, as Nie- 
buhr thinks, 44 by them ; that is, by the assembly of the curiae ; the two quaes- 
tors who judged in cases of blood were also chosen from the patricians, although 
by the centuries. Thus the civil power of the old praetors was, in its most im- 
portant points, still exercised exclusively by the patricians ; and even their mili- 
tary power, which was professed^ to be open to both orders, was not transmitted 

dorus the MSS. read Kdii/ros, for which the edit- the patricians resisted this, and finally, to sim- 

ors have corrected KoIvtios (Quintius, or Quine- plify the question, got rid of their own tribunes 

tius). In Dionysius, the common reading is also, and returned to the government by con- 

K\<unov "Zacc\6v, but the cognomen enables us to suls. 

correct this, and in the Vatican MS. it is rightly 40 Dionysius, X. 41. 

given K\v\iot> 2tK$\6v. Neibuhr says that L. 41 Livy," IV. 7. 

Atilius must have been a plebeian, because the 42 Lyons, de Magistratibus, I. 3S. But tho 

Atilii were a plebeian family, and the L. Atilius, infinite confusions of the passage in which this 

who was tribune of the soldiers in 356, is ex- statement occurs, render its authority extremely 

pressly called a plebeian by Livy himself. But questionable. 

this is merely the same question which occurs 43 Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 410, Engl. Transl. 

with respect to some of the decemvirs; and it " Vol. II. p. 394, Lngl. Transl. It appears 

never can be shown that there were not some that in after times the election of the censors 

patrician houses of all those names, which, to was confirmed by a lex ecnturiata, as that of the 

us in the later history, occur only as plebeian, other curule magistrates was by a lex curiata. 

except where the plebeian family had been noble Both were, then, a mere formality; but Nie- 

in some other city of Italy, ancl was not of Ro- buhr infers from this difference between the 

man extraction. Thus we do not hear of any censorship and the other magistracies, that the 

fatrician yElii or Cfficilii. It is more probable, former was originally conferred by the curias, 

think, that the three tribunes first chosen and confirmed by the centuries, as the others 

were patricians, and that three plebeians were were conferred by the centuries, and confirmed 

to have been added to their number ; but that by the curiae. ^ 



Chap. XVI] CONSTITUTION OF 312. 131 

to the tribunes of the soldiers, without some diminution of its majesty. The new 
tribuneship was not an exact image of the kingly sovereignty ; it was not a curule 
office, and therefore no tribune ever enjoyed the honor of a triumph, 45 in which 
the conquering general, ascending to the Capitol to sacrifice to the guardian gods 
of Rome, was wont to be arrayed in all the insignia of royalty. 

But even the small share of power thus granted in theory to the commons, 
was in practice withheld from them. Whether from the influence It9 ineqil0 iity as re Sar d- 
of the patricians in the centuries, or by religious pretences urged ed tl,e commonB - 
by the augurs, or by the enormous and arbitrary power of refusing votes which 
the officer presiding, at the comitia was wont to exercise, the college of the trib- 
unes was for many years filled by the patricians alone. And while the censor- 
ship was to be a fixed institution, the tribunes of the soldiers were to be replaced, 
whenever it might appear needful, by two consuls ; and to the consulship no ple- 
beian was so much as legally eligible. Thus the victory of the aristo«.racy may 
seem to have been complete, and we may wonder how the commons, after aaving 
carried so triumphantly the law of Canuleius, should have allowed the political 
rights asserted for them by his colleagues to have been so partially conceded in 
theory, and in practice to be so totally withheld. 

The explanation is simple, and it is one of the most valuable lessons of history. 
The commons obtained those reforms which they desired, and they Cause8 why thi8 wa8 
desired such only as their state was ripe for. They had withdrawn i uietly endured - 
in times past to the Sacred Hill, but it was to escape from intolerable personal 
oppression ; they had recently occupied the Aventine in arms, but it was to get 
rid of a tryanny which endangered the honor of their wives and daughters, and 
to recover the protection of their tribunes ; they had more lately still retired to 
the Janiculum, but it. was to remove an insulting distinction which embittered the 
relations of private life, and imposed on their grandchildren, in many instances, 
the inconveniences, if not the reproach, of illegitimacy. These were all objects of 
universal and personal interest ; and these the commons were resolved not to re- 
linquish. But the possible admission of a few distinguished members of their 
body to the highest offices of state concerned the mass of the commons but little. 
They had their own tribunes for their personal protection ; but curule magistra- 
cies, and the government of the commonwealth, seemed to belong to the patri- 
cians, or, at least, might be left in their hands without any great sacrifice. So 
it is that all things come best in their season ; that political power is then most 
happily exercised by a people, when it has not been given to them prematurely, 
that is, before, in the natural progress of things, they feel the want of it. Security 
for person and property enables a nation to grow without interruption ; in con- 
tending for this, a people's sense of law and right is wholesomely exercised ; mean- 
time, national prosperity increases, and brings with it an increase of intelligence, 
till, other and more necessary wants being satisfied, men awaken to the highest 
earthly desire of the ripened mind, the desire of taking an active share in the 
great work of government. The Roman commons abandoned the highest magis- 
tracies to the patricians for a period of many years : but they continued to in- 
crease in prosperity and in influence ; and what the fathers had wisely yielded, 
their sons, in the fulness of time, acquired. So the English house of commons, 
in the reign of Edward III., 46 declined to interfere in questions of peace and war, as 
being too high for them to compass ; but they would not allow the crown to take 
their money without their own consent ; and so the nation grew, and the influence 
of the house of commons grew along with it, till that house has become the 
great and predominant power in the British constitution. 

46 Zonaras, VII. 19. It might be a curious origin the inferior rank of the general who had 

question whether the ovation, or inferior tri- gained it, rather than the less importance of his 

umph, in which the conquering general walked military successes. 

on foot instead of riding in his chariot, was not 46 Hallarn, Middle Ages, Vol. III. p. 71. ed, 

first introduced in the case of a tribune of the 1822. 
soldiers ; and whether it did not mark in its 



132 HISTORY OF ROME, p [Chap. XVII. 

If this view be correct, Trebonius judged far more wisely than M. Duilius ; and 
the abandonment of half the plebeian tribuneship to the patricians, in order to 
obtain for the plebeians an equal share in the higher magistracies, would have 
been as really injurious to the commons, as it was unwelcome to the pride of the 
aristocracy. It was resigning a weapon with which they were familiar, for one 
which they knew not how to wield. The tribuneship was the foster nurse of Ro- 
man liberty, and without its care that liberty never would have grown to maturity. 
What evils it afterwards wrought, when the public freedom was fully ripened, 
arose from that great defect of the Roman constitution, its conferring such extrav- 
agant powers on all its officers. It proposed to check one tyranny by another ; 
instead of so limiting the prerogatives of every magistrate and order in the state, 
whether aristocratical or popular, as to exclude tyranny from all. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 312 TO 350— THE CENSORSHIP, AND THE LIMITATION 
OF IT BY MAMERCUS iEMILIUS— SP. MELIUS AND C. AHALA— THE QU^ES- 
TORSHIP LAID OPEN TO THE COMMONS— SIX TRIBUNES OF THE SOLDIERS 
APPOINTED, AND PAY ISSUED TO THE SOLDIERS. 



" What can be more instructive than to observe the first principles of right springing up, 
involved in superstition and polluted with violence ; until, by length of time and tavorable cir- 
cumstances, it has worked itself into clearness ?" — Burke, Abridgment of English History, Book 
III. Chap. IX. 

The period of nearly forty years on which we are now going to enter, so short 
a space in the history of a nation, so long to all of us individually, includes within 
it the whole of the Peloponnesian war. Whilst at Rome the very form and tend- 
ency of great political revolutions cannot be discovered without difficulty ; whilst 
military events are wholly disguised by ignorance or flattery, and whilst we can 
as yet obtain no distinct ideas of any one individual, nor fully conceive the char- 
acter of the national mind, Athens is, on the other hand, known to us almost in 
its minutest points of detail. During this time Thucydides was collecting mate- 
rials for his history ; and Herodotus, after having travelled nearly all over the 
world, was making the last additions to his great work in the country of his later 
years, on the southern coast of Italy. Pericles had passed all of his glorious life 
except its most glorious close ; and Socrates, the faithful servant of truth and 
virtue, was deserving that common hatred of the aristocratical 1 and democratical 
vulgar, which made him at last its martyr. The arts and manufactures of Athens 
were well known at Rome ; and those names and stories of the wars of Thebes 
and Troy, which their dramatists were continually presenting afresh to the mem- 
ory of the Athenians, were familiar also in the heart of Italy, were adopted into 
the language and traditions of Etruria and of Rome, and employed the genius of 

1 The aristocratical hatred against Socrates is who politically are most at variance with each 

exhibited in the Clouds of Aristophanes ; and other ; and so the common dread and hatred of 

the famous speech of Cleon on the question of improvement, of truth, of principle — in other 

the punishment of the revolted Mvtilenieans, words, of all that is the light and life of man, 

shows the same spirit in connection with the has, on more than one occasion, united in one 

strong demooratical party. Political parties are cause all who are low in intellect and morals, 

not the ultimate distinction between man and from the highest rank in society down to the 

man ; there are higher points, whether for good humblest. 
or evil, on which a moral sympathy unites those 



Chap. XVIL] INTERNAL HISTORY. 133 

Italian artists 2 as of those of their original country. But, during the period at 
which we are now arrived, central Italy became acquainted, not with Athenian 
art only, but with the fame of the Athenian arms. The Etruscans heard with 
delight that a mighty avenger of their defeat at Cuma 3 was threatening their old 
enemies of Syracuse ; their cities gladly lent their aid to the invader ; and the 
Romans must have heard with interest from their neighbors and friends of Caere 
or Agylla, how some of their countrymen had done good service in the lines 4 of 
the Athenian army, and how they had been involved in that sweeping ruin in 
which the greatest armament ever yet sent out by a free and civilized common- 
wealth had so miserably perished. But the Romans knew not, and could not 
know, how deeply the greatness of their own posterity, and the fate of the whole 
western world, was involved in the destruction of the fleet of Athens in the har- 
bor of Syracuse. Had that great expedition proved victorious, the energies of 
Greece during the next eventful century would have found their field in the west 
no less than in the east : Greece, and not Rome, might have conquered Carthage ; 
Greek, instead of Latin, might have been at this day the principal element of the 
languages of Spain, of France, and of Italy ; and the laws of Athens, rather than 
of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilized world. 

The period now before us is marked, as far as Rome itself is concerned, with 
few events of great importance. The commons retained and asserted General charncter of 
those rights which were the best suited to their actual condition; the ensuins period " 
and thus became gradually fitted to desire and to claim others of a higher char- 
acter. But for the first important advantage to their cause they were indebted 
to one of the wisest and best Romans of his time, who was at once trusted by 
them, and respected by his own order, the patrician Mamercus ^Emilius. Nine 
years after the institution of the censorship, Mamercus, having been A u. c . 321 A C- 
named dictator, to oppose a threatened attack from the Etruscans, 431 - 
proposed and carried a law 5 to limit the duration of the censorship. That office, 
in its powers and outward splendor a lively image of royalty, was held for a term 
of five years. By the law of Mamercus .iEmilius it was to be held in future only 
for eighteen months ; and as the election of censors still took place only at inter- 
vals of five years, this magistracy was always in abeyance for a longer time than 
it was in existence. 

The censorship was an office so remarkable, that, however familiar the subject 
may be to many readers, it is necessary here to bestow some notice 
' on it. Its original business 6 was, to take a register of the citizens 
and of their property ; but this, which seems at first sight to be no more than 
the drawing up of a mere statistical report, became, in fact, from the large dis- 
cretion allowed to every Roman officer, a political power of the highest import- 
ance. The censors made out the returns of the free population ; but they did 
more ; they divided it according to its civil distinctions, and drew up a list of the 
senators, 1 a list of the equites, a list of the members of the several tribes, or 

2 In specimens of Etruscan vases and frescoes by Pindar, Pyth. I. 140, and one of the helmets 
given by Micali in the atlas accompanying his taken from the enemy on this day, and sent as 
History of the Ancient People of Italy, and in an offering to the Olympian Jupiter, was dis- 
those published more recently by the Antiqua- covered by an English traveller, in 1817, amongst 
rian Society of Eome, it is curious to observe the ruins of Olympia, and bears an inscription 
how many of the subjects are taken from the which teUs its story, "that Hiero, the son of 
story of the siege of Thebes, and still more from Dinomenes, and the Syracusans, offered it to 
that of Troy. Many of the vases on which these Jove as a part of the Tyrrhenian spoil from Cu- 
,subjects occur are thought to be actually of ma." See Bockh, Corpus Inscript. Grasc. torn. 
Athenian manufacture ; others appear to be Ital- I. p. 34. 

ian imitations ; but both equally prove that the * Thucydides, VII. 53. 

stories of the heroic age of Greece were well 5 Livy, IV. 24. 

known in Italy, and the works of Grecian art 6 Magistrates, cui scribarum ministerium cus- 

admired and sought after. todieeque et tabularum cura, cui arbitrium for- 

3 The naval victory of Cuma was won by Hiero, mulse censendi subjiceretur. Livy, IV. 8. 

the brother and successor of Gelon, over the ' See the accounts of the census in Livy, 
Etruscans, in the year 474 B. C. Olymp. 76-3. XXIV. 18, and XXXIX. 42, 44. See also Zo- 
It is commemorated by Diodorus, XL 51, and naras, VII. 19. 



134 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIL 

of those citizens who enjoyed the right of voting, and a list of the eerarians, con- 
sisting of those freedmen, naturalized strangers, and others, who, being enrolled 
in no tribe, possessed no vote in the comitia, but still enjoyed all the private rights 
of Roman citizens. Now the lists thus drawn up by the censors were regarded 
as legal evidence of a man's condition : the state could refer to no more authen- 
tic standard than to the returns deliberately made by one of its highest magis- 
trates, who was responsible to it for their being drawn up properly. He would, 
in the first place, be the sole judge of many questions of fact, such as whether a 
citizen had the qualifications 8 required by law or custom for the rank which he 
claimed, or whether he had ever incurred any judicial sentence which rendered 
him infamous : 9 but from thence the transition was easy, according to Roman no- 
tions, to the decision of questions of right ; such as whether a citizen was really 
worthy of retaining his rank, whether he had not committed some act as justly 
degrading as those which incurred the sentence of the law ; and in this manner 
the censor gave a definite power to public opinion, and whatever acts or habits 
were at variance with the general feeling, he held himself authorized to visit with 
disgrace or disfranchisement. Thus was established a direct check upon many 
vices or faults which law, in almost all countries, has not ventured to notice. 
Whatever was contrary to good morals, or to the customs of their fathers, Roman 
citizens ought to be ashamed to practise : if a man 10 behaved tyrannically to his 
wife or children, if he was guilty of excessive cruelty even to his slaves, if he 
neglected his land, 11 if he indulged in habits of extravagant expense, 12 or followed 
any calling which was regarded as degrading, 13 the offence was justly noted by 
the censors, and the offender was struck off from the list of senators, if his rank 
were so high ; or if he were an ordinary citizen, he was expelled from his tribe, 
and reduced to the class of the aerarians. Beyond this the censor had no power 
of degradation ; u for the private rights of Roman citizens could not be taken away 
by any magistrate ; the sentence could only affect his honors, or such privileges 
as were strictly political. 

Yet the censors had a further hold even on the aerarians, nor was their power 

limited to the degrading a citizen from his rank ; they could also 
over the property oftile affect his fortune. It was their business, as I have said, to make 

a return of the property of every Roman, and of its value ; for 
the taxes were levied according to this return, and here, too, its evidence was 
decisive. Every citizen presented at the census a detailed account of his prop- 

8 For instance, whether a man claiming to be- honorable tribe to a less honorable, bnt he could 
long to one of the tribes, followed any trade in- not remove him from all the thirty-five tribes, 
compatible with the character of a plebeian ; all and so, in effect, disfranchise him. And yet 
retail trades being forbidden at this time to the the expression " in serarios referri," is equiva- 
commons. See Dionysius, IX. 25. lent to " in Ceritum tabulas referri," and this 

9 This was called a "judicium turpe," and is a well-known designation of the "civitas sine 
this was incurred in various actions, which are suffragio;" forGellius says expressly, that "in 
specified by the lawyers : as, for instance, if a has tabulas censores referri jubebant, quos notse 
man were cast in an'actio furti, or vi bonorum causa suffragiis privabant." XVI. 13. It would 
raptorum, or tutclse, or mandati, or pro socio, seem, however, that "tribu movere," and "in 
&c. See Gaius, Institutes, IV. § 182. And the wrarios referre," were two distinct sentences, 
disqualification thus incurred was perpetual, and that the former did .indeed only imply a re- 
and could not be reversed by the censors. See moval from a higher tribe to a lower (in which 
Cicero, pro Cluentio, 42. sense it probably is that Dionysius speaks of 

10 Dionysius, XX. 3. Fragm. Mai. the censors as removing a man «s ras twv ari- 
" A. Gellius, IV. 12. pm< <bv*ds, XVIII. 22. Fragm. Mai) ; but that 

12 1 dionysius, XX. 3. See the well-known sto- the latter was, for the time, equivalent to a iu- 
ryofthe censor Fabricius expelling Enfinus from dicium turpe, and deprived a citizen of all his 
the senate, because he had ten pounds' weight political rights ; but it could be reversed either 

• plate in his possession. by the censor's colleague, or by the next cen- 

13 As, for instance, that of an actor. Sec sors. But the question concerning the cerarians, 
Livy, VII. 2. like every other connected with the censors and 

"There is a remarkable passage in Livy, the centuries, is beset with difficulties, from our 

XLV. 16, in which c. Claudius, one of the ecu- ignorance of the changes introduced at differ- 

sors in the year 584, is represented as denying ent periods, and thus being apt to ascribe to one 

the right of the censor to deprive any man of time whut is applicable only to another. 
his vote: he could remove him from a more 



Chap. XVIL] POWERS OF THE CENSORS. 135 

erty ; lie stated the name 15 and situation of his landed estate, what proportion of 
it was arable, what was meadow, what vineyard, and what olive ground. He 
was even to number his vines, and olive-trees, and to the whole thus minutely 
described he was to affix his own valuation. He was.«to observe the same rules 
with regard to his slaves, and undoubtedly with regard to his horses and cattle ; 
for all these came under the same class of res mancipii. But the censor had an 
unlimited power of setting on all these things a higher valuation, and, conse- 
quently, of subjecting them to a higher rate of taxation. Further, we have in- 
stances 16 of a censor's calling for a return of other articles of property, such as 
clothing, jewels, and carriages, which were not returned in the regular order of 
the census ; and on these he would set an extravagant valuation, to ten times 
their actual worth. Nor does it appear that in these cases there was any remedy 
for the person aggrieved : the censor's decision was final. On the return of tax- 
able property thus made, the senate, in case of need, levied a certain rate, ordi- 
narily, 17 as it seems, of no more than one per thousand ; but raised, as circum- 
stances might require, to two, three, or four per thousand. For it must be un- 
derstood that this property tax, or tributum, was mostly a war tax, and not a 
part of the regular revenues of the state : it might happen, therefore, that no 
property tax was levied, and in that case the censor's surcharge, or over-valua- 
tion, would have been inoperative ; but wars were so frequent, and the necessi- 
ties of the state so great, in the early periods of the Roman history, that there 
was probably no one term of five years in which the tributum was not needed, 
and, consequently, no return of any censors which was not carried into effect. 
We are told also that the censors, 18 on some occasions, not only put their own 
valuation on the property returned at the census, but also fixed the rate to be 
levied upon it : being sure in this, as in so many other instances, to have their 
acts sanctioned by the senate, if it did not appear that they had been influenced 
by any unworthy motives. 

In addition to this great power with regard to the taxes, or tributa, the cen- 
sors had the entire management of the regular revenues of the 

r • i 'vitPmi i ii) Over the veetignlia, or 

state, or ot its vectigalia. Ihey were the commonwealth s stew- property of the com- 
ards, and to their hands all its property was intrusted. But these 
state demesnes were ample and various, including arable land, vineyards, pas- 
tures, forests, mines, harbors, fisheries, and buildings. The letting or farming of 
all these belonged wholly to the censors ; the harbors including the portoria or 
customs, which appear to have been levied as a harbor, wharfage, and perhaps 
warehouse duty. They were thus a charge paid by the merchant for his use of 
the state's property ; and this is the proper notion of vectigal as opposed to 
tributum ; that the first was received by the state in its capacity of landlord or 
proprietor, the latter was paid to it as a political society ; the vectigal was given 
by the farmer, trader, or consumer, as the price of some commercial or econom- 
ical benefit ; the tributum was the citizen's duty to his country. Besides all 
these sources of revenue, the state claimed a monopoly of salt ; 20 and the right of 

16 See all these particulars in the " forma cen- w Livy, XXXIX. 44. 

sualis," given by Ulpian, de Censibus, lib. III. w Ut vectigalia populi Romani sub nutu atque 

quoted in the Digest, Tit. de Censibus, L. 4. arbitrio (censorum essent). Livy, IV. 8. 

(Lib. L. Tit. XV.) 20 The salt works at the mouth of the Tiber 

16 Livy, XXXlX. 44. Ornamenta et vestem were said to have been first established in the 

muliebrem et vekicula . ._. . in censum referre reign of Ancus Marcius. Livy, I. 33. Accord- 

jussit : uti decies tanto pluris quam ing to Gronovius' excellent note on the well- 

quanti essent sestimarentur. known passage in Livy, II. 9, the government, 

1T This was the proportion observed in the in the early times of the commonwealth, kept 

tribute imposed on the twelve defaulting colo- the sale of salt in its own hands, and did not 

nies in the second Punic war j Livy, XXIX. 15 ; farm it, as was usual with the other vectigalia. 

and Niebuhr concludes that it was the ordinary But it was farmed, and the price at which it was 

rate. "Three per thousand" is mentioned as to be sold was fixed by the censors in the year 

the rate fixed by Cato and Valerius Flaccus in 548, when M. Livius, one of the censors, ac- 

their severe censorship in 568. Livy, XXXIX. quired from this very circumstance his nickname 

44. Salinator. Livy, X'XIX. 37. 



136 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVII. 

selling this most necessary article was also let by the censors on their own terms ; 
for they fixed the price at which it was to be sold to the public. Why salt was 
thus considered as state property may probably be explained on the principle 
that the sea and the sea-shore belonged to no man ; and in a country where the 
whole supply of salt comes from the sea, it would not appear unnatural that the 
state should take into its own hands the sale of a commodity so universally 
needed, and which was derived immediately from that element which no individ- 
ual could claim as his pi-operty. At any rate, salt was at Rome, as afterwards 
in France, an article that could be sold only by the government. 

With these almost kingly powers, and arraj*ed in kingly state, for the censor's 
robe 21 was all scarlet, and not merely bordered with a scarlet band, elected by 
the curiae, and holding their office for five years, the censors might well seem too 
great for a free commonwealth, and the patricians, in retaining an office so im- 
portant in their own exclusive possession, seemed to have more than compensated 
for their loss of a part of the military tribuneship, had the constitution of 312 
been really acted on. It was a most welcome law, then, to the commons, when 
the dictator Mamercus ^Emilius, in the year 321, proposed the shortening of the 
term of the censor's office to eighteen months. Nor did the patricians refuse 
their consent to the measure ; for there were many of their body who felt that a 
magistracy held for five years could be accessible only to a few individuals of the 
highest distinction ; and that the mass of the patricians, no less than of the com- 
mons, would be subject to the power of the censors, without being ever able to 
exercise it themselves. 

The greatness of the censor's office has led me to depart a little from the chro- 
nological order of events, and to anticipate, by a few years, the regular mention 
of the JEmilian law. I now go back to the year 312, and the appointment of 
consuls in the room of tribunes of the soldiers, immediately after the institution 
of this latter office. 

Consuls continued to be appointed for the next four years ; but a memorable 
a. u. c. 3i5. a. c. event which occurred in the year 316, again led to the election of 
S^ivf c HbSaitT« "f tribunes. The year 315 had been a season of great scarcity i 22 a 
sp.Mffiiius. special officer had been named with the title of praefectus anno- 

nae, or master of the markets, in order to relieve the general distress ; but he had 
been able to do very little, and the suffering was so extreme that many of the 
poorer citizens threw themselves into the Tiber in despair. In this state of 
things, 23 Sp. Mselius, one of the richest of the commons, and a member of one of 
the plebeian centuries of knights or equites, a man of large mercantile dealings, 
and having thus many connections in the neighboring countries, succeeded in 
making large purchases of corn, and issued it to the poorer citizens either at a 
very low price, or even gratis. He thus became exceedingly popular, and was 
followed by a great multitude 24 whenever he appeared in the Forum ; so that it 
was supposed that he would attempt to win a share of the consulship for the 
commons, and was likely himself to become the first plebeian consul. The patri- 
cians, resolved to prevent this, procured the appointment of one of the most emi- 
a. u. c 3i6. a. c. nent °f their order, T. Quinctius Capitolinus ; but the danger 
* 36, might be only delayed : the scarcity still continued, and Maeluis 

was gaining fresh popularity every day : the harvest was still distant, and if the 
distress became greater, the mingled despair and gratitude of the commons might 
overbear all opposition, and the consulship might be wrested from the patricians 
in spite of all their efforts. On a sudden 85 it was announced that the old L. 

" Polybius, VI. 58. And a censor's funeral, 23 Livy, IV. 13. Zonaras, VII. 20. 

funus censorium, used to be voted even to the 24 Zonaras adds, that lie had actually provid- 

emperors, as the tnosl honorable and magnifl- ed himself with men to seize the Capitol, and 

cent of any. See Tacitus, Ann. IV. L5, and other strong positions in the city ; for this must 

XII. 2, with Lapsing' note on the first quoted be the meaning of the expression, broptaaro #pe- 

passaL'e. vpov;. 

23 Livy, IV. 12. '■ tt The senate, according to Zonaras, appoint- 



Chap. XVII.] DEATH OF SP. MELIUS. I37 

Quinctius Cincinnatus had been named dictator by the consul T. Quinctius, in 
consequence of a meeting of the senate : the dictator had made C. Servilius Ahala 
his master of the horse ; the patricians and the plebeian knights 26 had occupied 
the Capitol and the other strong places of the city during the night, and in the 
morning the dictator appeared in the Forum, with the array of his four-and- 
twenty lictors, all bearing along with their rods those well-known axes which de- 
noted his sovereign power, while he was supported besides by his master of the 
horse, at the head of a numerous body of the younger patricians in arms. 

The dictator took his seat at his tribunal, and sent C. Ahala to summon Mee- 
lius to appear before him. As master of the horse, all the mem- 
bers of the centuries of equites were under his immediate authori- 
ty ; and on this account, perhaps, he was chosen to deliver the summons. Mee- 
lius saw that his fate was determined ; he endeavored to fly : his enemies 
charged him with snatching up a butcher's knife, 21 and endeavoring to repel the 
knights who were pursuing him ; under somewhat similar circumstances the 
treacherous murder of Wat Tyler was excused by his pretended insolent be- 
havior to the king ; and Ahala, as eager as Sir William Walworth to do . is 
work, slew Meelius on the spot, as guilty of disobedience. The old dictator 28 
justified the deed to the multitude : " Mselius had aimed, not at the consulship, 
but at making himself king ; the master of the markets had reported to the sen- 
ate that secret meetings were held at his house, and arms collected. To meet 
this danger the senate had appointed a dictator ; he had purposed to try Mee- 
lius, and judge him according to his guilt or innocence ; but, as he had refused 
to obey his summons, and had resisted his own immediate commander, he had 
been lawfully slain." 29 Immediately afterwards, treating Mselius as a convicted 
traitor, he ordered his house to be levelled with the ground ; thus the story of 
the concealed arms could never be disproved, for no time was allowed to the 
tribunes of the commons to search the house : Meelius' enemies might report 
whatever they pleased. The house stood under the Capitol, not far from the 
Mamertine prison, 30 and the site of it was, for ages after, called the ^quimae- 
lium, or the Meelian level. 

Such is the story which the traditions or memoirs of the Quinctian and Ser- 
vilian families handed down, and which the annalists adopted on The co . nmons are in , 
their authority. Whatever ambitious designs Meelius may have had, di s nant at his death - 
nothing, even according to the statement of his enemies, was proved against him ; 
and his aiming afthe consulship would have been a sufficient crime in the eyes of 
the patricians to tempt them to violent measures. On the other hand, charity 
was so little familiar to the Greeks and Romans, that the splendid munificence of 
Meelius is in itself suspicious ; a time of great distress would make it easy for a 
man of his wealth to engage a band of armed adventurers, sufficient to put him 
in possession of the Capitol by a sudden attack ; and then his popularity with 
the commons, and their hatred of the patricians, would have rendered him ample 
service. However, the commons were indignant at his summary death ; and 
there is a dim and confused account of disturbances consequent upon it. Ahala 

ed L. Quinctius dictator before they left the in the sex sufifragia, or patrician centuries of 

senate-house ; and they did not separate till knights or cavalry. And so, after the death of 

evening, that the result of their measures might Meelius, Ahala is described as returning to the 

not be prematurely known. The occupation of dictator, "stipatus caterva. patriciorum juve- 

the Capitol during the night, and the appear- num." Livy, IV. 14. 

ance of the dictator in the Forum early in the 21 Dionysius, XII. 1. Fragm. Mai. 

morning, ready to anticipate whatever might 28 Livy, IV. 15. 

have been the designs of Mfelius, remind us of 29 " Jure cassuni pronuntiavit," an expression 

the Doge of Venice, Gradenigo, and the ener- which seems as technical and official as our 

getic measures by which he met and baffled the verdict of "justifiable homicide." Suetonius 

conspiracy of the Querini and Thiepoli. See pronounces this same judgment on the murder 

Daru, B. VII. of Caesar, "Prsegravant caetera facta dictaque 

26 Zonaras says that the Capitol was secured ejus ut . . . jure ca;sus existimetur." C. 76. 

tita T(iv litirfu>v. This may include the plebeian 30 Niebuhr, Vol. II. note 928. Bunsen, Be- 

centuries of knights, but it certainly applies schreibung der Stadt Rom. Vol. III. p. 46. 

mainly to the patricians, who were ah enroUed Varro, Ling. Lat. V. § 157. Ed. MuUer. 



138 HISTOKY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIL 

was obliged to leave Rome ; 31 and tribunes of the soldiers, instead of consuls, 
were chosen for the following year : thus much is intelligible ; and the strength 
of the patricians in the comitia of the centuries, the immense power of the officer 
who presided at them, and perhaps, also, the natural leaning of the richer ple- 
beians to the side of the patricians in a time of distress, when the contest was so 
likely to take the form of one between numbers and property, will sufficiently 
account for the election of three patricians, and, amongst them, of L. Quinctius, 
the son of the old dictator. But still the greatest number of votes was given to 
Mamercus ^Emilius, who had been chosen one of the qusestores parricidii along 
with L. Valerius a few years before, and whose popular dictatorship four years 
later we have already noticed. 

There was,, however, a much more mysterious story 32 to be found in some of 
story of l. Minucius the annalists from whom Livy compiled his history ; that L. Minu- 
ronrnfoSTVud r of hu cms > that very master of the markets who is said to have given 
popular acts. t j ie first information of the dangerous designs of Sp. Mselius, now, 

in the disturbances that followed, went over from the patricians to the commons, 
was chosen by the ten tribunes to be their colleague, thus raising the number to 
eleven, and in this office put a stop to the dissensions. Further, he is said to 
have brought down the price of corn at the end of three market days to one as 
for the modius, 33 and to have become so popular, that the commons presented 
him, as their deliverer out of misery, with an ox with gilded horns to offer as a 
sacrifice ; 34 and a statue was erected in his honor without the Porta Trigemina, 
made out of the bronze or brass coins which the commons subscribed for the 
purpose, each man contributing an ounce, or the twelfth part of the as, which 
was still of the weight of a full pound. 

Dion Cassius has preserved a statement, that in these times many patricians 
did, in fact, go over to the commons ; and it is remarkable, that 
from this time forward we meet with none but plebeians of the 
name of Minucius, although patrician Minucii have hitherto occurred several 
times in the Fasti. And it is conceivable enough, that if any man had wished so 
to degrade himself, as the patricians would consider it, he might have done it 
with no opposition on their part : nay, they would have at once cast him out 
from their body as an unworthy member ; for the feeling of later times, when 
P. Clodius was adopted into a plebeian family to enable him to stand for the 
tribuneship, and when the aristocracy opposed it as onhy furthering the purposes 
of his ambition, could not exist amongst the haughty patricians of the fourth 

31 Valerius Maximus, V. 3, § 2. And so Ci- be Pliny's meaning. Then the sale of Ma?lius' 

cero, de Republica, I. 3. Ott'ensio commemo- corn at a cheap rate may have taken place in 

ratur A hake. He had just before spoken of the mean while ; and if much eojn had really 

"Camilli exilium," and immediately afterwards been hoarded, it would naturally cause a great 

mentions " in vidua Naaicse." Now offensio is reduction of prices when brought suddenly into 

in itself an ambiguous term, and may signify the market in the spring, especially if there 

either exilium or invidia: either "the misfor- was a promise of an abundant harvest in the 

tune or calamity of Ahala," or " the odium coming summer. 

which he incurred." But then this odium may 31 Livy mentions the ox, Pliny the statue, 
have induced him to leave Rome, as Nasica XV1I1. 4, and XXX1Y. 11, and both specify 
did, without undergoing any formal trial ; and the place, extra portam Trigeminam, that is, on 
then, when his party was strong enough, he the Kink of the Tiber, between the northeast- 
may have returned, according to the statement era foot of the Aventine and the river. But as 
of the pseudo-Cicero pro Dorao, c. 3'J, and this Livy's expression, " hove aurato extra portam 
may have been called a return from banishment Trigemin&m est donatus," is rather strange, his 
without much exaggeration. editors have proposed various corrections, 
B Livy. IV. 16. amongst which, the most plausible was that of 
33 Pliny, Mist. Nat. XVIII. 4. Liw describes Gronovius, who proposed to read "bove et 
this, as if Minucius had sold at tliis rate the prato." But a bos auratus, that is. auratis 
corn which Mselius had collected, and which coraibus, was given by the consul to P. Deeius, 
had been confiscated after his death. ButPli- one of the tribunes of the soldiers, for saving 
ny's expression, "in trims nundinis ad assem his army in the first Samnite war, Livy, Vli. 
redegit," implies a more gradual, and, at the ■'•' ; and' Niebuhr's conjecture is simpler and 
same time, u more extensive reduction of the more probable, that the words "et statua" 
price. If he proposed a law to lis a maximum, have dropped out in Livy's text, between 
it would, of course, require three nundinffl to " bovo aurato" and "extra portaui Trigemi- 
clapsc before it could bo passed ; and this may nam." 



Chap. XVII.] DICTATORSHIP OF M. uEMILIUS. 139 

century. On the other hand, Cicero treats these supposed passings over from 
one order to the other as mostly fictitious, and invented by plebeians, merely to 
claim for themselves kindred with an old patrician house of the same name. Nor 
is it probable that there could have been eleven tribunes at once ; but it may be 
that L. Minucius so acted in concert with the tribunes as master of the markets, 30 
that he was said to be like an eleventh member of their college. The rest is suf- 
ficiently probable, that he proposed and carried, after the regular period of three 
market days, a law to fix the maximum at which corn should be sold ; and this, 
in a season of scarcity, when the evil is always attributed by the vulgar to the 
covetousness of corn-dealers, rather than to natural causes, would quite account 
for his popularity. 

In the following year, however, consuls were again chosen, and continued to 
be so for four years, that is, till 321, when Mamercus JSmilius Dictfl tor S hip of Ma- 
was appointed dictator. His law for abridging the duration of ">"™ B ^ miUus - 
the censor's office so offended the existing censors, one of whom was M. Gega- 
nius Macerinus, already known as a zealous partisan of his order in his consul- 
ship in 308, that they degraded him from his tribe, 36 and rated his property in 
the census at eight times as much as its real value. The commons were so in- 
dignant that they called aloud for military tribunes instead of consuls ; and for 
the next two years tribunes were accordingly elected ; but still no plebeian was 
chosen, nor even any patrician distinguished for his attachment to the popular 
cause. 

Again, for five years, we find the names of consuls in the Fasti, from 324 to 
328 inclusive. But the power of the commons was silently and t^ tribunes of tho 
healthily advancing ; and within this short period we find two re- toT/^^ena^to 
markable instances of it. In 325, 37 T. Quinctius, a son of the old ££JSu £VSS^ 
L. Cincinnatus, and C. Julius Mento, were consuls. The ^Equians ty ' 
and Volscians had united their forces, and assembled a great army at their usual 
position on Algidus. A pestilence, nearly cotemporary with that which visited 
Athens so fearfully in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, had prevailed 
in Rome at intervals during the last four years, and had carried off great num- 
bers of the people. This gave a sense of weakness ; and, to increase it, the con- 
suls, attacking the enemy on Algidus, were defeated. Then the senate resolved 
to appoint a dictator ; but the consuls, jealous at this implied censure on them- 
selves, refused to obey the senate's decree. Some party or family feuds, of 
which we know nothing, were most probably at work in this dispute ; and it was 
proposed and carried, that the senate should call upon the tribunes for their aid. 
Niebuhr thinks that the tribunes were called upon to propose the senate's decree 
to the commons, that their acceptance of it might give it the force of a law. 
Livy's story is, that the tribunes threatened to throw the consuls into prison, if 
they persisted in disobeying the senate. However' this be, there was, at any 
rate, an important acknowledgment of the power of the commons, when the pa- 
trician senate appealed to them to enforce its authority over the highest patrician 
magistrates. 

Again, in 328, when a war with Veii was resolved on, the tribunes threatened 38 
to stop the enlistments of soldiers, unless the question of going to 

f l •j.j. J j. ,i i . . ,,„ The question of a wax 

war were first submitted to the people in their centuries, lhe with Veii is submitted 

senate had considered its own decree sufficient ; but it had taught 

the tribunes, by its own conduct, not to regard it so ; and accordingly the war 

35 Three of the tribunes, we are told by Livy, the college, must have gone along with him in 

had taken no part in proposing the vote of the his measures as master of the markets, and his 

commons, which rewarded Minucius with his acting in concert with them, perhaps, in some 

ox and his statue, but, on the contrary, con- instances, against the wishes of the patricians, 

tinued to revile him, as he had been the first may have given rise to the story, 

person to give information to the senate of the 3& Livy, IV. 24. 

supposed treasonable designs of Mselius. But 37 Livy, IV. 26. 

the other seven, constituting the majority of M Livy, IV. 30. 



140 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIL 

was proposed in the comitia, and sanctioned by the votes of all the cen- 
turies. 

These were great constitutional points ; another matter, deeply affecting indi- 
viduals, had been provided for by a law passed three years before, 
421. "Law for a fised which fixed a definite money computation for the fines of 39 sheep 
the fines of sheep and and oxen commonly imposed by the consuls for contempt of their 
jurisdiction. That the payment of these fines in kind would be 
often highly vexatious, is obvious : and if the consul were allowed to fix his own 
rate of commutation, it might bear hardly on the delinquent, especially if, as is 
probable, the brass money was now beginning to rise in value, so that the old 
money price of an ox or a sheep -would be now more than it was worth. Cice- 
ro's statement 40 is, that the censors, L. Papirius and P. Pinarius, had imposed 
their fines in kind, and had thus seized so many cattle ; that the consuls, to re- 
lieve the commons, fixed an easy rate of money commutation, at which the cat- 
tle might be redeemed. 

From the year 329 to 341 we have tribunes constantly, with the exception of 
only two years, instead of consuls. In 331, after a long interval, 41 

A. U C. 331. A. C * J * ' o ' 

42i, New deAwnd for we again hear of a call for an agrarian law: recent victories over 

an agrarian jaw. - J5 - 1T _. . -iiiii iii i 

the Volscians and Veientians had added, probably, to the amount 
of the demesne land ; and the patricians who occupied it, either paid no acknowl- 
edgment for it at all, or if they did, it went not into the national treasury, but 
into that of their own order ; the commons reaped no benefit from it. At the 
same time the commons had to serve at their own expense in war ; and thus, as 
the poorer classes could ill support this burden, and could provide themselves 
only with inferior arms, the numbers and the efficiency of the regular infantry 
were much below what they might have been. Accordingly, the tribunes de- 
manded that there should be a division of a portion of the demesne land amongst 
the commons ; and that the occupiers of the remainder should pay their vectigal 
regularly, and that it should be devoted to the purpose of paying the soldiers. 
Here was a question in which the mass of the commons were interested ; and it 
was likely that, during the continuance of this contest, the leaders of the com- 
mons would gain some of those points which they so longed for, but which were 
of far less importance, in the estimate of their followers, an admission to the 
higher magistracies. 

A favorable opportunity presented itself three years afterwards, in 334 : when 

the patricians 42 themselves proposed an increase in the number of 
4i's. The office 0? the the quaestores classici, those officers chosen by the centuries, and 

Suaestores classici is ■ j • . • r> i ..,.., ■. 

irowu open to the quite distinct trom the quaestores parncidii, whose business it was 

commons. •* ■ ll • i i i i- i 1 11 

to receive all money paid to the public treasury, and to make all 
payments from it. This was an office of great trust and dignity, and was usu- 
ally regarded as entitled to a place in the senate ; the censors, in drawing out 
their list of that body, generally included in it the quaestors of the last five 
years. Now, as wars were beginning to be carried on on a greater scale, and 
were attended with more success than formerly, it was desirable to have two new 
quaestors to accompany the armies to the field, and to take charge of the plun- 
der that might be gained, or of the lands that might be conquered. But the 
tribunes naturally demanded, that if the college of quaestors were- thus increased 
to four, two of them should be chosen from the commons. This the senate 
would not listen to, but proposed that the whole number should be taken indis- 
criminately from either order. When the tribunes refused to accept this com- 
promise, having learned, from experience, that such a pretended free choice 
would always end in the exclusive election of patricians, the senate dropped the 
measure altogether. But the tribunes then brought it forward themselves, and, 
after long disputes, the compromise first proposed by the senate was accepted, 

89 Livy, IV. 80. •» Livy, IV. 86. 

40 Dc Republic^, II. 35. « Livy, IV. 48. 



Chap. XVIL] THE MURDER OF M. POSTITMIUS. 141 

and the qusestorship, with its four places, was declared by law to be open alike 
to the patricians and to the commons. 

Here, again, the advantage gained by the commons as an order was great ; 
but the individuals who had sown the seed did not reap the fruit ; Dispute about the agra . 
for again, owing to the great influence of the magistrate who pre- $" ^J^'ty hi 
sided at the comitia, none but patrician quaestors were chosen. soldiers - 
Still the commons waxed stronger: three years afterwards, in 337, an agrarian 
law 43 was passed, by which fifteen hundred of the commons received allotments 
of two jugera a man out of the land lately conquered from the A . Vw c> 33T- A , a 
people of Lavici. But a larger division of the demesne land was 4U - 
demanded, and in a quarter where it could be enjoyed more securely ; for the 
colonists sent to a frontier district would have continually to defend their new 
property with their swords, and men naturally longed for a division of the old 
demesne nearer home, which every new advance of the Roman boundary placed 
at a greater distance from danger. This, however, the patrician occupiers of 
this land were too powerful to permit ; and the contest really A . v- c UOw Aw a 
turned upon the disposal of the new conquests. Thus, in 340, 412, 
Boise was conquered, a town of the ^Equians, not far from Lavici ; and the com- 
mons required that a portion of this ne^y-won territory might, at least, be 
allotted to them. Even this was resisted, and by none more vehemently than 
by M. Postumius Regillensis, 44 one of the military tribunes of the year 341. He 
commanded one of the armies which were in the field against the JEquians, and, 
abusing his military power for political purposes, he threatened to visit upon his 
soldiers any display of feeling which they might have shown in favor of the pro- 
posed agrarian law. This excited universal indignation, which he heightened by 
refusing to his army any share of the spoil which they had won in recovering 
Boise from the ^Equians. Open discontent then broke out, and Postumius, re- 
pressing it with extreme severity and the most merciless executions, provoked his 
soldiers to a mutiny, in which he was stoned to death. 

A crime so rare in the Roman annals produced its natural and just conse- 
quence, a reaction against the cause which appeared to be con- Proeeeding ., „, con8e . 
nected with it. Consuls were chosen instead of tribunes of the quence of ^ murder - 
soldiers ; and the commons, to whom the senate had given the choice of the 
judge 46 in this cause, commissioned the consuls to inquire into the murder of 
Postumius, and to punish the guilty. This choice was sanctioned by the curiee, 
and the judges thus appointed fulfilled their task with moderation, so that the 
influence which the patricians had gained by the whole transaction was marked ' 
by the undisturbed election of consuls for three years following. But by that 
time the feeling had changed : the continued opposition of the patricians to any 
agrarian law seemed a more present evil than the murder of Postumius ; and, 
while that crime had been duly punished, the injustice of the patricians was tri- 
umphant. It is dangerous to overlook a change in public opinion, and still more to 
try to force in its old direction the tide which is beginning to turn. The patricians 
carried the election of consuls fpr a fourth year in spite of a strong feeling of dis- 
content ; but the commons were so roused, that in spite of all ob- A . u. c . 346- A . c . 
structions caused by the presiding officer, they elected, at the 406- 
open comitia of qusestors, 46 no fewer than three plebeians. 

Then the agrarian law was demanded more vehemently than ever, and three 

43 Livy, IV. 47. ted by plebeians against the patrician order ; 

44 Livy, IV. 49, 50. it was then an act of moderation in the senate 
46 " A plebe consensu populi, consulibus ne- to allow the offending party to name the judge, 

gotium mandatur." Livy, IV. 51. A remark- and the patricians, to whom the injury had 

able passage, which Niebuhr, as may be sup- been done, would, at any rate, require that the 

posed, has not forgotten to appeal to, as a proof nomination should be submitted to them for 

of the identity of the populus in old times with their approval, 

the patricians. It would seem as if the murder 46 Livy, IV. 54. 
of Postumius was regarded as a crime commit- 



142 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIL 

contest about the Bgr»- tribunes, all of the Icilian family, were conspicuous as the leaders 
nan law continued. f tne comm0 ns. The year passed away in these contests, but the 
commons insisted on having tribunes instead of consuls for the year following ; 
and this was consented to, 41 but at the same time rendered nugatory by the con- 
dition annexed to it, that none of the tribunes of the commons of that year 
should be either re-elected to the same office, or be chosen tribunes o*f the sol- 
diers. Thus those candidates being excluded whose claims were greatest, the 
patricians once more succeeded in defeating the plebeian candidates of less name, 
and in obtaining every place in the tribuneship for their own body. 

Two years afterwards came the issue of the contest. A truce, which had 
been concluded for twenty years 48 with the Veientians, was now 

A. IT. C. 349. A. C. J J * 

403. Pnv grated to on the point of expiring ; and as war, rather than peace, was sup- 

the soldiers : number iii . i e j.i • i, , • 

of tribunes of the soi- posed to be the natural state or thino-s between two nations, un- 

dicrs increased to six. i . ° - ,,iici 

less some express treaty was interposed, so, at the end ot the 
truce, hostilities w 7 ould be resumed of course, unless either party wished to re- 
new it, and was willing to purchase its continuance on the enemy's terms. Rome 
now felt itself much stronger than Veii, for that town had been lately torn with 
internal discords, so much more violent and injurious than those of Rome, in 
proportion as there was less of equal law and of acknowledged rights. The Ro- 
mans, therefore, put a higher price on the renewal of the truce than the Veien- 
tians would consent to pay ; and both nations prepared for war. This was the 
moment for the commons to press their claims, and they refused to vote for the 
law unless something was done to satisfy them. The patricians, looking forward 
to all the glory and doininion promised them by the expected conquest of Veii, 
or yielding to the power of justice, at last gave way. The vectigal, 49 or tithe, 
due from the occupiers of the public land, was to provide pay for the soldiers ; 
if this were not sufficient, it was to be made good by a tax or tribute levied upon 
the whole people, according to the census of every citizen ; and six tribunes of 
the soldiers were henceforth to be elected annually ; one of whom, as Niebuhr 
thinks, was always to be a patrician, and to perform the important judicial du- 
ties afterwards discharged by the praetor urbanus ; the other five were to be 
elected indiscriminately from either order. At any rate, six tribunes were elected 
from this time forwards, and this increased number gave the commons a greater 
likelihood of seeing some of the places filled by men of their own body. And 
so it happened, in fact ; but for this the commons had yet to wait five years 
more. 

Accordingly pay 50 was issued to the soldiers, six tribunes of the soldiers were 
a. u. c. 350. a. c. elected, and in the year 350, about the end of the Peloponnesian 
m - war, the Romans began their vast career of dominion by laying 

siege to the great Etruscan city of Veii. 

47 Livy, IV. 55. 14, tliat it was usual, when a truce was nearly 

48 Livy, IV. 58. Livy says, that in the year expired, to negotiate as to the terms on which 
348 the truce had already expired ; and, as it it might be renewed ; and this, I doubt nut. is 
had been concluded, according to his own ac- the true explanation of the negotiations that 
count, in the year 330, Niebuhr supposes that went on during the years S4S and 849. 

it must have been intended to last only twenty 49 This is not stated by Livy ; but as it had 

cyclic years, often months each. But we find been the great object insisted on by the trib- 

tliat hostilities did not begin till 350, and no uncs, it is natural to suppose that it must either 

one will believe that the Romans allowed two have been granted, or at any rate promised. It 

years, in which they were, according to ancient was probablv, however, paid very irregularly, 

notions, at war with Veii, to pass away without and hence the pay of the soldiers would, in 

attacking their enemy, because the Veientians point of fact, be provided chiefly out of the tax 

were involved in civil dissensions, and the Ro- or tributum. 

mans were too generous to take advantage of w Livy, IV. 59, 60, 61. 
their weakness. AVe see from Thucydides, V. 



143. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WARS OF THE EOMANS FEOM 300 TO 364— THE ^EQUIANS AND VOLSCIANS- 
THE ETRUSCANS— SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF VEIL 



Ta nev anevSdncvoi, ra 5c iro^tnovvres — ev Trapcatce-vdoavro Ta iroAf/ua koX ljnre.ip6Ttpoi lyevovro, fitra 
kiv&vvuv tcL$ neXeras voiovyLtvoi. — ThUCTDIDES, I. 18. 



The internal history of Rome in the first century of the commonwealth is ob- 
scure and often uncertain ; nor can we venture to place full con- The f(?reign Wstory of 
fidence in the details of events, or of individual characters. The feSthan'ti^do™" 
family traditions and funeral orations out of which the oldest an- tic - 
nalists compiled their narratives were often, as we find, at variance with each 
other, and dealt largely in exaggeration and misrepresentation. Yet still, up to 
a certain point, they were a check upon one another ; there were necessarily limits 
to falsehood, when fellow-citizens, whether individuals or parties, were the sub- 
ject on which it was exercised. But with regard to foreign enemies, even this 
check was wanting. Every family might claim victories over the ^Equians or 
the Veientians : there was no sufficient knowledge of chronology to make it evi- 
dent that the story of one victory and one triumph was fatal to the truth of 
others ; the accommodating annalists found room for all. The account, then, of 
the early wars of the Romans cannot be trusted implicitly in its merest outline ; 
we have the highest authority 1 for saying that victories, and even triumphs, were 
sometimes purely imaginary ; a year which is filled with pretended successes of 
the Romans may have witnessed nothing but their defeats. "We are reduced, 
therefore, not only to an outline, but to one made up from such scattered and 
almost accidental notices, that scarcely any one but Niebuhr would have at- 
tempted, far less have been able, to restore it. Here, as well as in the domestic 
history, the work is almost done to my hands : it were endless to make particu- 
lar acknowledgments, when scarcely a page of this volume could have been writ- 
ten, had I not enjoyed the benefit of Niebuhr's guidance. 

Our last notice of the foreign affairs of Rome stopped at that disastrous period, 
the end of the third centurv, when the ^Equians and Volscians, 

1 • ta' I * " i pjiti'j Advance of the Roman 

having overrun Latmm, having occupied many ot the Latin towns, power between 300 and 
and established themselves on the Alban hills, were in the habit 
of carrying their plundering inroads up to the very walls of Rome. And whilst 
the Opican nations were thus formidable on the side of Latium, the Sabines made 
frequent descents into the Roman territory between the Tiber and the Anio, and 
sometimes spread their ravages on that side also as far as the immediate neigh- 
borhood of the city. Such nearly was the state of things about the year 300, 
which may be considered as the lowest point of the Roman fortunes. The next 
sixty years witnessed a wonderful change ; at the end of that period the Roman 
power had spread itself out on every side, and the Opican nations, the Sabines, 
and the Etruscans, had all given way before it. 

Of these three enemies, the Sabines were the soonest and most effectually re- 
pelled. After the year 306, when M. Horatius Barbatus, the de- 
liverer of the Roman commons from the decemvirs' tyranny, is pea£f 8 with w the sa- 
said to have gained a great victory over them, 2 we read of them 

1 That, namely, of Cicero, in the often quoted 2 Livy, III. 62, 63. Fasti Capitolini. "M. 

passage of his Brutus, c. 16. "Multa scripta Horatius, M. F. Barbatus, de Sabineis (tri- 

s-ant in eis (sell, in mortuorum laudationibus) umphavit) Ann. CCCIV. VII. K. Septembr." 
quae facta non sunt, falsi triumphi," &c. 



144 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIII 

no more during a period of more than a hundred and fifty years. A treaty of 
some sort or other must have followed this victory ; perhaps it was only a truce 
for a certain number of years, which may have been continually renewed by mu- 
tual consent ; the Romans having enough to do in Latium and in Etruria ; and 
the Sabine youth finding a field for their enterprise, by joining their kinsmen the 
Samnites, who soon after this time began their conquests in Campania. Thus 
the Roman territory along the left bank of the Tiber was left in peace, and the 
frontier of the commonwealth on this side remained lone; unaltered, being- bounded 
by the territory of the Sabine city of Eretum, which was situated about nineteen 
miles from Rome. 

A far more obstinate and varied contest was maintained against the JEquians 

and Volscians. It is pretended that L. Valerius, the worthy col- 

ansMidVoiscians. Mc- leap-ue of M. Horatius, gained a great victory over them in the 

tatorsliip and victory ^^rtQi.-^^.^d/'lAl • • • i t-> 

ofA.PostumiusTuber- year 306 ; but in 309 we nnd them again overrunning the Roman 
territory, and advancing unopposed, for the last time, as far as 
the walls of Rome by the Esquiline gate. In that same year T. Quinctius the 
consul is said to have gained a great victory over them, and there is this evi- 
dence of its reality, that the Romans established a garrison on the enemies' fron- 
tier at Verrugo ; 5 a place undoubtedly on the Alban hills, but whether on Algi- 
dus above Tusculum, or on the side of Velitrse looking towards Antium and the 
Volscian lowlands, seems impossible to be ascertained. From this time we hear 
of no general efforts of the ^Equians and Volscians for fifteen years ; but in 324 
a. u. c. 324. a. c. the united armies of the two nations again appeared on Algidus, 6 
4Sa ' and the Romans, in alarm, named A. Postumius Tubertus dictator 

to oppose them. That the danger was great, is shown by the dreadful story re- 
lated of A. Tubertus, 7 that he executed his own son for having engaged with the 
enemy without orders, although successfully. This rigorous observance of dis- 
cipline always occurs in Roman history, when the Roman arms were engaged in 
any contest more than ordinarily hazardous ; and thus in the great Latin war 
about ninety years after this period, the act of A. Postumius Tubertus was again 
repeated in the more famous instance of T. Manlius. On the present occasion 
the Latins and Hernicans aided the Romans with their whole force, and the Opi- 
can nations were completely defeated. A truce of eight years was concluded 
with the -.Equians ; 8 the power of the Volscians, already shaken by their defeat, 
was further weakened by civil dissensions ; the advocates for peace and war pro- 
ceeding to the most violent extremities against each other. 

o o m 

Eight years afterwards, 9 the Opican nations, first the Volscians, and soon after 

3 Livy, III. 61. the year 333, which with the Roman annalists 

■* Livy, III. 66. is wholly devoid of military transactions, wa£ 

5 Livy, IV. 1. indeed devoid of Roman vietories, but not of 

Livy, IV. 26. defeats, or at least of disasters. For Livy be- 

7 Livy, IV. 29, mentions the story, but wishes gins the account of the next year with the 
not to believe it. It is related, however, by Dio- words, "Non diutius fortuna iEquis indulsit, 
dorus, XII. 64; by Valerius Maximus, II. 7, § qui ambiguam vietoriam Volscorum pro 6U& ant- 
6; and by Aulus Gellius, XVII. 21. Gellius plexi fuerant." Now this "dubia victoria" had 
also >peaks of "Posthumia" or "Posthumiana been won in 382, and the expression, " noil di- 
imperia el Manliana," I. 13, §7; although it is utius indulsit," would imply that for a certain 
one of Livy's reasons for not belie vin^r the story, time fortune had favored the iEquians : in other 
that the common proverbial expression to de- words, thai they, encouraged by the Volscians' 
note power arbitrarily and cruelly exercised was success in 332, took np arms themselves in the 
"imperifl .Manliana non Postumiana." following year, and were during that year mas- 

8 Livy, IV. 30. ters of the field. Thus it would seem that a 
' According to Livy, the iEquians had ob- truce of eight years, not cyclic, but common 

tained a truce for eight years, in the beginning years, had been observed from 325 to 883: and 

of the year 325. IV. 30. Five years afterwards, the probability is, that the term originally 

in 880, they are described as suing again for an agreed upon was five years, to which three 

extension of this term, and obtaining an addi- were afterwards added ; Livy's mistake consist 

tional truce for three years. IV. 85. The re- ing in this, that he supposes the whole eight 

ncwal of hostilities is placed in the year 884, years' truce to have been granted in 32">, and 

Livy, IV. 43 ; but, it may be concluded that it that the three years added ill 830 were an ad 

bhould in fact be placed a year earlier, and that dition to this number. 



Chap. XVIII.] WARS WITH THE OPICAN NATIONS. 145 

the ^Equians, again renewed the contest. The seat of war was War on the Xqais , n 
again on the frontier of the JEquians : and there, in the year 332, gdatken tylt ££ 
the Romans received a check which we may not improbably con- mans - 
jecture to have been a serious defeat. But four years afterwards, in 336, the 
people of Lavici 10 are mentioned as joining the iEquians, and are spoken of as 
new enemies. Lavici, now La Colonna, placed on an isolated hill which rises as 
a sort of outwork at the northern extremity of the Alban cluster, had been one 
of the thirty Latin cities which signed the treaty of alliance with Rome in 261. 
Since that time the conquest of the Opican nations had separated it from its old 
confederacy, and it had possibly received an JEquian colony ; but it had hitherto 
taken no active part against Rome. Now, however, it openly joined the JEqui- 
ans ; and its soldiers, after having ravaged the neighboring territory of Tusculum, 
encamped, together with their allies, in their old station on Algidus. They gained 
one victory, but it was speedily retrieved by the dictator Q. Servilius Priscus ; 
Lavici was taken by the Romans, 11 its inhabitants massacred, expelled, or sold for 
slaves, and a large portion of its land was allotted to colonists of the Roman 
commons. This was a decided conquest, and gave the Romans possession of an 
advantageous post on their enemy's, frontier. The victory seems also to have 
shaken the Jllquian confederacy ; for Bola, another town formerly belonging to 
the Latins, but wrested from them by the Opican conquerors, was allowed by the 
other ^Equian states to fall unassisted, and another important post was thus oc- 
cupied by the Romans. This happened in the year 34 1. 12 

The tide had now turned, and as ill success loosened the bond which held the 
Opican nations and cities together, so victory strengthened the al- 

v PlTi t • l tt • t lrt i . i , Continued success c 

hance ot the Romans, Latins, and riermcans. In 342, this last the Romans, Latins, 
people recovered Ferentinum, 13 one of their towns which the 
Volscians had formerly conquered ; and as we hear, in two following years, of 
the ravage of the Latin and Hernican territory by the enemy, we cannot doubt 
that all the three confederate nations took an active part in the war. The Opi- 
cans, however, struggled vigorously ; the frontier posts of Verrugo, 14 and of the 
castle of Carventum, 15 were taken and retaken ; but the ^Equians suffered so 
much from having the seat of war so continually on their frontier, that in the 
rally of the Opican league, which took place in the year 347, the lowland Vol- 
scians appear at the head of the confederacy, and the gathering-place of the 
army was at Antium. For two years nothing decisive happened ; but in 349, 16 
the Romans opened the campaign with their force divided into three small ar- 
mies ; and while one threatened Antium, and a second advanced upon Ecetrse, 
laying waste the country on every side to divert the enemy's attention, the third 
pushed direct for Anxur, or Tarracina, a most important place, standing at the 
very end of the plain of the Pontine Marshes, at the point where the Apennines 
of the Volscian highlands come down close upon the sea. Tarracina, 11 a Tyr- 
rhenian city, had been subject to Rome in the last period of its They take Tarracina, 
monarchy ; immediately afterwards it had been conquered by the or Anmr ' 
Volscians, and from them received its name of Anxur ; it is the natural gate of 
the country round Rome on the one hand, and of Campania on the other, and 
its capture would restore the Roman boundary to the extent which it had for- 

10 Livy, IV. 45. been able to find any notice of tbe place in West- 

11 Livy, IV. 47. pbal's work on tbe neighborhood of Koine. 

12 Livy, IV. 49. » Livy, IV. 59. 

13 Livy, IV. 51. » It was probably a town belonging to the 

14 Livy, IV. 55, 56, 58. same race asCirceii and Ardea; that race which 

15 Livy, IV. 53, 55. The position of Carven- may be called either Tyrrhenian, Pelasgian, or 
turn and of its castle or citadel is wholly un- Siberian, and which, in language and religion, 
known. Sir W. Gell puts it doubtfully at Eocca bore so close an affinity to the Greeks. Tarra- 
Massimi, a high point on the Volscian high- cina is mentioned as a dependent ally of Eome 
lands near Cora. Bunsen suggested to me the in the first treaty between Eome and Carthage, 
high ground of Monte Ariano, Mons Artemi- concluded in the first year of the common- 
sius, the southeastern summit of the Alban wealth. See Polybius, III. 22. 

bills, which rises above VeUetri. I have not 
10 



146 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIII. 

merly reached under the Tarquinii. Its distance from the front of the war 
probably put its inhabitants off their guard, and it yielded to the sudden attack 
of the Romans with little resistance. 18 Twenty-five hundred of the inhabitants, 
who survived the storming of the town, were saved alive to be sold for slaves ; 
and the two divisions which had covered the siege now came up. to join their 
comrades, and the plunder of the town was given to the whole army without 
distinction. Two years afterwards the Romans invaded the Volscian highlands, 
and Artena, 19 on the edge of the mountains, looking across to the 
Alban hills at the back of Algidus, was taken, and razed to the 
ground. From henceforward the attention of Rome, for some years, was so 
much engaged by her wars on the Etruscan frontier, that she would have been 
well contented to have maintained and secured her conquests from the iEquians 
and Volscians, without endeavoring to extend them. And now was proved the 
advantage of the occupation of posts on the enemies' territory, and still more of 
the Roman system of colonies. When Anxur was taken, the neighboring Vol- 
scian cities seem to have concluded a truce with Rome to save their lands from 
ravage ; at least, there was a free intercourse between them and the garrison, 
and the Roman soldiers were scattered 20 over the neighborhood to traffic with 
Anmr is lost again by the inhabitants instead of plundering them. Advantage was taken 
a surprise. f ^j^ an( j Anxur -ry as surprised by a sudden attack and recov- 

ered. But, as the Volscians are not charged with perfidy, we must either sup- 
pose that the assailants came from some of the more distant cities, which had 
not been included in the truce, or that the truce itself was concluded only for 
periods of a few days, 21 and continued by successive renewals ; and that, at the 
end of one of these periods, the Volscians had refused to renew it, whilst the 
Romans had fully depended on its continuance. This was in 353, and two years 
afterwards Anxur was again recovered by a fresh surprise, the 
Volscians 22 neglecting to guard their walls whilst keeping a festi- 
val. It was recovered just in time ; for as the war of the Romans with Veii and 
the neighboring cities still continued, the Opican nations seem to have renewed 
their league, and made another combined effort to retrieve their losses. In 358, 23 
the Volscians were employed in besieging Anxur, while the ^Equians w r ere sur- 
rounding Lavici : had not the Romans possessed these two posts, the enemy 
might have again spread ravage over their whole territory, at a moment when a 
force could ill have been spared to check them. As it was, Anxur and Lavici 
were left to their own resources, and to the aid of the Latins and Hernicans, 
who, at this critical period, seem to have sustained the whole weight of the 
struggle with the Opican nations, for all the Roman armies were engaged else- 
where. Whether Lavici was taken or not, we know not ; but in the next year 
Veii fell, and then the ^Equians and Volscians solicited and obtained a truce. 24 
The Romans availed themselves of it to establish a new colony 

Tbe Romans establish. . _ TT . ... 2 - r " 

a colony at viteiiia, on m the country conquered from the .zti/quians, at Vitc-llia, not tar 

tbe .'Equian frontier. „ _-, • *. • • l c , 1 1_ 1 L. 

irom Praneste, on the opposite side of the great gap or break by 
which the chain of the Apennines is there interrupted. They had found the 
benefit of their colony at Lavici ; and this more distant settlement was made 

19 Livy, IV. 59. with Athens, when Laecdtemon concluded the 

19 Livy, IV. Cl. The present Monte Fortino, peace of Nieias. See Thucydides, V. 2(3, 32. 

according to Sir W. Gcll; and according to M Livy, V. 13. 

Westphal also, if Artena, Ortona, and Virtona I3 Livy, V. 16. 



21 Livy. V. 28. 

"' Livy, V. 24, 20. Sir W. Gcll places Viteiiia 



be, as is probable, only one and the same place 

I learn, troin a review of this history in tin 

Dublin Review, No. XIII., that Nibby fixes the at Vahn'oiite, in the situation described in the 

exact site of Artena ut a place not more than a text. Westphal puts it. but doubtfully, immc- 

milc on the southeast of Monte Fortino, where diately under the northeast extremity of the 

the remains of a polygonal wall on a high level Alban hills, on that shoulder of ground, raised 

spot are still visible.' above the ordinary level of the Campagna, which 

" Livy, V. 8. connects the roots of the Alban lulls with the 

21 Like the ten days' truce, which was all that Apennines, 
the Boeotians could be persuaded to agree to 



Chap. XVIIL] WARS WITH THE VOLSCIANS, ETC. 147 

proportionably stronger ; three thousand colonists were sent to occupy it instead 
of fifteen hundred. But the JEquians were more roused than daunted by this 
occupation of Vitellia, as they had already been taught the importance of such 
colonies. We hear nothing of the Volscians, so that they probably remained at 
peace ; but the iEquians, though alone, dislodged the Romans The ^ quians destr0 y 
from their old post of Verrugo, 26 and in the following year sur- lt - 
prised the new colony of Vitellia. Four years after the fall of Veii, the whole force 
of Rome, under both consuls, was once more employed against the ^Equians on 
the old battle-ground of Algidus ; 21 which clearly shows that the ^Equian fron- 
tier had again advanced, and that Vitellia and. its territory were lost to Rome. 
An easy victory is, indeed, claimed for the Roman armies in this 

• 1 , ,1 , , j ., • ..,! The war undecided up 

campaign, but the contest was not over, and its issue was still un- to tie time of the Gaui- 
decided, when in the next year the storm of the Gaulish invasion 
broke upon Latium, and crushed both of the contending parties ; the Romans, 
however, for a short time only, the JEquians forever. 

Thus in her long contest with the Opican nations, Rome had advanced, indeed, 
from her depressed state at the beginning of the century, yet had RcsuItg of this loag 
by no means reduced her enemies to submission. The occupa- C0Qtest - 
tion of Anxur on the side of the Volscians, and of Lavici and Bola on the vEqui- 
an frontier, was an important advantage ; but the attempt to effect a settlement 
within the line of the JEquian highlands had been utterly defeated, and the 
^quians, instead of defending their own country, were still able to fix the war 
on what may be called their advanced post of observation, the Alban hills ; and 
from their advantage ground of Algidus, could still overhang Tusculum, and 
threaten devastation to the whole territory of Rome. It was in the opposite 
quarter, on the right bank of the Tiber, that the Romans made the first import- 
ant addition to their dominion, and, for the first time, since the days of their 
kings, increased their power by an accession of new citizens from the population 
of the countries which they conquered. 

We have seen that in the year 280, 28 the Veientians had concluded a peace 
with the Romans for forty years. But in the year 317 the two Wars with Veii and 
nations were again involved in war ; whether we are to suppose, Fideme - 
with Niebuhr, that the truce was to last only for forty cyclical years of ten months 
each, and, therefore, that it had expired three years before, or whether it was 
brought to a premature termination, like the thirty years' peace between Athens 
and Sparta, which was cut short in the midst by the breaking out of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war. The latter seems more probable, because the quarrel is espe- 
cially said to have originated in the revolt of Fidense ; whereas, had the truce 
been at an end, no particular cause of war would have been needed ; hostilities 
would have been resumed as a matter of course. 

The left bank of the Tiber, immediately above its confluence with the Anio, is 
skirted by a line of low hills at the distance of about half a mile. On situation of men*, it 
one of these, which, like all the hills of the Campagna, break off into n liiy tepfby 'the' Rol 
cliffs on their sides, stood the town of Fidense, 29 between five and man8 - 
six miles distant from Rome ; the citadel, as some think, was on a higher point 

26 Livy, V. 28. modern Villa Spada, just five miles from Eome ; 

27 Livy, V. 31. According to Diodorus, Ve- a spot which is now shown to strangers as the 
Jitrse and Satricum revolted from Eome at this site of the villa of Phaon, Nero's freedman, and 
period, and Circen must have been lost pre- the place where Nero killed himself. Accord- 
viously and recently recovered again, as a col- ing to Sir W. Gell, Fidena was about half a mile 
ony was planted there in the year 362. It is further on the road, and its citadel stood on the 
clear, from this statement, that the Opican na- isolated hill of Castel Giubileo, which rises im- 
tions were rather roused than daunted by the mediately above the Tiber. Westphal says that 
fall of Veil, and were carrying on the war with some inscriptions have been found which iden- 
Eome with unabated vigor, down to the very tify the spot. If so, and if I recognize his de- 
tome of the Gaulish invasion. See Diodorus, scription, the excavations in the rock behind the 

2^ -^2, 106. Villa Spada, resembling those at Snenton, near 

See chapter XII. Nottingham, would be, probably, the tombs of 

a Westphal places Fidense at the site of the the citizens of Fidenaa. 



148 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XVIII. 

of the ridge, separated from it by a valley, and rising immediately above the river. 
Fidense is described as an old Roman colony, established as early as the time of 
Romulus ; 30 other accounts call it an Alban or Latin colony, 31 while it is repre- 
sented as having been originally a city of the Etruscans. 32 It is said also to have 
twice revolted from Rome since the expulsion of the kings, and to have been twice 
reduced, the last time in the year 256, 33 and to have forfeited the half of its ter- 
ritory to the Roman garrison or colonists who occupied its citadel. All that can 
be gathered from these stories is, that the subject population in Fidenae consisted 
chiefly of Etruscans ; and that the ruling part of the inhabitants, the citizens of the 
colony, were Romans. In the year 31*7, 34 from some causes, of which we know 
nothing, the old Etruscan population rose against the Roman colonists, expelled 
them, and then put themselves under the protection of Veii. It is added that 
four Romans, sent to remonstrate with them upon their revolt, were murdered by 
them at the command of the Veientian king, who was become their new sovereign ; 
and statues of the men thus slain were afterwards set up in the rostra ; an honor 
that was paid two centuries later to the ambassadors murdered by the Illyrian 
queen Teuta. This revolt of Fidense, and the protection afforded to the revolters 
by the Veientians, led to a renewal of war between Rome and Veii ; and the seat 
of the war was removed not only from the right to the left bank of the Tiber, 
but even, on more than one occasion, to the left bank of the Anio, that is to say, 
within three miles of Rome. In 320, however, Q. Servilius Priscus, 35 who was 
appointed dictator, is said to have taken Fidense, and new colonists were again 
sent to occupy the place ; but in 329 we read of another revolt, accompanied by 
a massacre 36 of the colonists, and Mamercus JEmilius was named dictator to meet 
this new danger. He gained a great victory over the Veientians and Fidenatians, 
and again took Fidense ; but this time the work was done effectually : 37 the Etrus- 
can population were either massacred or sold for slaves, and the town and its ter- 
ritory remained from henceforth in the undisturbed possession of the Romans. At 
the same time a peace was concluded with the Veientians for twenty years. 38 
This Avas in 330 ; but in the year 348, Livy says that the term of the truce had 
already expired ; 39 so that Niebuhr conjectures that in this instance 

War with Veii. i 

also we must reckon by cyclical years of ten months, and that the 
truce was only concluded for sixteen common years and eight months. On the 
other hand, if this were so, the truce must have expired early in 347, for there 
seems no foundation for Niebuhr's conjecture, that it had not begun before 331 : 
it was surely likely that it would have been solicited immediately after the taking 
of Fidense, and concluded early, rather than late, in 330, much less can we sup- 
pose it to have been delayed till the year following. Besides, we read of no ac- 
tual hostilities before the year 350, that is, till the end of twenty common years ; 
and the story that the Romans' forbore to press their demands on Veii during 

30 Cornpare Livy, I. 14 and 27. S4 Livy, IV. 17. He speaks as if the Roman 

31 Dionysius, II. 53, says that Fidenre, No- colonists had revolted ; but Niebuhr seems 
mentum, and Crnstumeria were all of them Al- right in supposing, that when we read of the 
ban colonics, founded at the same time by three revolt of a colony in these early times, we should 
brothers. Virgil names Fidense along with No- understand it not properly speaking of the colo- 
mentum and Gabii, and also speaks of it as an nists, but of the subject population who arose 
Alban colony. ,En. VI. 7 : !. and drove them out, and then asserted their 

82 Livy, 1. 15. Strabo, V. 2, § 9, p. 226. Pin- own independence, or connected themselves 

tarch makes Fidense, < irnstumeriaj and Antem- with some people of their own race. 

nse to have been Sabine towns, Romulus, 17. K Livy, IV. 21. The common editions of 

Muller v, ell remarks that in Fidense and Cms- Livy, Lnclnding Bekker's, call him A. Servilius, 

tumeria, as in Rome, we find traces of these following in this most of our present MSS. But 

same three elements of the population, Latins, Glareanus says that most of the MSS. had 

Sabines, and Etruscans. Bui at Fidenffl, the "Quintus," and that "Aulus" was the reading 

close connection of the place with Veii (to which of Aldus' MS., which he followed in his edition. 

place it seema i" have Been subject or depend- Si^on'ms, Glareanus, Pighius, and Drakenborch, 

ent. as was also Capena), seems to show, that all jprefer the reading '"Quintus." 

previously to its final conquest by the Romans, ^ Livy, IV. 81. 

the Etruscan element was predominant. Sec " Livy, IV. 34. 

Miillcr's Ktruskcr, Vol. I. p. 113, 301. * Livy, IV. 85. 

" Dionysius, V. 60. " Livy, IV. 58. Tempus induciarum exierat. 



Chap. XVIIL] SIEGE OF VEIL 149 

the year 348 out of magnanimity, because the Veientians were distracted by 
internal factions, is suspicious enough to throw discredit upon the whole narra- 
tive which involves it. It is far more probable that, as the expiration of the truce 
drew near, both parties tried what could be gained by negotiation. 40 The Ro- 
mans were engaged in war with the JEquians and Volscians, and although successful 
in the campaign of 347, yet they had obtained no decided advantage. Thus the 
Veientians tried to spin out the negotiation till they should see the event of the 
next campaign, but as that was unfavorable to the Romans, the garrison at Ver- 
rugo being surprised and cut to pieces by the Volscians, the Veientians took cour- 
age, and refused to grant the Roman demands. The next year, however, greatly 
altered the face of affairs ; the Romans were completely successful against the 
Volscians, and took the important city of Anxur : war with Veii was now looked 
forward to with delight, the commons were conciliated by the grant of pay to the 
soldiers, and thus, at the close of the twentieth year of the truce, apparently in 
the spring of 350, the Roman people voted for instant war with the Veientians; 
and the military tribunes of that year 41 commenced the invasion of the Veientian 
territory, and the occupation of fortified posts in the neighborhood of Veii. 

Again, in the year following, 351, the Roman arms were called off from Veii 
by the Volscian war, 42 and nothing was attempted against the city. The dege of Ve u form- 
But in the next year the Volscians were quiet, and the siege of ed - 
Veii was commenced in earnest. Livy's expressions 43 convey the notion that a 
double line of walls was carried all round the city, as at Platsea, A n c ZM _ A . c . 
the inner wall to blockade the besieged, the outer one to shelter 40 °- 
the besiegers from any attempt to raise the siege on the part of the other states 
of Etruria. But the circuit of the walls of Veii, according to Sir W. G ell's meas- 
urements, 44 was above five miles ; the besiegers' line, therefore, must have em- 
braced a still larger space, and the deep valleys with rocky sides, between which 
the small streams of this district always flow, would have offered formidable 
interruptions to the work. Besides, it is manifest that if such a circumvallation 
had been completed, Veii must have been starved out within a year, instead of 
resisting for seven years, and not being even at last reduced by famine. It ap- 
pears rather that the two Roman armies employed in the siege established them- 
selves in two separate camps, and secured the communication between them as well 
as they could by detached forts, intending to carry on their circumvallation 
on each side from their camps, as the Athenians did at Syracuse, till it should 
meet and effectually inclose the city. And as it was necessary that the lines 
should be maintained through the winter, the Romans now, for the first time, 
became acquainted with war on a greater scale, and, instead of returning home 
after a few days' service, a considerable portion, at least, of the soldiers were to 
remain before Veii during the whole year. This was as strange and unwelcome 
to the Romans as it would have been to the Peloponnesians, but the national 
feeling was interested in the war, and the lines, after having been once taken by 
a sally of the besieged, were recovered and maintained by an army of volunteers. 

Still there was no complete circumvallation : Veii was open and accessible to 
relief ; and the people of the two neighboring cities of Capena and 
Falerii, being at length aroused to a sense of their own danger if 399. "Attacks' made on 
Veii fell, exerted all their power to deliver it. They attacked the thebesiegmga " ny ' 
Roman lines, 45 stormed one of the two camps which formed the strongholds of 
the besieging army, and for the remainder of the year the communications of 
Veii with the surrounding country were carried on in freedom. 

40 See note 48 of the last chapter. description of the Peloponnesian lines round 

41 Livy, IV. 61. Ab his primum circumsessi Platea: to r£i%os ct%^ Mo tovs *cpi(l6^ovg, irp6s ts 
Veil sunt. XlXaratuiv, /cat t" nj e^uidev air' 'Adnviiv tirioi. III. 

42 Livy, IV. 61. 21. 

43 Livy, V. 1. Ita muniehant ut ancipitia mu- M See the conclusion of the article " Veii," in 
aimenta essent, alia inurbem — versa, aliis frons his work on the topography of Eome and ita 
in Etruriam spectans auxiliis, si qua forte inde vicinity. 

venirent, obstruebatur. Compare Thucydides' 45 Livy, V. 8. 



150 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIII. 

For five years after this, the siege, if so it may be called, made but little prog- 
ress. The Romans retained their camps before Veii, as the Veien- 
Btates refuse «ieir B aia tians had once held the Janiculum ; they plundered the Veientian 
territory, and by their advanced position protected their own. The 
Capenatians and Faliscans could not again succeed in carrying the Roman camps, 
and the Tarquinensians, who took part in the contest in the year 358, 46 and ven- 
tured to invade the Roman territory, were repelled with loss. But this interfer- 
ence of the people of Tarquinii, one of the greatest and most influential of the 
Etruscan cities, and not the immediate neighbor of Veii, was probably a symp- 
tom of the dispositions of the whole Etruscan confederacy. A great .council of 
the whole nation met at the temple of Voltumna, 47 the Panionium of Etruria ; the 
question of aiding Veii with the united force of the twelve cities was debated : 
but at this critical moment the attention of the northern states of the league was 
drawn off to another and a more imminent danger. The Gauls had crossed the 
Alps, and were overrunning the country of the twelve cities of northern Etruria, 
between the Alps and the Apennines. With such an enemy so near them, the 
northern states of Etruria proper, Volterae, Faesulas, Cortona, and Clusium, were 
not disposed to march their forces away to a contest on the banks of the Tiber, 
and to leave their own homes open to the inroads of the Gauls. Accordingly, 
the southern cities were left to their fate ; and only Capena and Falerii took any 
part in the final struggle between Veii and Rome. 

But the events of the last year of this struggle plainly showed what Rome 
would have had to fear from a coalition of all the twelve cities of 

A. U. C. 359- AC 

893. 'Tiie Romans' del Etruria. Two of the Roman military tribunes 4S were defeated by 
camiiius appointed die- theFaliscans and Capernatians ; one of them was killed in the 



tatur. 



battle ; and the panic spread to the lines before Veii, and even to 
Rome itself, where the rumor prevailed, that the whole force of Etruria was on 
its march, that the lines before Veii were actually assailed by the enemy, and 
that his victorious bands might be expected eveiy moment to advance upon 
Rome. So great Avas ih§ alarm, that the matrons crowded to the temples to 
avert, by prayers and sacrifices, their country's peril ; and the senate resolved 
to appoint a dictator. 49 The dictator thus chosen was the famous M. Furius 
Camillus. 

During thirty years from this period Camillus was undoubtedly the most emi- 
•rhe i.utory of the mi n ent man hi Rome, and the favorite leader of the aristocracy, who 
planted by'the'poeUcal twice made hini their champion in the hour of their greatest need, 
6tor3 '- once to put down M. Manlius, and again to prevent, if possible, 

the passing of the Licinian laws. Nor was the distinction of his family confined 
to him alone ; one of his sons was the first praetor, and another was twice dicta- 
tor, and twice consul, and gained a memorable victory over the Gauls. But in 
proportion to this high eminence of the Furian family, was the exaggeration of 
which they were the subject. The stories told of them were so popular, that 
they were not merely engrafted upon the brief notices contained in the genuine 
records of the time, but took the place of these altogether ; so that it is through 

48 Livy, V. 16. point supplant the real history, that Livy docs 

*' [ivy, V. 17. The situation of this temple not so much as mention the resolution of the 

is unknown, as well as the attributes of the senate to appoint a dictator, but after desorib- 

goddess to whom it was dedicated. The as- ing the alarm at Rome, and the prayers of the 

Bemblies held at the temple were composed only matrons, he passes abruptly to the legend, and 

of the ruling caste, the Principes or Luoumones merely says, "fatalis ilux ad exoidium illius 

of Etruria; bnl thej wire connected with a re- urbis servandsaque patriae M. Furius Camillus 

ligious festival, with games of various sorts, and dictator dietus magistrum equitum P. Corne- 

especially with dramatic entertainments; so that limn Scipionem dixit." V. L9. It appears, 

people of all ranks came together on these so- however, that the master of the horse, accord- 

lemiiiiies, and the concourse attraoted traders ing to the Fasti Capitolini, was not P. Oorne- 

from foreign count ies. as to a favorable oppor- lius Scipio, but 1'. Cornelius Maluginensis. 

tunity of carrying on their traffic. See the "Frammenti nuovi," published by 

« Livy, V. 18. BorghesL 

48 So strangely does the poetical story at this 



Chap. X VIII] LEGEND OF THE FALL OF VEIL 151 

the Greek writers only that we can learn the real issue of the G-aulic invasion, 
and the history of the taking of Veii has not been preserved at all. That the 
beautiful and romantic story of the fall of Veii belongs entirely to the traditions 
and funeral orations of the Furian family, is plain from this, that the events, even 
of the very last year of the war, are related historically down to the very time 
of the appointment of Camillus to the dictatorship ; but then the history sud- 
denly vanishes, and a mere romance succeeds in its place wherever the actions 
of Camillus are the subject, interspersed here and there with fragments of au- 
thentic history, where the story relates to the actions of other persons. Thus 
we do not really know how Veii fell, or by what means a contest which, in the 
beginning of the year 359, wore so unpromising an aspect, was, before the end 
of that same year, brought to a triumphant conclusion. It is mentioned 50 that 
the Latins and Hernicans, who seem hitherto to have taken no part in the war, 
joined the Romans with their whole force as soon as Camillus was made dictator. 
Probably the defeat sustained in the early part of the year, and the fear lest all 
Etruria should combine to relieve Veii, if any accident should turn the stream of 
the Gaulish invasion upon other countries, convinced the Romans that they must 
make the most of the present moment, whilst the Etruscans still stood aloof. 
An overpowering army of the Romans and their allies was brought against Veii ; 
the siege of Plataea shows what great works for the reduction of a town could be 
completed within a short time by the united labor of a multitude of hands : a mound 
might be carried to the top of the loftiest walls ; or their foundations might be un- 
dermined, and a breach opened in an instant ; or, in the wide extent of Veii, some 
ill-guarded spot might be found, by which the enemy might effect an entrance 
without opposition. Be this as it may, the manner of the real capture of the 
place is irrecoverably lost ; but it is certain that in the year 359, after a war of 
nine years, this old antagonist of Rome, the large, the wealthy, and powerful 
city of Veii, was taken* by the Romans, and the political existence of its people 
destroyed forever. 

But before we finally quit the poetical legends of the early Roman history, the 
last of them, and not the least beautiful, that which relates to the Difference between the 
fall of Veii, must find its place in this narrative. In the life of InSSodaof tl 
Camillus there meet two distinct kinds of fiction, equally remote famil y memoirs - 
from historical truth, but in all other respects most opposite to one another : the 
one imaginative, but honest, playing, it is true, with the facts of history, and con- 
verting them into a wholly different form, but addressing itself also to a different 
part of the mind ; not professing to impart exact knowledge, but to delight, to 
quicken, and to raise the perception of what is beautiful and noble ; the other, 
tame and fraudulent, deliberately corrupting truth in order to minister to national 
or individual vanity, pretending to describe actual events, but substituting in the 
place of reality the representations of interested or servile falsehood. To the 
former of these classes belongs the legend of the fall of Veii ; to the latter the 
interpolation of the pretended victory of Camillus over the Gauls. The stories 
of the former kind, as innocent as they are delightful, I have thought it an irrev- 
erence to neglect ; the fabrications of the latter sort, which are the peculiar dis- 
grace of Roman history, it is best to pass over in total silence, that they may, if 
possible, be consigned to perpetual oblivion. 

The poetical story of the fall of Veii is as follows : 

For seven years and more the Romans had been besieging Veii. Now the 
summer was far advanced, 51 and all the springs and rivers were Po e t icai story of the 
very low ; when on a sudden the waters of the lake of Alba be- ^ A ib7fveru^ s ll us 
gan to rise ; and they rose above its banks, and covered the banks- 
fields and houses by the water-side ; and still they rose higher and higher, till 
they reached the top of the hills which surrounded the lake as with a wall, and 

60 Livy, V. 19. " Dionysius, XII. 11. Fragnj. Mai. 



152 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap XVIII 

they overflowed where the hills were lowest ; and behold, the water of the lake 
poured down in a mighty torrent into the plain beyond. "When the Romans 
found that the sacrifices 52 which they offered to the gods and powers of the 
place were of no avail, and their prophets knew not what counsel to give them, 
and the lake still continued to overflow the hills and to pour down into the plain 
below, then they sent over the sea, to Delphi, to ask counsel of the oracle of 
Apollo, which was famous in every land. 

So the messengers were sent to Delphi. And meanwhile the report of the 
v , „ .. overflowing of the lake was much talked of : so that the people 

A prophet of Veu de- . _ .. .. ° j ,. . -v-r ■. , . ' , . r r 

C h ares 'rfl* meanmgof °i * en heard. 01 it. JNow there was an old Veientian, who was 
skilled in the secrets of the Fates, and it chanced that he was 
talking from the walls with a Roman centurion whom he had known before in the 
days of peace ; and the Roman spoke of the ruin that was coming upon Veii, 
and was sorry for the old man his friend ; but the old man laughed and said : 
" Ah ! ye think to take Veii ; but ye shall not take it till the waters of the lake 
of Alba are all spent, and flow out into the sea no more." Wi. m the Roman 
heard this he was much moved by it, for he knew that the old man was a 
prophet ; and the next day he came again to talk with the old man, and he en- 
ticed him to come out of the city, and to go aside with him to a lonely place, 
saying that he had a certain matter of his own, concerning which he desired to 
know the secrets of fate. And while they were talking together, he seized the 
old man, and carried him off to the Roman camp, and brought him before the 
generals ; and the generals sent him to Rome to the senate. Then the old man 
declared all that was in the Fates concerning the overflow of the lake of Alba; 
and he told the senate what they Avere to do with the water, that it might cease 
to flow into the sea : "If the lake overflow, and its waters run out into the sea, 
woe unto Rome ; but if it be drawn off, and the waters reach the sea no longer, 
then it is woe unto Veii." But the senate would not listen to the old man's 
words, till the messengers should come back from Delphi. 

After a time the messengers came back, and the answer of the god agreed in 
The Romans djg all things with the words of the old man of Veii. For it said/ 4 
Sd^ w ft offS n wS " See that the waters be not confined within the basin of the 
or the lake. lake: see that they take not their own course and run into the 

sea. Thou shalt let the water out of the lake, and thou shalt turn it to the wa- 
tering of thy fields, and thou shalt make courses for it till it be spent and come 
to nothing." Then the Romans believed the oracle, and they sent workmen, and 
began to bore through the side of the hills to make a passage for the water. And 
the water flowed out through this passage under ground ; and it ceased to flow 
over the hills ; and when it came out from the passage into the plain below, it 
was received into many courses which had been dug for it, and it watered the 
fields, and became obedient to the Romans, and was all spent in doing them ser- 
vice, and flowed to the sea no more. And the Romans knew that it Avas the will 
of the gods that they should conquer Veii. 

So Marcus Furius Camillus was ma.de dictator ; and the Veientians sent to 
The Roman, refuse Rome to beg for peace, 55 but the Romans would not grant it. 
peace to the v.i«,» M . Now the Etruscans are skilled in the secrets of fate above all other 
nations ; and one of the chief men of Veii, who had gone with the embassy, 
turned round as he was going out of the senate-house, and looked upon the sen- 
ators, and said : " A goodly answer truly have ye given us, and a generous ; for 
though we humble ourselves before you, ye will show us no mercy, but threaten 
to destroy us utterly. Ye heed neither the wrath of the gods nor the vengeance 
of men. Yet the gods shall requite you for your pride ; and, as ye destroy our 
country, so ye shall shortly after lose your own." 

M bionysios, XII. 12. M Liw, V. 16. 

63 Dionysius, XII. l:). Livy, V. 15. Plu- » Dionysius, XII. 17. 
Urch, Camillus, 4. 



Chap. XVIII] LEGEND OE THE FALL OF VEIL ]53 

Meanwhile Marcus Furius 56 pressed the city on every side ; and he was at the 
head of a mighty army ; for the Latins and the Hernicans had 
brought their aids ; and he commanded his men to dig a way un- aeaTof the S citadei of 
der ground, which should pass beneath the walls, and come out 
again to the light within the precinct of the temple of Juno, in the citadel of 
Veii. The men worked on by night and by day ; for they were divided into six 
bands ; and each band worked in turn and rested in turn ; and the secret pas- 
sage was carried up into the precinct of the temple of Juno ; but it had not 
broken through the surface of the ground ; so that the Veientians knew not 
of it. 

Then every man 67 who desired to have a share of the spoil hastened from 
Rome to the camp at Veii. And Marcus, the dictator, made a 
vow, and promised to give the tenth part of all the spoil to Apollo, 
the god of Delphi ; and he prayed also to Juno, the goddess of the Veientians, 
that she would be pleased to depart from Veii, and to follow the Romans home 
to their city, which from henceforth should be hers, and where a temple worthy 
of her majesty should be given her for her abode. After this, he ordered the 
Romans to assault the city on every side ; and the Veientians ran to the wall to 
meet them ; and the shout of the battle arose, and the fight was carried on 
fiercely. 68 But the king of the Veientians was in the temple of Juno in the cita- 
del, offering a sacrifice for the deliverance of the city ; and .the prophet who 
stood by, when he saw the sacrifice, cried aloud, " This is an accepted offering ; 
for there is victory for him who offers its entrails upon the altar !" Now the 
Romans were in the secret passage, and heard the words of the prophet. So 
they burst forth into the temple, and they snatched away the entrails from those 
who were sacrificing, and Marcus, the Roman dictator, and not the king of the 
Veientians, offered them upon the altar. Then the Romans rushed down from 
the citadel, and ran to the gates of the city, and let in their comrades ; and all 
the army broke into the town, and they sacked and took Veii. 

While they were sacking the city, Marcus looked down upon the havoc from 
the top of the citadel, and when he saw the greatness of the city camniua vaunts Mm- 
and the richness of the spoil, his heart swelled within him, 59 and B€ll ' ofh,s vict01 'y- 
he said, " What man's fortune was ever so great as mine ?" But then in a mo- 
ment there came the thought, how little a thing and how short a time can bring 
the greatest fortune doAvn to the lowest, and his pride was turned into fear, and 
he prayed, if it must be that in return for such great glory and victory, some 
evil should befall himself or his country, yet that it might be light and recover- 
able. Whilst he prayed he veiled his head, 60 as is the custom of the Romans in 
prayer, and turned round towards the right. But as he turned, his foot slipped, 
and he fell upon his back upon the ground. Yet he was comforted rather than 
dismayed by his fall, for he said, " The gods have heard my prayer, and for the 
great fortune of my victory over Veii they have sent me only this little evil." 

Then he ordered some young men, 61 chosen out from all his army, to approach 

to the temple of Juno ; and they had washed themselves in pure • 

. x -i-ii-i- i i ^ lie statue °> J ue ° u 

water, and were clothed in white, so that there was on them no carried from veii to 

sign or stain of blood and of slaughter ; and they bowed low as 

they came to the temple, but were afraid to touch the image of the goddess, for 

no hand might touch it except the priest's who was born of the house that had 

the priesthood. So they asked the goddess whether it was her pleasure to go 

with them to Rome. And then there happened a wonder ; for the image spake, 

and answered, "I will go ;" and when they touched it, it moved from its place 

of its own accord, and it was carried to Rome. Thus Juno left her abode in the 

66 Livy, V. 19. 60 Dionysius, XII. 22, 23. Plutarch, Camil • 

67 Livy, V. 20, 21. lus, 5. 

58 Livy, V. 21. Plutarch, Camillus, 5. 6l Livy, V. 22. 

69 Dionysius, XII. 19. 



154 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XVIII. 

citadel of Veii, and she dwelt in her temple at Rome, on the hill Aventinus, 
which the Romans built and dedicated to her honor. 

After this 62 there were rejoicings at Rome greater than had ever been known 
camiuus triumph* before ; and there were thanksgivings for four days, and all the 
proudly. temples were filled with those who came to offer their thank- 

offerings. And Marcus entered the city in triumph, and he rode up to the Cap- 
itol in a chariot drawn by four white horses, like the horses of Jupiter and like 
the horses of the sun. But wise men thought that it was done too proudly ; 
and they said, " Marcus makes himself equal to the blessed gods ; see if ven- 
geance come not on him, and he be not made lower than other men." 

To return from this famous legend to our imperfect history of the times, the 
Romans, by the fall of Veii, acquired a considerable addition to 
territory by the Ton" their territory. The inhabitants of several districts subject to the 
• ' Veientians had revolted to the Romans during the war, or rather, 
to escape the ravage of the Roman armies, had surrendered themselves and their 
lands at discretion. The rest of the country, if any remained so long independ- 
ent, must have fallen with the capital ; and thus the Romans now extended 
their dominion along the right bank of the Tiber from its mouth to a distance of 
about thirteen miles above Rome, 63 whilst it stretched northwards from the Tiber 
as far as the Lago di Bracciano, Lacus Sabatinus, 64 and the edge of the actual 
Campagna at Monterosi ; passing thence, in a line including the remarkable emi- 
nence of Monte Musino, 65 to the Tiber opposite the Ager Crustumerinus. But 
in the years immediately following the conquest of Veii, the Romans penetrated 
still deeper into Etruria. Capenia, which had stood by the Veientians to the 
last, fell in the very next year after its ally ; 66 and its conquest put the Romans 
in possession of an additional portion of the right bank of the Tiber, above the 
territory just won from the Veientians. In the year after, we hear of the submis- 
sion of Falerii, the sole remaining member of the alliance, situated either on or near 
the site of the modern town of Civita Castellana. 61 Camillus was the military 
tribune who reduced Falerii, and accordingly we have another tale in the place 
of history. A schoolmaster, 68 who had the care of the sons of the principal citi- 
zens, took an opportunity, when walking with his boys without the walls, to lead 
them to the Roman camp, and throw them into the power of the enemy. But 
Camillus, indignant at this treason, bade the boys to drive their master back into 
.the town again, flogging him all the way thither, for the Romans, he said, made 
no war with children. Upon this the Faliscans, won by his magnanimity, sur- 
rendered to him at discretion, themselves, their city, and their country. Whether 
the city, however, was really surrendered at this time, may seem very doubtful ; 
that it sued for and obtained peace is likely : it lost, also, a portion of its territo- 
ry, for we read of a number of Faliscans as forming a part of the four new 
tribes 09 of Roman citizens, which were created immediately after the. Gaulish in- 
vasion. 

In the same year, or in the following year, may be placed also the submission 
submission of Nepeto of Nepete and Sutrium, 70 which appear immediately after the re- 
ond sutrium. treat f ^g (j au ] s as t, ne dependent allies of Rome. They did not 

M Livy, V. 23. Musino, in Sir TV. Cell's work on the neiffh- 

M Pliny, Hist. Nat. TIL 9. borhood of Rome, under the title " Ara Mu- 

M This may be concluded, not only from the tise." 

Bhort distance between Veii and the Lacus 8a- ,;o Livy, V. 24. 

batinus, and from there being no independent r ' 7 TVestphal and Nibby place the Etruscan 

city, bo Ear as we knew, between them ; but it Falerii at Civita Castellana, and the later Roman 

Beems to follow, also, from the name of one of colon] at s. Maria di (Talari, about half waj be- 

the new tribes which were formed immediately tween <'i\ita Castellana and Ronoiglione. _ Sir 

after the Gaulish invasion, the tribus Sabatina. \V. Qell places the Etruscan city at B. .Maria di 

The lands of this tribe must have been situated Falari. 

near the lake ; and from whom could the Bo- M Livy, V. 27. 

mans have conquered them at that period, ex- 6 ° Livy, VI. 4. 

cent from the Veientians} ,0 Diodorus places in the same year the peace 

* Sec the description and sketch of Monte with the Faliscans, and something in conneo- 



Chap. XVIII] THE OIMINIAN MOUNTAINS. 155 

surrender themselves, " dediderunt se," but obtained a treaty of alliance, such 
as we find so often between the weaker and the stronger states in Greece. Ne- 
pete still exists, with almost the same name, and is a well-known town on the 
Perugia road to Rome, standing in a beautiful country between the edge of the 
Campagna and the valley of the Tiber, a little to the north of Monterosi. Su- 
trium also exists in the modern town of Sutri, a little to the west of the present 
road from Monterosi to Ronciglione. 

The Romans had now reached what may be called the extreme natural boun- 
dary of the basin of the Tiber on the side of Etruria. Sutrium 
and Nepete looked up immediately to the great and lofty ridge of «<%« of the ciminbm 
the Ciminian mountains, that ridge which the traveller ascends as 
soon as he leaves Viterbo, while from its summit he catches his first view of the 
neighborhood of Rome, of the line of the Apennines skirting the Campagna to 
the northeast, and of the Alban hills in the farthest distance, and, although the 
particular objects cannot be distinguished, of that ever memorable plain in which 
stands Rome. This ridge, in short, separates the streams which feed the Tiber 
from the valley of Viterbo and the basin of the lake of Bolsena, or, to speak the 
language of the fourth century of Rome, it separated the territories of Veii and 
Falerii, the advanced posts, as it were, of the Etruscan confederacy, from those 
of Vulsinii and Tarquinii, two of the greatest and most distinguished states of the 
whole nation. 

Eighty yeans after this period, the passage of the Ciminian mountains was re- 
garded as a memorable event, as little less than the entrance into They crosa them> and 
an unknown world. 11 But now, emboldened by their victories thr^ofie d of W vuWnu 
over the nearer Etruscan cities, and aware, no doubt, that the and the Sal P inatians - 
dread of the Gauls on the northern frontier would render a general gathering of 
the whole nation impossible, the Romans seemed anxious to cross their natural 
boundary, and to penetrate into the heart of Etruria. A war broke out, we 
know not on what grounds, between Rome and Vulsinii ; 12 but in the first year 
the Romans were crippled, according to their own account, by a famine and pes- 
tilence ; and the Vulsinians, aided by the Salpinatians, a neighboring people 
wholly unknown to us, invaded the Roman territory without op- A . v , c . 364 . A , c . 
position. In the next year, however, the Romans were able to 388, 
act on the offensive ; a great victory was gained over the Vulsinians ; the Salpi- 
natians did not risk a battle ; and, after the lands of either people had been laid 
waste by the conquerors, the Vulsinians sued for and obtained a truce for twenty 
years, 13 on the condition of giving satisfaction to the Romans to the extent of 
their demands, and furnishing a year's pay for the army employed against them. 
Of the Salpinatians we hear no further mention, either now or at any future 
period. 

Thus Rome was gaining ground rapidly in Etruria, while in Latium she could 
not yet dislodge her old enemies the JEquians, even from the Al- 
ban hills. With so stubborn, so active, and so powerful an ad- 
versary on the south, any attempt to make extensive conquests on the north 
must ever have been full of danger ; and an alliance between the Etruscan con- 
federacy and the Opican nations, at this period of the Roman history, would 
probably have effected what the league between the Etruscan and Sabellian na- 
tions, ninety years afterwards, attempted in vain. But Providence, which de- 
signed that Rome should win the empire of the world, altered the course of 
events by turning the torrent of a Gaulish invasion upon Latium. This it was 
which crushed the ^Equians forever ; and which obliged the Romans, by its 

tion with Sutrium. The present text is cor- 71 Livy, IX. 36. 
rupt : "Zoirpiov iiiv Sip/iTjaav. Niebuhr proposes 72 Livy, V. 31. 
to supply itri, but the corruption lies, I think, 73 Livy, V. 32. 
in the verb, and in the preceding conjunction, 
Kai. See Diodorus, XIV. 98. 



] 56 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIX. 

consequences, to confine their attention again for a long period to the left bank 
of the Tiber. There, in many years of patient and arduous struggles, they laid 
deeper and firmer the foundations of their after greatness, by effectually subdu- 
ing the remnant of their Opican enemies, and obtaining a more complete com- 
mand than ever over the resources of the cities of the Latins. Thus the Gaulish 
invasion and conquest of Rome was but the instrument of her greater and surer 
advance to the dominion of Italy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 350 TO 364— PLEBEIAN MILITARY TRIBUNES— BAN- 
ISHMENT OF CAMILLUS. 



" Sicinius. — He's a disease that must be cut away. 
Menenius. — Oh, he's a limb that has but a disease : 
Mortal to cut it off; to cure it easy." 

Shakspeaee, Coriolarms. 

!>0j8i?3t'iT£S yap airov ol noWol t5 jxiyeSos njy re Kurd to iclvtov txZfia Trapavojilai h rqv ilairav 
. . . (Lj rvpavviSos i-juSunovvTi TroAf/uot KaSiaraaav. — ThUCYDIDES, VI. 15. 



In the fourteen years which elapsed between the beginning of the last war 
Advance of the piebe- with Veii and the invasion of the Gauls, the plebeian leaders reaped 
*■""■ the fruit of the seed which their predecessors had sown so perse- 

veringly. Now, for the first time, we find plebeians not only admitted into the 
college of military tribunes, but forming in it the majority. Yet even this was, 
as it were, only the first-fruits of the harvest ; many years elapsed before the 
full crop was brought to the sickle. 

In the year 352, the third year of the war with Veii, the Romans intending, 
as has been mentioned, to blockade the city, were obliged to keep 
wMi'theeSmoftrik! a part of their forces on duty during the winter. This was doubly 
unpopular, both as it obliged so many citizens to be absent from 
their homes for several months together, a term of service ill endured by an army 
of householders and agriculturists ; and also as it increased the expense of the 
war, for the soldiers received pay only for those months in which they were ac- 
tually under arms. Thus the tribunes began to complain of the burden of the 
siege, and the indecisive character of the war hitherto was likely to make it un- 
popular ; but when news came that the Roman lines had been destroyed by a 
sally of the besieged, 1 national pride prevailed, and all ranks united in supporting 
a. u. c. 353. a. c. the contest zealously. But the next year only brought fresh dis- 
asters •} Anxur was surprised by the Volscians, and .the armies be- 
fore Veii were completely defeated, and the blockade entirely raised. Then feel- 
ings of irritation revived; and these were so far shared by the senate, that they 
obliged all the military tribunes of the year to go out of office on the first of Oc- 
tober/' two months and a half before the expiration of their year. The commons, 
however, were not satisfied; for the first act of the new military tribunes was to 
call out to military service, not only the citizens within the usual age, 4 but the 
older men also, who were to form a force for the defence of the city. Such a 

1 Livy, V. 7. * Livy, V. 8. 3 Livy, V. 9. 4 Livy, V. 10. 



Chap. XIX.] PLEBEIAN MILITARY TRIBUNES. 157 

call, just as winter was coming on, was most unwelcome ; besides, every addi- 
tional soldier rendered a heavier taxation necessary ; and as the patricians were 
continually evading the payment of the vectigal for their occupation of the pub- 
lic land, so the tributum or property tax necessarily increased in amount. In 
tins state of things, the patricians were so afraid of the possible effects of the 
tribunician power, that they ventured on the unusual step of tampering with the 
elections for new tribunes, which took place in December. The tribune who pre- 
sided at the comitia must have been gained over to betray his trust ; he refused 
votes, we must suppose, when given in favor of the most popular, and therefore 
the most obnoxious candidates, whilst others could not gain from the tribes them- 
selves the requisite majority of suffrages. The consequence was that, in defiance 
of the Trebonian law, only eight tribunes were returned f and these, by a second 
violation of the law, filled up the vacant places by choosing two colleagues for 
themselves. 

But this overstraining broke the bow. One honest tribune of the college, Cn. 
Trebonius, was enough, where the cause was so manifestly just, to • v . , ,__„_, 

. . 9 ' . , I-i -l Plebeians for the firrt 

awaken the indignation of the commons. JLhree or the other tnb- time elected as tribunes 

_ . ° /»ii i»ni irn of the soldiers. 

unes, 6 men, as it seems, of those base natures which always follow 
the stream, now strove to avert their own unpopularity by impeaching the two 
unfortunate military tribunes who had been defeated before Veii. These were 
condemned and fined, but their punishment did not abate the storm. The trib- 
unes then proposed an agrarian law ; and when this was resisted, they positively 
refused to allow the tribute to be collected 7 for the benefit of the army at Veii. 
This stoppage of the supplies brought the soldiers almost to a state of mutiny. 
We have seen 8 that a custom, so old as to be held equivalent to law, authorized 
the soldier to practise a summary process of distress upon the paymaster, if his 
pay was not regularly issued. Thus the law itself seemed to sanction insubor- 
dination, if the soldier's right was denied him : so that if the tribunes persisted in 
forbidding the tribute to be levied, the siege of Veii was inevitably at an end. 
Then at last, after an interval of more than forty years, the con- A . u. c . 355. a. c. 
stitution of the year 312 was fully carried into effect ; the elections 391 ~ 
of military tribunes were left really free, and four out of six 9 of the members of 
the college were chosen from among the plebeians. A similar re- A . u. c . 356 . A . c . 
suit attended the elections of the year following ; four out of six 396 ' 
of the tribunes of the soldiers were again chosen from the commons. 

Such a choice, continued for two years successively, proves how deep was the 
indignation excited by the attempt of the patricians to tamper with Endea voraof the patri- 
the tribuneship of the commons. But the influence of an aristoc- ciusTvfpo^Son'ifthe 
racy acts through the relations of private life, which are in their military tribuneship. 
very nature permanent, whilst it is opposed only by a strong feeling of anger, or 

6 Livy, V. 10. examine the several names, we find a M. Titin- 

6 Livy, V. 11. ius elected tribune of the commons in the year 

1 Cum tributum conferri per tribunos non 306, and a Sex. Titinius tribune in the year 316. 

posset. Livy, V. 12. And the fragments of the Fasti Capitolini de 

8 Pignoris capio. See Gains, IV. § 27. scribe P. Melius as the son of Sp. Mselius, and 

9 The names, as given by Livy, are, P. Licin- give him the surname of Capitolinus ; so that 
ius Calvus, P. Manlius (Msenius being a mere there is every reason to regard him as the son 
correction by Sigonius), L. Titinius, P. Maslius, of that Melius who was murdered by Servilius 
L. Furius Medullinus, and L. Publilius Volscus. Ahala in 316, and whose house, as "we know, 
He calls them all patricians, except Licinius ; stood sufficiently within the precincts of the 
yet it is certain that all, except L. Furius and P. Capitoline Hill to entitle him to the name Cap- 
Manlius, were plebeians. The names are all itolinus. Lastly, Publilius Volscus is described 
plebeian ; which, although not a decisive argu- in the Fasti as " Voleronis Nepos," and as bear- 
ment with respect to the very early times of the ing the surname of Philo ; so that there can be 
commonwealth, yet becomes a circumstance of no doubt that he was a descendant of the fa- 
great weight in the middle of the fourth cen- mous tribune who carried the Publilian law in 
tury of Pome. Again, the reappointment of the year 283, and of the family of the no less 
many of the tribunes of this year, four years famous plebeian dictator who passed the Publil- 
afterwards, as colleagues of P. Licinius, is a con- ian laws of the year 416. 

firmation of their being plebeians. And if we 



158 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XIX. 

an urgent sense of public interest, both of which exist only in seasons of excite- 
ment, and wear out by the mere lapse of time. It happened also that in the 
last two years Rome had been visited by a winter of such unusual severity, as to 
appear preternatural, and afterwards, by a pestilence ; and such calamities have 
a well-known tendency to engross men's minds with their own domestic affairs, 
and to make them regard political questions with indifference. Nor did the pa- 
tricians fail to represent these visitations as proofs of the displeasure of the gods, 
who were offended that plebeians 10 had been elected eveh in the coraitia of cen- 
turies, which professed to be regulated according to the divine will as observed 
and declared by the augurs. And still further to secure their object, when the 
election of military tribunes came on, the most eminent individuals of the noblest 
families of the patricians appeared as candidates. Accordingly, every place in 
the college for the year 35l u was once more filled by a patrician ; and the elec- 
tion of the following year presented the same result. 

The tribunes of the year 358 appear, however, to have been moderate men ; 
The commons resist an d there was a danger lest they should hold the comitia fairly, 
them with success. an( j ] est gome plebeians might thus again be elected as their suc- 
cessors. Accordingly the senate obliged them all, on religious pretences, 12 to 
resign before their year was expired ; and an interrex was named to hold the 
comitia. But the discontent of the commons had been again growing ; even in 
this very year the tribunes had opposed the enlistment of soldiers to meet a new 
enemy, the people of Tarquinii ; and now, when the object of the patricians in 
appointing an interrex could not be mistaken, they interfered, and would not 
allow the comitia to be held. The dispute went on for some time, and lasted 
till a third interrex had been appointed, the famous M. Camillus. But even he, 
though one of the bitterest enemies of the commons, was, on this occasion, 
obliged to yield ; either Veii must be relinquished, or the commons must have 
justice ; and accordingly it was agreed that the elections should be held freely, 
so as to allow a majority in the college to the plebeians, 13 and four out of six of 
the military tribunes were again chosen from the plebeians. 

The defeat of two of these tribunes by the Faliscans and Capenatians led to 
„ , _„,„.. the appointment of M. Camillus as dictator, and in this vear Veii 

But after the fall of Veu . .. -Ft ... . ' . , ■».,. 

the patricians again pre- tell. 1 nus the patricians were no lonp-er oblio-ed to conciliate the 
commons ; the opposition of the tribunes to the levying of the trib- 
ute was henceforward of no importance ; and we hear no more of plebeian military 
tribunes. The entire college was composed of patricians in the years 360, 361, 
and 364 ; and in the years 362 and 363, the senate decreed that consuls should 
be created, instead of military tribunes ; so that from the fall of Veii to the 
Gaulish invasion the patricians appear to have recovered their old exclusive pos- 
session of the highest magistracies. 

Yet this period was by no means one of hopeless submission on the part of the 
Disputes about the tithe commons ; nor were there, wanting subjects of dispute, which the 
of t£. plunder of Veu. tr jbunes followed up with vigor. Camillus had vowed to offer to 
Apollo the tithe of the spoil won at Veii ; but the town had been plundered be- 
fore Apollo's portion had been set apart for him ; and the soldiers having dis- 
posed of all that they had gained, were unwilling to refund it afterwards. 14 The 

10 Livy, V. 14. consul, and afterwards decemvir, with Appius 

11 Livy, V. 14, 16. Claudius, iu the year 303. Thus the plebeians 
" Livy, V. 17. were four to two in the college of 359, and not 
13 Livy, V. 18, Fasti Capitolini. Frammenti five to one ; and this agrees with the atipula- 

nuovi, Borghesi. According to Liw, the trib- tion made previously to the election, "ut major 

ones were I'. Licinius, the son of the tribune pars tribunorum militum ex plebe orearetur." 

of 355, L. Titinitis, P. Manius, P. Melius, Cn. Livy. V. 17. 

Gcnucius, and L. Atilius. But the fragments "' Livy, V. 23. The practice of devoting a 

of the Fasti show that forP. Meenius we should tithe of the spoil to some god was adopted 

here also read Q. Manlius; and the cognomen sometimes, in order to prevent an indisenmi- 

of Cn. Genucius, as appears from the Fasti for nate plunder: the spoil was first to be brought 

856, was Augurinus ; so that he belonged to to the general, that the tithe miffht be duly sep- 

the patrician Geuucii, one of whom was elected arated fromit, and the remainder was then to 



Chap. XIX.] INFLUENCE EXERCISED BY THE PATRICIANS. 159 

pontifices, however, declared that the vow must be performed ; and an appeal 
was made to the conscience, of every individual, calling upon him to value his 
share of the plunder, and bring the price of the tithe of it into the treasury for 
the purchase of an offering of gold to Apollo. This call was slowly obeyed, and 
Camillus complained loudly of the profane neglect of the people : he urged fur- 
ther, that his vow had included the tithe, not only of the movable property of 
Veii, but also of the city and territory. 15 The pontifices decided that this too 
must be paid ; and the money was accordingly advanced out of the treasury for 
this purpose. The money of the Romans at this period was all of copper ; gold 
was dear, and could not readily be procured. Accordingly the Roman matrons 
are said to have brought to the treasury all their ornaments of gold ; 16 and the 
senate showed its sense of their zeal by giving them permission to be drawn in a 
carriage about Rome on all occasions, and to use a peculiar and more luxurious 
sort of carriage at the games and solemn sacrifices. Yet, after all, the gold was 
not accepted as a gift ; the senate ordered every matron's contribution to be 
valued, and the full price paid to her. 

This transaction irritated the minds of men against Camillus, as if his vow had 
been a mere pretence, in order to defraud the people of the spoil The commo?3 desire t0 
which they had so hardly won. But the conquest of Veii gave movetoVeii - 
occasion to another dispute of a more serious character. T. Sicinius, 11 one of the 
tribunes, proposed a law for removing a portion of the patricians and commons 
to Veii, and for allotting to them the whole, or a considerable part, of the Veien- 
tian territory ; so that the Roman commonwealth should consist of two cities, 
Rome and Veii. The peculiarity of this proposal, according to Roman notions, 
consisted in making Veii a co-ordinate state with Rome, instead of a colony. 
The unity of the commonwealth was in no way injured by the foundation of new 
colonies, because these became its subjects, and not its equals ; whereas, if a 
portion of the Roman people lived in Veii, a city equal to Rome in extent and 
magnificence, the commonwealth must either be reduced to a mere confederacy, 
like that of the cities of the Latins, or else it would be a matter of dispute at 
which of the two cities the assemblies of the united people should be held, and 
which of them should be the home of the national gods. Accordingly the pro- 
ject was strenuously resisted by the patricians, who saw how fatal it would 
prove to the greatness of Rome, and they persuaded two of the tribunes to op- 
pose it. 18 Thus the measure was resisted for that year, and it met with the same 
fate the year following, 361 ; both parties having obtained the re-election of the 
same tribunes, so that T. Sicinius and his friends again brought forward the law, 
and A. Virginius and Q. Pomponius, the two tribunes who sided with the patri- ' 
cians, were again ready to meet it with their negative. 

But in the year 362, Virginius and Pomponius were no longer re-elected trib- 
unes, but were, on the contrary, impeached for their betrayal of 
their constituents' interests during the time of their magistracy. through*?!!™ kXence 
They were tried, and condemned to pay a heavy fine, 19 and the ° ' e patrlciat " ! ' 
tribunes again brought forward their law, with a confidence that it would meet 
with no opposition. But the patricians now resolved to exert their influence in 
a fair and constitutional manner, and they exerted it with success. Leaving the 
decision of the question to the votes of the tribes, 20 and being prepared them- 
selves to attend at the comitia and give their votes like the rest of their fellow- 
citizens, they endeavored, by their individual authority, to win the suffrages of 
their tribesmen, entreating and reasoning by turns, and imploring them not to 
pass a law which would put the conquered city of Veii on a level with its con- 
queror. Their arguments and solicitations were listened to with respect, and 

be equitably divided. See the advice given by " Livy, V. 24. 

Croesus to Cyrus after the taking of Sardis. u Livy, V. 25, 29. 

Herodotus, I. 89. 19 Livy, V. 29. 

15 Livy, V. 25. 3 ° Livy, V. 30. 

» Livy, V. 25. 



160 HISTORY OF KOME. [Chap. XIX. 

when the question was brought forward, it was negatived by the votes of eleven 
tribes out of twenty-one. 

A victory thus fairly and honorably obtained, was likely to dispose the patri- 
cians to placable and kindly feelings. Immediately after the re- 

A grant of land in the .. ijii i i t i ■»• • ■ p i it ■ 

territory of Veu made jection ot the law, the senate decreed a division 01 the Veientian 
territory 21 amongst the commons on a scale of unusual liberality. 
Each lot consisted of seven jugera ; and not only fathers of families were con- 
sidered in this grant, but they received an additional allotment of seven jugera 
for each free person in their household. Thus the dispute was, for the time, 
peaceably and advantageously settled. 

The year 363 is remarkable, as introducing another change in the time at 
Alteration of the time which the curule magistrates entered on their office. The consuls, 
one of whom was M. Manlius, afterwards so famous, were obliged 
by the senate 22 to resign three months before the end of their 
year, so that their successors, the military tribunes of the year 364, came into 
office on the first of July. But why they were required to resign is doubtful. 
The ostensible reason was the state of their health ; a dry and exceedingly hot 
season had ruined the crops, and given birth to a violent epidemic disorder, which 
attacked both of the consuls, and prevented them from taking the field against 
the Vulsiniensians. On the other hand, Niebuhr thinks that the real cause of 
their deposition was their having neglected to aid the people of Caere, the allies 
of Rome, when their harbor of Pyrgi was taken and sacked by Dionysius of 
Syracuse. Perhaps, too, personal feelings were concerned, for immediately on 
the resignation of the consuls, M. Camillus was appointed interrex, who was 
afterwards so strongly opposed to M. Manlius, and whose enmity may have 
already begun before this period. It should be observed that the six military 
tribunes elected for the following year were all patricians. 

If Camillus had any undue share in effecting the resignation of the late con- 
suls, he did not long enjoy his triumph. L. Appuleius, 23 one of 
agn B mst camiiinT He the tribunes, impeached him for having appropriated secretly to 
his own use a portion of the plunder of Veii. It was said 24 that 
some doors of brass, the bullion of a country which at this time used only brass mon- 
ey, were found in his house ; and that his numerous clients and friends told him 
plainly, 25 when he applied to them for their aid, that they were ready to pay his 
fine for him, but that they could not acquit him. We are startled at finding the 
great Camillus brought to trial on a charge of personal corruption ; but that 
strict integrity which Polybius ascribes to the Romans seems not always to have 
reached as high as the leaders of the aristocracy, for the great Scipio Africanus 
was impeached on a similar charge, and his brother, the conqueror of Antiochus, 
was not only accused, but condemned. Nor were the eminent men of the Spar- 
tan aristocracy free from the same reproach ; the suspicion attached itself to 
Leotychides, the immediate predecessor of Archidamus ; to Pleistoanax, the son 
of Pausanias ; and just before the banishment of Camillus, the famous Gylippus, 
the conqueror of the Athenians at Syracuse, had been driven from his country 
for a similar act of baseness. Other accounts, 26 as was natural, ascribed the con- 
demnation of Camillus solely to the envy and hatred of the commons ; while, 
according to others, 27 his punishment was a sort of ostracism, because the arro- 
gance of his triumph, after the conquest of Veii, seemed inconsistent with the 
conduct of a citizen in a free commonwealth. It seems allowed by all, that no 
party in the state attempted to save him; and it is clear, also, that he incurred 
the forfeiture of all his civil rights in consequence of his not appearing to stand 
his trial, either as an outlawry, or because his withdrawal was held equivalent to 

81 Liw, V. 30. M Livy, V. 32. 

" Liw, V. 31. M Dio'nvsius, XIII. 5. Fragm. Mai. 

23 Livy, V. 32. * Diodbrus, XIV. 117. 

34 Plutarch, Camillus, 12. 



Chap. XX.] CONDITION" OF THE ETRUSCAN" STATES. 161 

a confession of guilt, and a man convicted of furtum, incurred thereby perpetual 
io-nominy, and lost all his political franchise. Perhaps his case was like that of 
the Spartan Pausanias ; and the treasure which he secreted may have been in- 
tended to furnish means for making him tyrant of Rome. But at any rate, he 
withdrew from Rome before his trial came on, and retired to Ardea. The an- 
nalists reported 23 that as he went out of the gates, he turned round, and prayed 
to the gods of his country, that if he were unjustly driven into exile, some griev- 
ous calamity might speedily befall the Romans, and force them to call him back 
again. They who recorded such a prayer must have believed him innocent, and 
therefore forgave him for it ; they even thought that the gods heard it with fa- 
vor, and fulfilled its petition by sending the Gauls, in the very next year, .to be 
ministers of vengeance on his ungrateful country. 



CHAPTER XX, 

STATE OF FOREIGN NATIONS AT THE PERIOD OF THE GAULISH INVASION- 
ITALY, SARDINIA, CORSICA. 



To rrjs fineripas TrpayfiaTrias i6iov .... tovt6 kanv ' on KaSdirep % Tvx r l o"X s &b v airavTa to. Trjs 
oiKovixevris npdyjiara irpos 2v ckXivs pipos, .... ovtoj koX tita rrjg wropias vno piav avvoipiv ayayetv 
rot; IvTvyx&voooi tov xtipiapbv rrjc TtixVS, <•» KixP r l Tal ^P°i T h v tSv SXiav npaypdrtov avvriXttav. 

PoLTBIUS, I. 4. 



The farthest point hitherto reached by the soldiers of any Roman army was 
scarcely more than fifty miles distant from Rome. The southern 

f •, c -rt c l 1 i * «j i t t i Introduction to the view 

limit or Roman wariare had. been Anxur ; its northern was V ul- of the state of foreign 
sinii. Nor do we read of any treaties or commercial intercourse 
by which Rome was connected with foreign powers, since the famous treaty with 
Carthage, concluded in the first year of the commonwealth. Still the nations of 
the ancient world knew more of one another than Ave are inclined to allow : for 
we do not enough consider how small a portion of their records has come down 
to us ; how much must have been done of which mere accident has hindered us 
from hearing. About thirty 1 years later than the Gaulish invasion, the author of 
that most curious survey of the coasts of the Mediterranean, known by the name 
of the Periplus of Scylax, mentions Rome and Ancona alone of all the cities of Italy, 
with the exception of the Greek colonies ; and this notice is the more remarkable, 
as Rome is not immediately on the coast, and the survey rarely extends to any 
place far inland. Aristotle also was not only acquainted with the fact that Rome 
was taken by the Gauls, but named an individual whom he called Lucius, 2 as its 

2e . Livy, V. 32. Plutarch, Camillus, 12. Dio- ony, but Scylax does not describe it as such ; 

nysius, X1TI. 6. whereas, in speaking of the cities on the Luca- 

1 For the date of the Periplus of Scylax, see nian and Iapygian coast, he expressly notices 

Niebuhrs essay in the first volume of his their Greek origin. 

" Kleine Historische Schriften," Bonn, 1828, p. 2 Plutarch, Camillus, 22. It need not be said, 

105 ;or, as translated by Mr. Hare, in the second that in the old times men were designated by 

number of the Philological Museum. I have their prsenouien rather than by their nomen or 

said that Scylax mentions no other Italian cities cognomen: and thus Aristotle would call L. 

but Rome and Ancona, with the exception of Furius "Lucius," rather than " Furius " or 

the Greek colonies. It is true that, according " Camillus,", just as Polybius calls Scipio "Pub- 

to other writers, Ancona itself was a Greek col- lius," and Kegulus " Marcus." 
11 



162 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XX 

deliverer. Heraclides Ponticus 3 even spoke of Rome as a Greek city, "which, while 
it shows the shallowness of his knowledge concerning it, proves also, that it was 
sufficiently famous in Greece, to make the Greeks think it worthy of belonging 
to their race and name ; and we see, besides, that a wide distinction was drawn 
between the Latins and the Etruscans, the latter of whom they always regarded 
as foreigners, while in the former they did but exaggerate the degree of connec- 
tion really subsisting between the two nations, whose kindred is proved by the 
resemblance of their languages. But the fame of the Gaulish invasion, the first 
great movement of barbarians breaking down upon the civilized countries of Europe 
from the north, which had occurred within historical memory, drew the attention 
of the Greeks more than ever towards Italy. And as this invasion led to a more 
general mixture of nation and nation, for less than twenty years afterwards we 
read of Gaulish cavalry in the service of Dionysius of Syracuse, and of their being 
sent by him to Peloponnesus to help the Lacedaemonians against Epaminondas ; 
so I may at this period draw up the curtain which has hitherto veiled from our 
view all countries and people beyond the immediate neighborhood of the Tiber, 
and look as widely over the face of the world as the fullest knowledge of Greeks 
or Carthaginians enabled them at this time to see either eastward or westward. 
The fall of Veii, and the submission of Capena and Falerii, have shown us that 
the greatness of the Etruscans was on the wane. In the days of 
their highest prosperity they had spread their dominion widely 
over Italy. »The confederacy of their twelve cities, each of which was again the 
head of a smaller confederacy of the neighboring towns, occupied the whole coun- 
try between the Tiber, the Macra, the Apennines, and the sea. But they were 
also to be found on the north of the Apennines, 4 and another Etruscan confeder- 
acy, consisting also of their favorite number of twelve cities, extended to the 
shores of the Adriatic, and possessed the plain of the Po, and of its tributary 
rivers to the north and south, from the sea as high as the Trebia. Bononia, 
under its older name of Felsina, Melpum, Mantua, and Atria,, with Cupra on the 
coast of the Adriatic, were Etruscan towns. Nor had their dominion been con- 
fined to the north of the Tiber ; a third confederacy of twelve cities had occupied 
Campania ; 5 and amongst these were Capua, Nola, Surrentum, and Salernum. 

3 Plutarch, Camillus, 22. Heraclides noticed endless question of the origin of the Etruscans. 
Eome in his treatise, Ilcpi ipvx'is ', and said that or of the comparative antiquity of their several 
a report had come from the west, telling how a settlements, I have thought it sufficient merely 
host had come from the land of the Ilyperbo- to notice the limits which their nation reached 
reans, without the Pillars of Hercules, and had at the time of its greatest power. 

taken a Greek city called Eome, which was situ- ° It is well known that Nicbubr doubts the 

ated somewhere in those parts about the great existence of this Campanian Dodeeapolis ; and 

sea. he thinks that the whole statement of Etruscan 

4 This is the positive statement of the ancient settlements in Campania is a mere mistake, aris- 
writers; as Livy, V". 33, Strabo, V. p. 2U>, ami ing out of the common confusion between the 
Verrius Flaccus and Carina, quoted by the in- Tyrrhenians and the Etruscans, lie says that 
terpreters of Virgil, -En. X. 198, in the Verona neither in the inscriptions found in Campania, 
MS. Niebuhr, agreeabh to his notion that the nor in the works of art, is there to be observed 
Etruscans came into Italy over the Alps, from any trace of an Etruscan population; and ho 
tin' north, and not by sea from Asia, considers thinks that in the days of the Etruscan great- 
their settlements in the valley of the Po to have ncss, that is, in the third century of Koine, we 
been older than those in Etruria. Miiller be- cannot conceive the possibility of Etruscan colo- 
licves them to have been of equal antiquity with nies being settled in Campania, while the inter- 
caeh other; the Etruscans, or Rasena. he holds veiling country between the Tiber and the Liris 
to have been an aboriginal people of Italy, sit- was occupied by the Romans and the Opican na- 
tled from time immemorial both on the north tions. See Vol. I. p. 74, 76j Eng. transl. Chiller, 
ami south sides of the Apennines. — (Etrusker, on the contrary, receives tne common account or 
Einleitung, III. § 1.) Micali places the original the ancient writers as containing in it nothing 
seat of the Etruscans in the Apennines : he improbable. Etensker, Einleitung, IV. I. Po- 
even ventures to fix on the precise spot, namely , 1\ bins' testimony is positive that the Etruscans 
the mountains which extend from the lnghpoinl possessed the Phlegrsean plains round Capua 
of La Fallon ma, above l he valley ot'the Sie\e, or and Nola,at the time when they were also in pos- 
ofMugello. (Storiadegliantichi popoli Ltaliani, session of the plains round the Po, II. 17. And 
Vol. 1. p. 106. ) From thence they descended there were writers whom Velleius Paterculuo 
first into Etruria. and afterwards, having become quotes as saying that Capua and Kola were 
a civili/.eil people, thej sent out their colonies founded by the Etruscans, about forty-eight 
into northern Italy. Without entering on the years before the common date of the foundation 



Chap. XX.] CONDITION" OF THE ETRUSCAX STATES. 163 

Nay, there are traditions and names which have preserved a record of a still more 
extended Etruscan sovereignty : there was a time when their settlements in Cam- 
pania must have been connected with those in Etruria by an uninterrupted line of 
conquered countries ; the Volscians 6 were once subject to the Etruscans ; the 
name of Tusculum seems to show that their power had penetrated into Latium ; 
and it is stated generally that they had possessed nearly the whole of Italy. 1 But 
from this their height of greatness they had long since fallen. Within historical 
memory they were only to be found in Etruria, on the Po, and in Campania ; but 
about half a century before the period at which we are now arrived, the Sam- 
nites had broken up their southern confederacy, and had wrested 8 from them 
Capua, and most of their other cities in that quarter ; while more recently, in the 
last year of the siege of Veii, 9 the conquest of their northern confederacy was 
completed by the Gauls. Thus there only remained the central confederacy of 
Etruria Proper, and even this had been broken in upon, as we have seen, by the 
loss of Veii. Still there were left to them the powerful cities of Tarquinii, Vetu- 
lonium, Volaterrse, and Pisa, on or near the coast ; and in the interior Vulsinii, 
Clusium, Perusia, Cortona, and Arretium. 

We are told that in early times 10 the Etruscans had enjoyed the dominion of 
the neighboring seas, as well as the land of Italy. About one hun- ™. . , ,. . 4 .„. 

O O ' J Their relations with the 

dred and fifty years before the fall of Veii, the Etruscans and Car- Gieeks - 
thaginians in the western part of the Mediterranean stood in nearly the same 
relation to the Greeks who ventured into those seas, as the Spaniards in the six- 
teenth and. seventeenth centuries did to the English in the West Indies and in 
South America. The Greeks were treated as interlopers, and they in their turn 
seem to have held, that there was no peace beyond the Straits of Messina. Dio- 
nysius of Phocaea, when he fled from the ruin of the Ionian cause in Asia Minor, 
after the sea-fight off Miletus, considered the Etruscans 11 and Carthaginians as his 
natural prey, just as Raleigh regarded the Spaniards ; and those treaties of com- 
merce between Etruria and Carthage, of which Aristotle 12 has preserved the mem- 
ory, provided, it is likely, not only for their relations with one another, but for their 
mutual defence against a nation whom both looked upon as their common enemy. 
But with the growth of the Greek cities in Sicily the maritime dominion of the 
Etruscans began to fall ; and after the great naval victory gained over them at 
Cuma by Gelon's brother and successor, Hiero, they sank from sovereigns of the 
sea to pirates ; and a few years afterwards, a very short time before the decem- 
virate at Rome, the Syracusans 13 sent a fleet to the coast of Etruria, with the 

of Eome. When Paterculus further quotes Cato, of the Oscan inhabitants ; just as Mastarna and 

as saying that Capua had been founded by the his followers once occupied Eome, or as the 

Etruscans, and yet that it lad existed only two Campanians afterwards occupied Messina. The 

hundred and sixty years gt the time of its con- Etruscan Dodccapolis, or confederacy of twelve 

quest by the Romans in She second Punic war, cities, if indeed it ever existed in Campania, must 

there is indeed a calculation not very easy to be have been founded undoubtedly at an earlier 

explained ; for this would place the foundation period ; and yet we need not conceive it much 

of the Etruscan Capua, or Vulturnum, only earlier than the beginning of the commonwealth 

about fifty years earlier than its conquest by the of Eome. 

Samnites, and in tha year of Eome 281, a period 6 Servius, Mn. XI. v. 567. 

at which it is indeed difficult to conceive of the 7 Servius, iEn. XL v. 567. 

Etruscans as establishing themselves for the first 8 Livy, IV. 37. 

time in Campania. The solution of the whole 9 Mel'pum, one of the richest cities in the conn- 
question is, probably, to be found in what Vir- try north of the Po, was said by Cornelius Ne- 
feil says of Mantua: "Gensilh triplex: .... pos [Pliny, Hist. Natur. III. 17] to have been 
Tusco de sanguine vires." The ruling portion destroyed by the Gauls on the very day on which 
of these Campanian cities was Etruscan, but the Camillus took Veii. What gave occasion to this 
bulk of the population was Oscan. Thus, when story, representing the coincidence as so very 
they were conquered by the Samnites, the marks exact, it is hard to guess ; but that generally the 
of the Etruscan dominion speedily vanished, .fall of the northern Etruscan confederacy was 
and the inscriptions which have reached our contemporary with the siege of Veii, is rendered 
times are naturally Oscan, as that continued to sufficiently probable by the appearance of the 
be the language of the mass of the people. The Gauls in Etruria Proper so soon afterwards, 
foundation of Capua and Nola by the Etruscans 10 Livy, V. 33. 
may, in fact, have been no more than their oc- " Herodotus, VI. 17. 
cupation by some bands of Etruscan adventu- 12 Politic. III. 9. 
rers, who may have been engaged in the service 13 Diodorus, XL 88. 



164 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XX 

avowed object of putting down their piracies. And yet we know there was an 
active commerce 14 carried on between Etruria and the cities of old Greece, so 
advantageous to both nations, that we can scarcely conceive how either of them 
could have allowed the robberies of its own people to hazard its interruption. It 
is possible, however, that what the Greeks call piracy was a system of vexations 
and violence carried on against Greek vessels in the Etruscan seas, with the view 
of keeping the trade exclusively in Etruscan hands ; and the robberies of which 
the Greeks complained were committed by the people of the small towns along 
the coast, who, not possessing natural advantages or wealth enough to engage on 
a large scale in commerce, turned their seamanship and enterprise to account in 
another way, and fitted out small vessels for piracy instead of the large ships 
employed for trading voyages. Thus it is expressly mentioned that the people 
of Csere, 15 which was a large and wealthy city, possessing its harbor on the coast 
for the convenience of its trade, were wholly free from the reproach of piratical 
practices thrown by the Greeks upon the mass of their countrymen. 

Nothing can be more unequal than the fate of the three sister islands of Sicily, 
Sardinia, and Corsica. Whilst the first of them has rivalled in its 
fame the most distinguished countries of Europe, the two latter 
have remained in obscurity from the earliest times down to the present hour. They 
seemed to repel that kindling spark of Greek civilization, which found so con- 
genial an element in Sicily ; and, therefore, as they did not receive what was the 
great principle of life in the ancient world, they were condemned to perpetual 
inactivity and helplessness. Of what race were the earliest inhabitants of Sar- 
dinia, we have no records to inform us. Settlers from Africa, not Carthaginians, 
but native Lybians, 16 are said to have crossed over to the island at a very remote 
period. They were followed at intervals, such was the Greek tradition, by some 
adventurers or fugitives from Greece and Asia Minor ; but these all belong to 
the mythic period, and the Greek settlements are said to have been afterwards 
utterly extirpated, whilst those from Asia, described as fugitives from Troy, were 
driven to the mountains and became barbarized. A more probable statement men- 
tions a colony of Iberians from Spain, the founders of Nora, 17 the oldest city in the 
island ; and during the height of the Etruscan dominion, the Etruscan colonists 
brouo-ht in a new element to the already mingled population. When the power 
of the Carthaginians began to grow, Sardinia soon attracted their notice; already, 
in the first year of the Roman commonwealth, eight-?nd-twenty years before the 
expedition of Xerxes, it is spoken of as belonging exclusively to their dominion, 
in their famous commercial treaty with Rome ; and at the period of the great Per- 
sian invasion of Greece, Sardinia is mentioned, together with Corsica, as furnishing 
mercenary soldiers' 8 to that great host with which Hamikar invaded Sicily, and 
which was destroyed by Gelon at Himera. Yet a few years before, when the 
Persians were overpowering the Greek commonwealths in Asia Minor, Sardinia 
was more than once looked to by the Ionions, 19 as offering their, a desirable refuge 
from the conquerors' dominion, and as affording every facility for a flourishing 
Greek colony. But it was to the Ionians of Asia like an unknown world ; and 
no sufficient number of colonists could be induced to join in the enterprise, while 
a small body would have been utterly unable to maintain its ground against the 
Carthaginians. Thus Sardinia remained subject to Carthage ; and as the Car- 
thaginians wanted it chiefly to supply their armies with soldiers, and to provide' 
harbors for (heir ships engaged in the trade with Etruria, they took no pains to 
improve its natural resources, but are said to have purposely kept waste 20 some 

14 Wc know this by the surest evidence, I5 Strabo, V. 2, § 3, p. 220. 

namely, by the vast quantities of Greek, and in '" Pansainka, X. 17. 

particular of Athenian pottery, found in the re- " Pausanias, X. 17. 

i-nit excavations at Vuloi and Tarq uinii. Bee ls Herodotus, VII. 165. 

the " Dkcoursde M. Buneen," in the sixth vol- ''•' Herodotus, I. 170, V. 124. 

lime of the "Annalideh" Institute di corrtepon- 2 " Aristotle, De mirabil. 100. 
ilenza aroheologica," p. 40, el 



Chap. XX.] CORSICA— CAMPANIA. 165 

of its most fertile districts, that no reports of its fertility might tempt thither what 
they above all things dreaded, a colony of Greeks. 

Corsica had undergone nearly the same course of events as, Sardinia. Its 
oldest inhabitants were Iberians and Ligurians ; it was then occu- . 
pied by the Etruscans, who after having, by the aid of the Cartha- 
ginians, effected the ruin of the Greek settlement of Aleria or Alalia, 21 and having 
shared the dominion of the island with their Carthaginian allies down to the time 
of the decemvirate at Rome, were now, in the general decline of their nation, 
leaving it entirely to the Carthaginians. Corsica was valuable for its timber and 
its mines, but its agriculture was of no account, and its native inhabitants were 
reckoned among the most untamable of barbarians. 22 

These were the countries which bounded the horizon of Rome to the north and 
west. Southward and eastward, beyond that belt of mountain 
country held by the Opican nations, the ^Equians and Volscians, 
which girt in L'atium from the Anio to the sea, there lay a country, destined ere 
long to be the favorite battle-field of the Romans, but a stranger to them as yet 
both in the relations of peace and of war. Campania, inhabited in the most re- 
mote times by the Sikelians, 23 then wrested from them by the Opicans, receiving 
at a very early period the first germ of Greek civilization, in the Chalcidian colony 
of «Cuma, and afterwards subjected, like so many other parts of Italy, to the 
wide-spreading dominion of the Etruscans, had lately, as we have seen, submitted 
to a new invader, the nation of the Samnites. The Samnites, a people of the Sa- 
bellian or Sabine race, had descended from their high valleys amidst the ranges 
of the divided line of the Apennines, and were now the ruling nation in Campa- 
nia, although they had by no means extirpated the older races of its inhabitants. 
On the contrary, they seem themselves to have almost melted away into the gen- 
eral mass of their mixed subjects ; the conquered did not become Samnites, but 
the conquerors became Campanians, the Opican or Oscan being the prevailing lan- 
guage, but the influence of the Greek colonies, Cuma and Neapolis, spreading 
powerfully around them, as usual, the arts and the manners of Greece. But the 
Samnite invasion, and the revolution which followed it, produced great disorder ; 
the old inhabitants, whom the conquerors despoiled of their property, were driven 
to maintain themselves by their swords ; the conquerors themselves had many ad- 
venturers amongst them, who preferred war with the prospect of fresh plunder, 
to a peaceful life in the country which thej^ had won ; and thus for more than a 
century we read of numerous bands of Campanian or Opican mercenaries, partly 
Samnite and partly Oscan, employed in the wars of Sicily, as if foreign service 
had been one of the principal resources of the nation. It is mentioned that eight 
hundred of them were engaged by the Chalcidian Greeks of Cuma or Neapolis, 24 
to serve in the Athenian armament against Syracuse ; but that arriving in Sicily 
after the destruction of the Athenians, they were hired by the Carthaginians. 

As a new people had thus arisen in Campania, so new names and a new power 
had lately come into notice in the south of Italy. From Thurii to invasion of the south of 
Rheoium, on the shore of the Ionian sea, from Rhegium to Posi- Italy by the Lucaniana - 
donia on the Tyrrhenian sea, the numerous Greek colonies which lined both 
coasts were settled in a country known to the early Greek writers by the names 
of Italia and 03notria. 25 The natives of the interior, 03notrians and Chonians, 
had for many years past wanted either the will or the power to offer serious an- 
noyance to the Greeks ; and when Sybaris was destroyed by its neighbor city 
Croton, the natives took no advantage of these internal quarrels, and a new 
Greek colony, Thurii, arose in the place of Sybaris, without any opposition on 
their part. But the latter part of the fifth century before the Christian aera, in 
other words, the early part of the fourth century of Rome, and the period of the 

21 Herodotus, I. 166. M Diodorus, XIII. 4A. 

22 Strabo, V. 2, 6, 7, p. 224. 25 Aristotle, Politica, VII. 10. Herodotus, I. 

23 Thucydides, VI. 2. 167. 



166 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XX. 

Peloponnesian war, was a time marked by natural as well as political calamities 
beyond all remembered example. The pestilences, which we have already no- 
ticed as causing such havoc at Rome and throughout Latium, travelled, we may 
be sure, into Samnium also ; their visitations are often accompanied by unfavor- 
able seasons, which cause scarcity or famine ; and the distress occasioned by one 
or both of these scourges, may have led to those movements amongst the Sam- 
nites, which at this period so greatly changed the face of Italy. On one side, as 
we have seen, they broke in upon the Opicans of the valley of the Vulturnus and 
the country round Vesuvius ; on another they overwhelmed the CEnotrians and 
Chonians, 26 and spread themselves as far as the Ionian sea. The tribe or mixed 
multitude which moved on this expedition southwards, was afterwards known by 
the name of Lucanians. It does not follow that they were numerous, far less 
are we to suppose that they extirpated the older inhabitants ; but as conquerors 
they gave their name to the country, and till they gradually became a settled 
people, they were the terror of the Greek colonies. It is probable that many of 
the CEnotrians became barbarized by the oppressions and example of their con- 
querors, and that the whole population of the interior, known under one common 
name of Lucanians, carried on a restless plundering warfare against the Greek 
cities on both coasts of the peninsula. Posidonia fell into their hands, and the 
Greek inhabitants, like the Opicans of Capua, became a subject people in their 
own city ; and so general was the terror excited by the Lucanian inroads, that 
the Greeks formed a leao-ue 27 amongst themselves for their mutual defence, and 
if any city was backward in coming to the rescue, when summoned to aid against 
the Lucanians, its generals were to be put to death. But whilst the barbarians 
were thus driving them to the sea, another enemy drove them back from the sea 
to the barbarians. Dionysius of Syracuse had formed an alliance with the Lu- 
canians, hoping, with their aid, to obtain possession of the Greek cities ; he re- 
peatedly invaded Italy, destroyed Caulon and Hipponium, and made himself 
master of Rhegium. 

When the Lucanians first became formidable to the Italian Greeks, they were 
character of the Luca- stigmatized as a horde of the lowest barbariaus, 28 a mixed band 
nians - of robbers, swelled by fugitive slaves, and desperate adventurers 

of every description. But when time had converted the invaders and plunderers 
of CEnotria into its regular inhabitants and masters, when the Lucanians had an 
opportunity of displaying the better points of their character, then the contrast 
between their simple and severe manners, and the extreme profligacy of the 
Greek colonies, could not fail to attract attention. " The Lucanians," says Her- 
aclides Ponticus, 29 " are a hospitable and an upright people." And another tes- 
timony 30 declares that " amongst the Lucanians, extravagance and idleness are 
punishable crimes ; and if any man lends money to a notorious spendthrift, the 
law will not, enable him to recover it." We find similar praises bestowed by 
Scymnus of Chios on the Illyrians, who a century before his time had been infa- 
mous for their piracies. But when a rude people have lost somewhat of their 
ferocity, and have not yet acquired the vices of a later stage of civilization, their 
character really exhibits much that is noble and excellent, and both in its good 
and bad points it so captivates the imagination, that it has always been regarded 
by the writers of a more advanced state of society with an admiration even be- 
yond its merits. 

The extreme southeastern point, the heel of Italy, was the country of the 

86 Strabo, VI. 1, § 2, 3, p. 253, 254. latter part of the fourth century before the 

21 Diodoros, XIV. 101. Christian ara: he was a disciple or Plato, Speu- 

-" We Athenians, says Isoorates, j>anv ptraSl- Bippus, and Aristotle. See Fjnes Clinton, Fasti 

iojitv rots jSovAo/i/i'oij Tourr/s ti)s tvytvdixs !jTpij3uX- IK lUn. Vol. 111. Appendix Xll. 

Xol Kal AtvKavoi t?ic avruiv SvaXcvdas. l)e Pace, ^ Nicolas Damascenus, de moribus gentium. 

g 62, p. 169. Artie. "Lueani." He lived in the Augustan 

m DePolitiissiverebuspublicis. Artic. H IiU- age. 
cani." Heraclides Ponticus flourished in the 



Chap. XX.] DIONYSIUS OF SICILY. 1 67 

lapygians or Apulians, the one being the Greek and the other the 

Latin form of the same name. 31 They stretched round the Iapy- 

gun cape, and were to be found along the coast of the Adriatic, as far as the 

headland of Garganus. But neither these nor the Sabellian nations immediately 

beyond them, nor the Umbrians, who lived again still further to the northwest, 

and joined the Etruscan settlements on the shores of the Adriatic, were, as yet, 

become famous in history. 

There was, however, a movement beginning about this period on the east of 
Italy, which threatened to lead to the most important conse- 
quences. Dionysius of Syracuse, unsatisfied with his Sicilian do- ma of Syracuse in the 

* . . ill* <~* ip i j. a* _£■!!(? affairs of south Italy. 

minion, and looking to Greece itself as the most tempting held or 
ambition to every Greek, was desirous of getting a footing on the coast of Epi- 
rus, and of establishing a naval power in the Ionian sea and the Adriatic. Ac- 
cordingly he entered into an alliance with the Ulyrians, 32 and, unless there is a 
confusion between the two names, he occupied both the island of Issa, 33 the mod- 
ern Lissa, and the town of Lissus 34 on the main land, a little to the north of Epi- 
damnus, and kept a fleet regularly stationed at this latter settlement, to uphold 
the reputation of his power. But there is a statement in Pliny 36 and other wri- 
ters, that Ancona, Mumana, and Adria, on the coast of Italy, were also Sicilian 
settlements. Adria is expressly said to have been founded by Dionysius, and 
his intercourse with these countries is further shown by the fact, that he was in 
the habit of importing the Venetian horses, 36 as the best breed for racing ; the 
great games of Greece being to him, as they had been to Alcibiades, an object 
of peculiar interest and ambition. Strabo also calls Ancona a Syracusan colony, 31 
but ascribes its foundation to some exiles who fled from the tyranny of Dionys- 
ius. That there was a Greek population there, and that the Greek language 
was prevalent, is proved hy its coins ; yet on the other hand, Scylax, though he 
names Ancona, does not call it a Greek city, a circumstance which he rarely or 
never admits, when he is speaking of Greek cities built on a foreign coast. The 
probability is, that the death of Dionysius, and the subsequent decline of his 
power, left these remote colonies to themselves ; that their communication with 
Greece and Sicily was greatly checked by the growing piracies of the Ulyrians, 
and that they admitted, either willingly or by necessity, an intermixture of bar- 
barian citizens from the surrounding nations, which destroyed or greatly impaired 
their Greek character. But it marks the power of Dionysius, that at one and 
the same time he should have been founding colonies on the coast of the Adri- 
atic, and that on the other side of Italy he should have been master of the sea 
without opposition, insomuch that, under pretence of restraining the piracies of 
• 

31 See Niebuhr, Vol. I. p. 151; Ed. 1827. ness of so famous a man. But Diodorus must 

32 Diodorus, XV. 13. have left out something in the middle of the 

33 Scymnus Chius, V. 413. Scylax also calls passage, and joined the end with the beginning 
Issa a Greek city. with most extraordinary carelessness ; ix ravrrn 

34 Diodorus, XV. 13, 14. It is hard to account; never could have referred to rfiv vo\iv rr)v ovofna- 
tbii the strange state of the actual text of Diodo- (,0/j.ivw Ataadv, but, as I should suppose, to Syr- 
rus, in which, after mentioning the foundation of acuse, such as it was when Dionysius first be- 
Lissus, it goes on, « raurifs ovv hp/xii/ievo; Atovuo- came tyrant. Some mention of Syracuse must 
to; KaTzaKiiaat vmpia.K. r. A. describing, in three have preceded the description of the docks and 
lines, the great works of Dionysius at Syracuse, walls, and the expression, rfj -k6\u, as at present 
which Diodorus had already mentioned at the sentence is either wholly ungrammatical, or 
length in the preceding book, and which have is mere nonsense. Mitford really supposes that 
no intelligible connection with the foundation £k Tairris refers to Lissus, and talks of the ad- 
of Lissus. It is a curious specimen of the patch- vantages derived from this colony giving Dio- 
work of so many of the ancient histories ; for nysius the means of building clocks, &c, at Syr- 
the whole passage, beginning at Udptoi Kara riva acuse ; an interpretation equally at variance 
Xpriciiov, and going down to the end of the chap- with grammar and with history. 

ter, is taken apparently from some account 35 Hist. Natural. III. 18. Numana a Siculis 

either of Paros, or of the Greek settlements in condita ; ab iisdem colonia Ancona. Etymolo- 

the western seas, where the writer having been gic. Magn. in "ASpias. 

led accidentally to mention Dionysius, avpnpdZ- 36 Strabo, V. 1, § 4, p. 212. 

avros avroTs Atovvalov tov rvpavvov, took the op- 37 V. 4, § 2, p. 241. 

portunity to give a brief sketch of the great- 



168 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXL 

the Etruscans, he appeared with a fleet of sixty triremes 38 on the coast of Etruria, 
passed the mouth of the Tiber almost within sight of Rome, landed on the terri- 
tory of Caere, defeated the inhabitants who came out to resist him, sacked their 
sea-port of Pyrgi, and carried off from the plunder of the temple of Leucothea, 39 
or Mater Matuta, a sum computed at no less than a thousand talents. 

The mention of this eminent man leads me naturally to Sicily, to take some 
notice of the heart and root of that mighty dominion which spread out its arms 
so widely and so vigorously. Besides, the Roman history has hitherto presented 
us with nothing but general pictures, or sketches rather, of the state of the com- 
monwealth as a whole : individuals have been as little prominent as the fio-ures 
in a landscape : they have been too subordinate, and occupied too small a space 
in the picture, to enable us to form any distinct notion of their several features. 
But Dionysius outtopped by his personal renown the greatness of the events in 
which he was an actor ; he stood far above all his contemporaries, as the most 
remarkable man in the western part of the civilized world. We may be allowed, 
then, to overstep the limits of Italy, and to consider the fortunes and character 
of a man who was the ruler of Syracuse and of Sicily, during a period of nearly 
forty years in the middle of the fourth century of Rome. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

DIONYSIUS THE ELDER, TYRANT OF SYRACUSE. 



TldTzXiov 'ZKiTidivd (pacri epwrvSii'Ta. riva; viroXapfldvti vpaypaTiKwrdTovs aiSpa; ytyovivai Kal avv vlo 
To^;(r;pora'rouf. ziittiv, rods ftp? 'A-yaSoKXia Kal Atovvoiov tov; YiKc\id>-as. — Kai ntpl piv t&v Toioimay 
avtpwv tij tirisraaiv aytiv tov; avayiviaaKovras .... Kal Ka$6\ov -rrpoari^hai tov l-ntK&i&daKOVTa \6yov — 
apiid^u. — PoLYBIOS, XV. 35. 



The history of colonies seldom offers the noblest specimens of national char- 
acter. The Svracusan people, made up, in the course of a loner 

State of Syracuse be-. . . •> . * t n • <• i • 1 

fore the tyranny of alternation oi tyrannies and tactions, out ot the most various ele- 
ments, had been bound together by no comprehensive code of 
laws, and, from their very circumstances, they could not find a substitute for 
such a code in the authority of ancient and inherited rites of religion, and of the 
manners and customs of their fathers. 

The richer citizens, who often possessed very large fortunes, were always sus- 
Hennocrates and Db- pected, and probably not without reason, of aiming at making 
cle8 " themselves tyrants ; whilst the people, possessing actual power. 

yet feeling that its tenure was precarious, were disposed to be suspicious, even 
beyond measure, and were prone to violence and cruelty. The Athenian inva- 
sion, by obliging the Syracusans to tit out a great naval force, had increased, as 
usual, the power of the poorer classes, 1 who always formed the great mass of 
the seamen in the Greek commonwealths : while, on the other hand, although 
Hermocrates, one of the most, eminent of die aristocratical leaders, had person- 
ally displayed great courage and ability, and although the cavalry in which the 

M Diodoros, XV. 14. Paeudo- Aristotle, CEoo- Aristotle. "Leucothee Grsecis, Matuta vooa- 
nom. II. p. 1849. Ed. Bekker. bere nostris." Ovid, Fasti, VI. 545. 

** 'EAu/Jtv Ik tov Trji AtvKoQias hpov. IViiulo- ' Aristotle, Politic. V. 4. 



Chap. XXL] CODE OF DIOCLES. 1G9 

richest citizens served had always acquitted itself well, yet the heavy-armed in- 
fantry, which contained the greatest proportion of the upper classes, had gained 
little credit ; and the victory over the invaders had been won by the seamen of 
Syracuse far more than by its soldiers. Thus the popular party became greatly 
strengthened by the issue of the invasion : Hermocrates and some of his friends 
were banished, 2 while Diodes, the head of the popular party, a man somewhat 
resembling the tribune Rienzi, a sincere and stern reformer, but whose zealous 
imagination conceived schemes beyond his power to compass, endeavored at 
once to give to his countrymen 3 a pure democracy, and to establish it on its only 
sure foundation, by building it upon a comprehensive system of national law. 

Of the details of this code we know nothing. Diodorus ascribes to it the high 
merits of conciseness and precision, and while he speaks of it as 
severe, he praises it for its discrimination in proportioning its pun- 
ishments to the magnitude of the crime. But its best praise is, that it continued 
to enjoy the respect, not only of the Syracusans, but of other Sicilian states 
also, till the Roman law superseded it. This was the law of Syracuse, and Dio- 
des was the lawgiver : while others, who in the time of Timoleon, and again in 
the reign of Hiero, either added to it, or modified it, were called by no other 
title than expounders of the law ; 4 as if the only allowed object for succeeding 
legislators was to ascertain the real meaning of the code of Diodes, and not to 
alter it. 

But democracjr and law, when first introduced amongst a corrupt and turbu- 
lent people, require to be fostered under the shelter of profound Efforts of the aristocrat- 
peace. Unluckily for Diodes, his new constitution was born to ioal P art y fl 6 uiliBt it- 
stormy times ; its promulgation was coincident with the renewal of the Cartha- 
ginian invasions of Sicily, after an interval of nearly a century. " War," says 
Thucydides, 5 "makes men's tempers as ha'rd as their circumstances." The 
Syracusan government was engaged in an arduous struggle ; the power of its 
enemy was overwhelming, while every failure in military operations bred an in- 
crease of suspicion and disaffection at home. Then the aristocratical party be- 
gan, as they are wont to do, to use popular language, in order to excite the 
passions of the multitude, and thus make them the instruments of their own 
ruin. They encouraged the cry of treason and corruption against the generals 
of the commonwealth ; and personal profligacy was united with party zeal. 
Hippaiinus was a member of the aristocratical party ; he was also a desperate 
man, because he had ruined himself by his extravagance ; 6 both these causes 
united made him anxious to overthrow the popular government ; and looking 
about for a fit instrument to accomplish his purpose, he found and brought for- 
ward Dionysius. 

• There must have been no ordinary promise of character in Dionysius to lead to 
such a choice. He was a young man under five-and-twenty, 1 not E ari y character of Mo- 
distinguished for his birth or fortune, and his personal condition nysius- 
was humble ; he was a clerk 8 in some one of the departments of the public busi- 
ness. But he had been a follower of Hermocrates, and had accompanied him in 
his attempt to effect his return from exile by force, and had been wounded 9 in 
the conflict which took place on that occasion, and in which Hermocrates was 
killed. He was brave, active, and eloquent; the wealth 10 and influence of a 

2 Xenoph. Hellenic. I. i. § 27. Thucydides, 10 It is said that at the beginning of Ms career, 
VIII. 85. when he was fined, on one occasion, by the mag- 

3 Diodorus, XIII. 34, 35. _ istrates for addressing the people irregularly, 

4 'EfyyriTTiv tov vonoderov. Diod. XIII. 35. Philistus, the historian, a man of large property, 

5 III. 82. Blatos iiSdoKaXo;, Kai Ttpos ranapovTa paid the fine for him, and told him to go on 
ra; 6pya$ tUv ttoWuv byioioi. speaking as much as he pleased, and that as 

6 Aristotle, Politica, V. 6. often as the magistrates fined him, so often 

7 Cicero, Tusculan. Disputat. V. 20. would he continue to discharge the fine for him. 

8 Demosthenes, Leptines, prope finem. Diodorus, XIII. 91. 

9 Diodorus, XIII. 75. 



170 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXL 

powerful party supported him, and he came forward when men's minds were 
wrought up to the highest pitch of alarm and irritation ; for Agrigentum, after 
a seven months' siege, had been taken and sacked by the Carthaginians, and the 
fugitives who fled to Syracuse for shelter, ascribed the loss of their city to the 
misconduct of the Syracusan generals, who had been sent to its relief, and had 
allowed it to fall unprotected. 

The popular party was no longer headed by Diodes. We do not know the 
exact time or occasion of his death, but the circumstances attend- 
ing it are most remarkable. One of the laws of his code had de- 
nounced the penalty of death against any man who came into the market-place 
armed. This was especially directed, no doubt, against the aristocratical party, 
who were apt to resort to violence, 11 in order to break up or intimidate the as- 
semblies of the people, or to revenge themselves on any of the more obnoxious 
popular leaders. It happened that Diodes had marched out of the city on an 
alarm of some hostile inroad, perhaps that very attempt 12 of Hermocrates to get 
back to Syracuse by force, which has been already noticed. But he was sud- 
denly recalled by the news that the enemy were in the city, and, armed as he 
was, he hastened back to meet theirf, and found them already in possession of 
the market-place. A private citizen, most probably after the fray was over, 
when the death of so eminent a citizen as Hermocrates would be deeply felt, 
even by many of his political adversaries, called out to Diodes, in allusion to his 
having appeared in arms in the market-place, " Ah, Diodes, thou art making 
void thine own laws !" " Nay rather," was his reply, " I will ratify them thus ;" 
and he instantly stabbed himself to the heart. Such a spirit, so sincere, and so 
self-devoted, might well have been the founder of freedom and of legal order for 
his country, and saved her, had his life been prolonged, from the selfish ambi- 
tion of Dionysius. 

His place at the head of the government was supplied, inadequately, as it ap- 
Restoration ? f the ark- pears, by Daphnes us and Demarchus. 13 Dionysius played the 
tocraucai exiles. demagogue ably ; inveighing against the incapacity of the gen- 

erals, representing them as men of overweening influence, 14 and urging that the 
people would do well to choose in their place men of humbler means, whom they 
would be able more effectually to control. Accordingly the assembly deposed 
their actual jrenerals, and elected others in their room, and amono-st these -was 
Dionysius. Thus far successful, he ventured on a more decisive measure, a gen- 
eral recall of exiled citizens. 15 It should be remembered, that in the continual 
struggles between the aristocratical and popular parties throughout Greece, the 
triumph of one side was accompanied by the banishment of the most forward 
supporters of the other. Every state had thus always its exiles, like the fuo- 
ruscili of the Italian republics, whose absence 16 was essential to the maintenance 
of the existing order of things, and whose recall was equivalent to £ revolution. 

11 As the aristocrats at Corcyra broke into the " Diodorus, XIII. 96. Daphn&us had corn- 
oouncil-honse with daggers, and murdered the manded the Syracusan troops which had been 
heads of the popular party to the number of scut ineffectually to the relief of Agrigentum. 
aboul sixty, partly to escape from the payment Diodorus, XIII. 86. Demarchus was one of the 
of a fine which they had lawfully incurred, and generals sent to supersede Hermocrates in the 
partly to prevent the passing of a decree for an command of the auxiliary force which was co- 
alliance with Adieus. Thuoyd. III. 70. operating with the Peloponnesians, on the coast 
l - It is true that, according to Diodorus, Dio- ot Asia Minor, against the Athenians. Thuoyd. 
clcs had been banished Borne time before [XIII. VHI. 85. 

75]; but bis accounl of the affairs of Syracuse, M Diodorus, XIII. 91. Aristotle, Politica, V. 

between the Athenian expedition andthetyr- 5. aioiwkh Kartj-yopdv ^a<j>vaiw nal ribv nXovolwv 

anuy of Dionysius, is exceedingly fragmentary, ii^mOti tTh rvpawidos, &i& t>> exOpuv ntartvOe'is £>j 

and observes no chronological order. It may irniortKbi uv. 
be, then, that Diodes had been recalled pre- u Diodorus, XIII. 92. 

> to the final attempt of Hermocrates ; at " Thus it was one of the clauses in the oath 

be circumstances or that attempt, and of taken by every member of the court of Helisea, 

the affray which led to the death of 1 ftooies, bear at Athena, " that be would not recall those eiti- 

a remarkable resemblance to each other. See zens who were in exile." Demosthenes, Timoc- 

Diodorus, XIII. 33 and 75. rates, p. 746. 



Chap. XXL] GENERAL POLICY OF DIOHTSIUS. 171 

The Syracusan exiles were the youth of the aristocratical pai'ty, the friends and 
comrades of Hermocrates, bold and enterprising, proud and licentious, the coun- 
terparts of Kseso Quinctius and of the supporters of the decemvir Appius ; men 
whose natural hatred and scorn of the popular party was embittered by the 
recollection of their exile. An obdurate spirit is not the vice of a democracy ; 
the kindly feelings of the people, their sympathies with youth and high birth, 
their hopes and their fears were alike appealed to ; the tide was already setting 
towards aristocracy ; the assembly decreed a general recall of the exiles, and the 
revolution from that moment became inevitable. 

The overthrow of the constitution of Diodes and of the popular party was 
sure ; but it was owing to the terror of the Carthaginian arms, and 
the personal ascendency of Dionysius, that there was set up in its captain-general of the 

, x i , . < ■ i • , i r ■ i commonwealth. 

place the despotism or a single man, instead or an aristocracy. 
Dionysius continued to attack his colleagues, 17 no less than the generals who had 
preceded them ; " they were selling Syracuse to the Carthaginians," he said ; 
" they were withholding the soldiers' pay, and appropriating the public money to 
themselves ; he could not endure to act with such associates, and was resolved 
therefore to lay down his office." A dictatorship is the most natural government 
for seasons of extraordinary peril, when there appears a man fit to wield it. The 
terror of the coalition drove the French, amidst the full freshness of their enthu- 
siasm for liberty, to submit to the despotism of the committee of public safety ; 
and Dionysius, bowing all minds to his ascendency by the mighty charm of supe- 
rior genius, was elected sovereign commander of the commonwealth. 18 It is said 
that Hipparinus, who first brought him forward, was appointed as his nominal 
colleague ; with as much of real equality of power as was enjoyed by Lebrun and 
Cambaceres when they were elected consuls along with Napoleon. 

From this time forward Dionysius retained the supreme power in Syracuse till 
his death, a period of nearly forty years. When he first assumed 
the government, the Peloponnesian war was not yet ended : and 
one of his latest measures was to send aid to his allies the Lacedaemonians, when 
Sparta itself was threatened with conquest by an army of the Theban confeder- 
acy, headed by Epaminondas. In the course of this long reign he had to contend 
more than once with domestic, enemies, and was always more or less engaged in 
hostility with Carthage. The first he crushed, and from the last, although re- 
duced on one occasion to the extremest jeopardy, he came forth at last triumph- 
ant. Without entering into a regular account of his life and actions, it will be 
enough to take a general view of his government in some of its most important 
relations at home and abroad. 

Dionysius owed his elevation, as we have seen, to the ascendency of his own 
genius, acting upon minds agitated by suspicion of their own gov- ^^ aimir3 . stBto 
ernment, and by intense fear of the progress of the Carthaginians. of P arties - 
The recall of the exiles gave him a number of devoted partisans, and the war led 
to the employment of a large body of mercenary soldiers, who both from inclina- 
tion and interest would be disposed to support an able and active general. These 
remained faithful to him 19 when his ill success against the Carthaginians, in the 

17 Diodorus, XIII. 94. _ also should be invested with these full powers, 

18 ZTparriybs aliToKpdrwp. It is not to he sup- and that the people should take the oath which, 
posed that this title conferred that unconstitu- in fact, conveyed them, namely, "that they 
tional and absolute power which the Greeks would let their generals exercise their command 
called " tyranny." It implied merely an unre- at their discretion." See Thucydides, VI. 26, 
strioted power of conducting the operations of 72. But as the perpetual dictatorship at Eome 
the war, and released the general from the ne- was equivalent to a tyranny, so Dionysius, by 
cessity of consulting the government at home retaining his command for an unlimited time, 
as to his measures, and of communicating his and abusing the military power which it gave 
plans to them. It was the title conferred on M- him for purposes wholly foreign to its proper 
cias and his colleagues by the Athenians, when objects, did, in fact, convert it into a political 
they sent their great expedition to Sicily; and despotism. 

after the Syracusans had sustained their first 19 Diodorus, XIII. 112, 113. 
defeat, Hermocrates urged that their generals 



172 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXI 

very first year of his government, had shaken his popularity amongst the Syr- 
acusans, and encouraged them to attempt an insurrection. Nor was it the old 
popular party to whom he was most obnoxious, but the citizens of the richer 
classes, who as they would have rejoiced in the overthrow of the democracy, so 
were no way pleased to see it succeed by the despotism of a single man, under 
which they were sure to be the greatest sufferers. And partly, perhaps, from 
this very reason the poorer classes began to be better affected to his government, 
and he showed a desire to win their attachment. The knights, or richest class, 
fled from Syracuse in great numbers, or were banished, or put to death ; 20 a great 
mass of landed property was thus placed at his disposal ; and there was, besides, 
as in every state of the ancient world, a considerable amount also of public land, 
of which wealthy individuals had ordinarily a beneficial occupation. With all 
these means in his power, he put in practice the two grand expedients of revolu- 
tionary leaders, a large admission of new citizens, and a division of the public and 
confiscated land amongst them. The new citizens were many of them enfranchised 
slaves, to whom he assigned houses in Syracuse, as well as portions of land in the 
country. Thus the state of parties had assumed a new form ; the better part of 
both the old aristocratical and popular interests were drawn together by their 
common danger, while Dionj^sius was supported by a few individuals of the rich- 
est class who shared in the advantages of the tyranny, by the mercenary soldiers, 
and by the lowest portion of the whole population, who owed to him their polit- 
ical existence. 

Accordingly, as the knights had shown their hostility to his government, so 
„ . , also did that large body of citizens of the middle classes, who in 

Fruitless attempt to . . ° J . , " , 

overthrow the power of the ancient commonwealths composed the heavy-armed infantry. 
When Dionysius led them into the field to make war against the 
Sikelians (the old inhabitants of Sicily, whom the Greek colonies had driven from 
the coast into the interior of the island), they openly rose against his authority, 21 
and invited the exiled knights to join them. This was one of the greatest dangers 
of his life ; he fled to Syracuse, and was there besieged ; but the strength of the 
walls protracted the siege, and time led to divisions and quarrels amongst the 
besiegers. Meantime Dionysius engaged the services of a body of those Cam- 
panian mercenaries, 22 whose reputation for valor was so high at this period in 
Sicily, and by their aid he defeated his antagonists. But, wishing to break effect- 
ually so formidable a combination, he offered an amnesty 23 to all who would re- 
turn and live quietly in Syracuse ; and finding that few onl ■ of the exiled knights 
accepted this offer, and feeling that the class of heavy-armed citizens was no less 
hostile to him, he took advantage of the ensuing harvest, when the citizens were 
engaged in getting in their corn in the country, and sent parties of soldiers 24 to 
their houses in Syracuse to carry off their arms. After this he began to increase 
his navy, the seamen being now the class of citizens on whom he could most rely, 
and further strengthened himself hy raising an additional force of mercenaries. 
From this time till his death, a period of nearly thirty-seven years, the govern- 
, , ment of Dionysius met with no further disturbance from any do- 

Causos of tlio perma- . .''_,. i-iii 1 

<" i <>f Li » govem- mestic enemies. Lio-ht years afterwards, indeed, when the great 

Carthaginian armament under Imilcon was besieging Syracuse, an 
attempt was made 25 by some of the knights to excite the people against him, and 
Theodorus is said to have attacked him in the public assembly as the author of 
all the calamities of his country. But the influence of the commander of a Lace- 
daemonian auxiliary force 26 then at Syracuse was exerted strongly in his favor; his 

20 Diodorus, XIII. II:'., XIV. 7. known expedients of tin Greek tyrants to ob- 

91 Diodorus, XIV. 7. tain or to Becure their power, 'iv mipatpt<m> 

-' Diodorns, XIV. B. iroioOvrai tu>v faXuv (soil, ol ripavvot), says Aris- 

23 Diodorus, XIV. 9. totle, implying that it was their ordinary man- 

-' Diodorus, XIV. 10. This is the napatpean ner of proceeding. Politico, V. Id 

rffiv SirXuv, the disarming of these classes which -' Diodorus, XIV. G-i, 65. 

usually possessed arms, one of the most well- 20 Diodorus, XIV. 70. 



Chaf. XXI.] TYRANNY OF HIS GOVERNMENT. 173 

own mercenaries were formidable ; and in a season of such imminent danger from 
a foreign enemy, many even of those who disliked bis government would think 
it inexpedient to molest it. On this occasion he tried all means to win popularity, 
mixing familiarly with the poorer citizens, gratifying some by presents, and ad- 
mitting others to those common tables or messes of the soldiers, which were kept 
at the public expense. 27 But the permanent security of his dominion rested on 
his mercenary troops, who were ever ready to crush the beginnings of a tumult, 
on his own suspicious vigilance, on the ascendency of his firm and active charac- 
ter, and on the mutual jealousies and common weakness of the old aristocratical 
and popular parties, among whom there seems to have been no eminent man ca- 
pable of opposing so able a tyrant as Dionysius. It should be remembered that 
the far weaker government of the second Dionysius was only overthrown, in the 
first instance, by the defection of a member of his own family ; and when he was 
expelled a second time, the Syracusans could find no competent leader amongst 
themselves ; they were obliged to invite Timoleon from Corinth. 

All the ancient writers, without exception, call the government of Dionysius a 
tyranny. 28 This, as is well known, was with them no vague and Hi3 g 0vem ment was a 
disputable term, resting on party impressions of character, and thus *y rann y- 
liable to be bestowed or denied according to the political opinions of the speaker 
or writer. It describes a particular kind of government, the merits of which 
might be differently estimated, but the facts of its existence admitted of no dis- 
pute. Dionysius was not a king, because hereditary monarchy was not the con- 
stitution of Syracuse ; he was not the head of the aristocratical party, enjoying 
supreme power, inasmuch as they were in possession of the government, and he 
was their most distinguished member : on the contrary, the richer classes were 
opposed to him, and he found his safety in banishing them in a mass, and confis- 
cating their property. Nor was he the leader of a democracy, like Pericles and 
Demosthenes, all powerful, inasmuch as the free love and admiration of the peo- 
ple made his will theirs ; for what democratical leader ever surrounded himself 
with foreign mercenaries, or fixed his residence in the citadel, 29 or kept up in his 
style of living and in the society which surrounded him the state and luxury of a 
king's court ? He was not an hereditary constitutional king, nor the leader of 
one of the great divisions of the commonwealth : but he had gained sovereign 
power by fraud, and maintained it by force ; he represented no party, he sought 
to uphold no ascendency but that of his own individual self ; and standing thus 
apart from the sympathies of his countrymen, his objects were essentially selfish, 
his own safety, his own enjoyments, his own power, and his own glory. Feeling 

27 Diodorus, XIV. 70. _ Tiiaj St hi to. avw'ma a sort of privileged order. And thus the offer 
TrapeXdnPavc. That this institution of syssitia, of admission to such a society would he an effect- 
or common tables, was not peculiar to the La- ual bribe to many, as being at once a benefit 
cedsemonians, is well known. It was practised and a distinction. 

at Carthage, and even its first origin was as- 2S Even Xenophon calls him " Dionysius the 

cribed, not to any Greek people, but to the tyrant." (Hellenic. II. 2, § 24.) It is remark- 

(Enotrians of the south of Italy. See Aristotle, able, however, and confirms Mebuhr's opinion 

Politic. II. 11, VII. 10. Aristotle blames the that the Hellenics contain two distinct works, 

Lacedemonians for altering the character of the and that the five last books were written many 

institution by making each individual contrib- years later than the two first, when Xenophon's 

nte his portion, instead of causing the whole feelings were become more completely aristo- 

expense to be defrayed by the public. The ob- cratical or antipopular, that in the latter books 

ject of the common tables was to promote a so- Dionysius is not called tyrant, but is spoken of 

cial and brotherly feeling amongst those who simply as " Dionysius," or as " the first Dionys- 

metatthem; and especially with a view to their ius." The offensive appellation was not to be 

becoming more confident in each other, so that bestowed on the ally of Lacedfemon and Agesi- 

in the clay of battle they might stand more firmly laus. 

together, and abide by one another to the death. 29 Mitford's mistake in supposing that the 

With Dionysius, these common tables would be island at Syracuse was not the citadel ; and ar- 

confined to his guards, or to such of the sol- guing that Dionysius was not a tyrant, because 

diers as he could most rely on ; they would be he resided amongst the " nautic multitude," 

maintained at his expense, and would be used and not on the heights of Epipolas, which Mit- 

as a means of keeping up a high and exclusive ford imagines to have been the citadel, will be 

feeling amongst their members, as belonging to shown in a subsequent note. 



174 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXL 

that he had no right to be where he was, he was full of suspicion and jealousy, 
and oppressed his subjects with taxes at once heavy and capriciously levied, not 
only that he might enrich himself, but that he might impoverish and weaken them. 
A government carried on thus manifestly for the good of one single governor, 
with an end of such unmixed selfishness, and resting mainly upon the fear, not 
the love, of its people ; with whatever brilliant qualities it might happen to be 
gilded, and however free it might be from acts of atrocious cruelty, was yet called 
by the Greeks a tyranny. 

It was no part of the policy of such tyrants to encourage trade or agriculture, 
res taxes and s P oiia- that their own wealth might be the legitimate fruit of the general 
t,ons - wealth of their people. On the contrary, their financial expedi- 

ents were no other than blind and brute exactions, which satisfied their immediate 
wants ; it mattered not at what cost of future embarrassment. Aristotle names 
Dionysius' government, 30 as exemplifying the tyrant's policy of impoverishing his 
people by an excessive taxation. The direct taxes were at one time so heavy, 81 
that it was computed that in the course of five years, they equalled the entire 
yearly value of the property on which they were levied : then there was the old 
fraud of debasing the coin, 3 ' 2 the oppression of forced loans, which he paid in a 
depreciated currency, -direct robbery of his people under the pretence of orna- 
menting the temples of the gods, and an unscrupulous sacrilege, which appro- 
priated the very offerings to the gods, so made, to his own individual uses. With 
such a system, it is not wonderful that plunder should have been one of his fa- 
vorite resources. The sale of prisoners taken in war, one of the most important 
of the ways and means of the first Ceesar, was so much a matter of ordinary 
usage in the ancient world, that it brought no peculiar obloquy on Dionysius. 
But the sack of the wealthy temple of € the Mater Matuta on the Etruscan coast, 
was considered as little better than piracy, 33 and it was reported that his settle- 
ment at Lissus, on the coast of Epirus, was mainly intended to further his design 
of plundering the very temple of Apollo at Delphi. 34 We read of his" colonies up 
the Adriatic ; but the only notice of any commerce carried on with those coun- 
tries, mentions merely the importation of horses 35 from the country of the Veneti, 
in order that they might run in the chariots of Dionysius at the great games of 
Greece and of Sicily. 

Every strong and able government, however oppressive, is yet sure to accom- 
He fortifies and eniarg- plish some works at once magnificent and useful ; and thus the ex- 
«s Syracuse. tended walls of Syracuse, which included the whole slope of Epi- 

polse to its summit, in addition to the older city which the Athenians had be- 

30 Politica, V. 11. is remarkable, as it seems to indicate that tuo 

31 Aristotle's expression is, ev rtevrt yap cream official valuation of property at Syracuse, as at 
fTrt Aiovvaiov t^v oitriav airaaav tiaarjvoxh'at av- Rome, took place every five years. 

vipaivs. This can only mean, 1 suppose, one of 32 This, and the following instance of Dionys- 
two things : either, as I have explained it in the ins' exactions, arc taken from the Becond chap 
text, that Dionysius imposed a property tax of ter of the second book of the CEeonomiea, coin 
twenty per cent., so that in five years a man monly ascribed to Aristotle. This chapter, 
might be said to have paid taxes to the amount however, is clearly not Aristotle's, but. as Nie- 
of his whole income, or else that a man's prop- buhr has shown (Eleine Ilistorische Schriften, 
crty was valued much below its real worth; so p. 412), must have been a later work, written 
that twenty per cent, on the rated amount' of in Asia Minor, and is a collection of all sorts of' 
his property, not of his income merely, would financial tricks 'and extortions, which are recom- 
be very much less than a fifth part of what he mended to the imitation of the satraps ami offi- 
really possessed. It might be thus possible ccrs of the monarchies of Alexander's sucoes- 
thata man might have paid in five years a sum sors. And whoever reads the whole of the e.>l- 
equal to the rated amount of his whole, prop- lection will find no reason to doubt the truth oi 
erty; hut that he should literally have paid a the stories about Dionysius, as being unprece- 
sum equal to his whole real property seems to dented or unworthy of him. 
me an absurdity. To notice no other objections, ** Piodoms, XV. 14. Strabo calls it the tern- 
was it ever known that the money in any conn- pie of Uithyia, or Lueina ; and adds, that Pio- 
try bi ore such a proportion to the value of the nysiuB plundered it in the course of an expedi- 
property in it as to render it possible in five tionto Corsica. V. 2, § 8, p. 2l'G. 
years to convert all property into cash! For M Piodorus, XV. 13. 
the rest, the period of five years here mentioned ** Strabo, v . 1, § 4, p. 212. 



Chap. XXI] WARS WITH CARTHAGE. 175 

sieged, were the work of Dionysius. These were built 36 under the terror of a 
Carthaginian invasion ; and his docks for two hundred ships, or, according to 
other accounts, for a far greater number, were constructed at once for defensive 
and offensive war against the same enemy. His works in the island of Ortygia 
had an object more directly selfish. This oldest and strongest part of the city 
of Syracuse, which had originally constituted the whole city, was now, since the 
town had spread over the adjacent parts of the mainland of Sicily, come to be 
regarded as the citadel. Here Dionysius fixed his residence, 37 and built a strong 
wall to cut off its communication with the rest of Syracuse ; he also appropriated 
it exclusively to his own friends and his mercenary soldiers, allowing no other 
Syracusan to live in it. For the same reasons under the Roman government, the 
island was the residence of the Roman prsetor and his officers, 38 and the Syracu- 
sans were still forbidden to inhabit it. 

Dionysius had owed his elevation to the terror inspired by the arms of Car- 
thage : and the great service which he rendered to Greece and to 

°' . V „.. ,„-... II. Foreign affairs. 

the world, was his successful resistance to the Carthaginian power, wars with c«rtha ? e 

, . i • , ,1 • . p if -1 rra vrr> and the Italian Greeks. 

and opposing a barrier to their conquest 01 feicily. ihe very dim- 
culty of his task, and the varied fortune of his wars, shows plainly that had Syr- 
acuse been under a less powerful government, it must have shared the fate of 
Selinus and of Ao'rio-entum. We do not know the causes which seem to have 
roused the Carthaginians to such vigorous activity against the Sicilian Greeks, 
immediately after the destruction of the Athenian armament. Had that great 
expedition been successful at Syracuse, it was designed to attempt the conquest 
of the Carthaginian dominions, 39 and even of Carthage itself ; and the Carthagini- 
ans are represented by Hermocrates 40 as living in constant dread of the power 
and ambition of Athens. Yet four or five years afterwards we find them send- 
ing out to Sicily so large a force, that they might well have defied the hostility 
of the Athenians ; and the conquest of Selinus, Himera, and Agrigentum, proved 
to the Syracusans that they were again incurring the danger, from which they 
had been delivered about eighty years before by Gelon's great victory of Himera. 
In his first attempts to check the progress of the Carthaginians, Dionysius was 
unsuccessful. He was glad to conclude a peace with them, by Fir9t ^ etity of D ionj-s- 
which they were to retain possession of their own colonies, and of ius with Cartha s e - «, 
the Sicanian tribes in the w T est of Sicily. The survivors 41 of the people whom 
they had recently conquered, of Himera, Selinus, and Agrigentum ; as also the 
inhabitants of Gela and Camarina who had abandoned their homes during the 
war, and had fled first to Syracuse, and afterwards to Leontini, might now, it 
was stipulated, return to their own countries and live in peace ; but they were to 
pay a tribute to the Carthaginians, and were to live only in open villages ; their 
cities were to remain dismantled and desolate. In the east of the island, Messana, 
Leontini, and all the Sikelian tribes were to be independent ; these last were the 
old enemies of the Syracusans, and the Carthaginians naturally, therefore, made 
this stipulation in their favor. Thus Dionysius was left master of Syracuse alone ; 
stripped of its dominion over the Sikelians, stripped of its old allies, the other 
Dorian cities of Sicily ; while the dominion of Carthage, which a few years be- 
fore had been confined to three? settlements at the western corner of the island, 
was now advanced almost to the eastern coast, and by means of the Sikelian 

36 Diodorus, XIV. 18, 41, 42. may be sure that it was at no time the residence 

37 Diodorus, XIV. 7. Those who understand of the poorest classes, such as composed the 
the nature of the Greek citadels, that they al- seamen of the state, but was appropriated to the 
ways contained the temples of the peculiar gods oldest and wealthiest families. 

of the people, and therefore were always the w Cicero, Verres, V. 82. He calls the island, 

oldest part of the city, will understand that Epi- " Locus quern vel pauci possint defendere." 

poise could not have been, according to Greek 39 So Alcibiad.es told the Spartans ; Thucyd. 

notions, the citadel of Syracuse. On the other VI. 90, and added, roiaVra itev napa tov aKpifii- 

hand, the strength of the island of Ortygia well arara ciSdros, &s Suvoifirmev, aKVKdare. 

fitted it for purposes of security, and although 40 Thucyd. VI. 34. 

its walls were washed by both harbors, yet we 41 Diodorus, XIII. 114. 



176 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXI. 



tribes, whose independence had been just secured, it hemmed in, and in a man- 
ner overhung, the scanty territory which was still left to Syracuse. 

This treaty was concluded in the last year of the Peloponnesian war, according 
to the chronoloo-y of Diodorus. It was virtually no more than a 

He prepares to breakit. -. -. . °, . . . -. ■. , , J 1 

truce, delaying the decision ot tne quarrel between the two con- 
tracting parties, till one of them should be in a better condition to resume it. 
Dionysius had been crippled by his military disasters, and the Carthaginians were 
suffering from a pestilence which was at this time fatally raging in Africa. No 
sooner, then, was the peace concluded, than Dionysius began to undo its work. 
It had declared the Sikelian tribes independent ; he found, or made a pretence 
for attacking them : 42 it had stipulated for the independence of Leontini ; he com- 
pelled the inhabitants to leave their city, 43 and to come and dwell as citizens in 
Syracuse. He also destroyed the Chalcidian cities of Naxos and Catana, 44 and 
sold their inhabitants for slaves. He cultivated the friendship of Messana, Rhe- 
gium, 45 and the Greek towns of Italy ; with Locri in particular he established a 
right of intermarriage, and he availed himself of it to take a Locrian lady as his 
own wife. He was busy in making arms and artillery 46 for the use of his armies, 
and in building ships, and arsenals to receive and fit them out becomingly. And 
after all his preparations were completed, finding that the pestilence was still 
raging in Africa, 41 he determined to declare war against Carthage. This was in 
the fourth year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, about eight years after the conclu- 
sion of the last treaty. 

Dionysius had chosen his own time ; the plague had weakened the Carthagini- 
iy declares aDS > an d the declaration of war against them, unexpected as it 
^"sieirto was > was preceded by a general plundering of their property, 43 
and a massacre of their citizens in all the Greek cities of Sicily. 
Dionysius marched immediately towards the Carthaginian territories ; the forces 
of the several Greek cities joined him as he advanced; and he laid siege to the 
city and island of Motya, 49 one of the three settlements which Carthage possessed 
in Sicily 50 before her conquest of Selinus. Motya was one of a group of small 
islands which lie off the western coast of Sicily, immediately to the north of Mar- 
sala or Lilybaeum. It is about a mile and a half in circumference, 51 and about 
three-quarters of a mile from the main land, with which it was connected by a 
narrow artificial causeway. Like Tjve and Aradus in point of situation, it was 
like them flourishing and populous : and its inhabitants, being themselves of 
Phoenician blood, were zealous in their resistance to the Greek invader. Attacked 
by an overwhelming force, 5 ' 2 and seeing their walls breached, and their ramparts 
swept, by engines and an artillery such as had never before been equalled, they 
did not yield even when the enemy had forced his way into their city, but availed 
themselves of their narrow streets and lofty houses to dispute every inch of his 
progress. The Greeks then brought up their movable towers, which had been 
built to match the height of the houses, and from these they threw out bridges 
to the roofs, and thus endeavored to board the enemy. Day after day this bloody 
struggle continued ; the Greek trumpets regularly sounding a retreat when night 
fell, and calling off their combatants ; till at length Dionysius turned this practice 
to his account, and as soon as the trumpets sounded as usual, and the Phoenici- 
ans supposed that the contest was at an end till the next day, he sent in a party 
of picked men, who, before the enemy suspected their design, had established 
themselves in a commanding situation from which they could not be dislodged 
again. Then the whole Greek army poured into the town by the moles or dykes 



ans and lay 
Motya. 



42 Diodorus, XIV. 7, 14. 

43 Diodorus, XIV. 15. 
■" Diodorus, XIV. 1.".. 
■'■'• Din.lonis. XIV. 44. 
■"'• Diodorus, XIV . 41. 
41 Diodorus, XIV. 45. 



,s Diodorus, XIV. 46. 

49 Diodorus, XIV. 47. 

00 Thucydides, VI. 3. 

61 Sec Captain Smyth's Memoir on Sicily. 

w Diodorus, XIV. 48-53. 



Chap. XXL] SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 177 

which they had thrown across from the main land to the shore of Motya, and the 
place was taken by storm. Neither age nor sex were spared by the conquerors ; 
a few only of the inhabitants saved their lives by running to the temples of those 
gods whom the Greeks honored in common with the Carthaginians, and these 
were afterwards sold for slaves. The whole plunder of the town was given to 
the victorious soldiers. 

While the siege of Motya was going on, Dionysius had employed a portion of 
his army in endeavoring to reduce the remaining colonies or allies 
of Carthage. The Sicanian tribes, 53 who were the principal inhab- Sicilian a mes of ciu- 
itants of the interior in the west of Sicily, submitted without oppo- 
sition. But five places held out resolutely : Soloeis and Panormus, both of them, 
as well as Motya, Phoenician settlements ; Egesta, whose quarrel with Seiinus 
first brought the Athenians into Sicily, and afterwards the Carthaginians ; Entella, 
and Halicyse. It was in vain that Dionysius ravaged their lands, destroyed their 
fruit-trees, and attacked their towns ; they remained unmoved in their fidelity ; 
and even after the fall of Motya, when the Greek power seemed so irresistible 
that the people of Halicyse then at last submitted to it, yet the other four still 
held out ; and when Dionysius again ventured to besiege Egesta, the inhabitants 
sallied by night and set fire to his camp, and obliged him to abandon his enter- 
prise with loss. 

Here ended the circle of Dionysius' glory. The Carthaginians, 54 provoked by 
the suddenness of his attack, by his having taken advantage of their Great Carthaginian ex- 
distressed condition, and by the inveteracy with which the Greeks P edLtion to siciiy. 
were pursuing all of their name and race, were roused to extraordinary exertion. 
An immense army was raised of Africans and Spaniards ; but the Gauls, so con- 
stantly employed in the Punic wars, had not yet crossed the Alps, or become 
known to the civilized nations of the south; so that there were none of them in 
the armament now collected for the invasion of Sicily. As it was, however, the 
Carthaginian force was estimated by Timseus at 100,000 men, and it was com- 
manded by Imilcon, the supreme military chief of the commonwealth. The expe- 
dition landed at Panormus, and every thing gave way before it. Motya was 
instantly recovered ; the Sicanians left Dionysius to join their old friends, the Car- 
thaginians ; Dionysius himself retreated upon Syracuse ; and the seat of war was 
removed almost instantaneously from the western to the eastern extremity of the 
island, from Motya and Egesta to Syracuse. 

Imilcon advanced 55 along the northern coast towards Messina, being anxious to 
possess that important place, and so intercept any succors which The Carthaginians he- 
might be sent to the aid of Dionysius, either from the Greek states riege s y ra0UBe - 
of Italy, or from Greece itself. He took Messina, defeated the Syracusans in a 
sea fight off Catana, and then, being completely master of the field, he proceeded 
to lay siege to Syracuse by sea and land ; his ships occupied the great harbor, 
while with his army he held all the most important points on shore : the head- 
land of Plemyrium, which forms the southern side of the great harbor, the tem- 
ple of Olympian Jupiter on the right bank of the Anapus, and the suburb of 
Neapolis, just without the walls of Acradina, and under the cliffs of Epipolse. 
The position of Epipolse itself, which the Athenians had at first occupied with so 
much effect, and which they afterwards neglected to their ruin, was now secured 
against the enemy by the walls lately carried round its whole extent by Dio- 
nysius. 

Thus the Greek power in Sicily was reduced, as it were, to one little spark, 
which the first breath seemed likely to extinguish ; but on its pres- Critical Btate of tt , 
ervation depended the existence of Rome and the fate of the world. Greek power " SicUy - 
Had Carthage become the sovereign of all Sicily, her power, in its full and unde- 

53 Diodorus, XIV. 48-54. 66 Diodorus, XIV. 57-63. 

M Diodorus, XIV. 54, 55. 
12 



178 HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAr. XXI. 

cayed vigor, must have immediately come into contact with the nations of Italy ; 
and the Samnite wars of Rome might have ended in the destruction of both the 
contending nations, when their exhausted strength had left them at the mercy of 
a powerful neighbor. But this was not to be, and Dionysius was inspired with 
resolution to abide the storm, that so he might fulfil that purpose of God's prov- 
idence, which designed the Greek power in Sicily to stand as a breakwater against 
the advances of Carthage, and to afford a shelter to the yet unripened strength 
of Rome. 

The condition of Dionysius seemed desperate. Blockaded by sea and land, 
Dionysius proposes to with a people impatient of his despotism, with a force of merce- 
eso.pe from siciiy. naries, who, the moment that he became unable to pay them, might 
betray him, either to the enemy without the walls or to his political adversaries 
within ; he held a council with his friends in the citadel, and expressed his pur- 
pose of leaving Syracuse to its fate, and attempting to effect his own escape by 
sea. One of them boldly answered, 56 "A king's robe is a noble winding-sheet." 
At these words the spirit of Dionysius rose within him, and he resolved to live or 
die a king. 

But his deliverance was effected by another power than his own. The spots 
where the small Sicilian rivers make their way into the sea are, 

The Carthaginian ar- ■, . -. . -ill ' i • r • l 

mament crippled by an durino- the summer, notoriously unhealthy : a malaria lever is al- 

epidemic sickness. , °, . . J P . * . , . . . .-. 

most the certain consequence ot passing a single night in any vil- 
lage so situated. The shore near the mouth of the Anapus, and the marshy plain 
immediately behind it, would be absolutely pestilential to an army quartered 
there during the heats of summer ; and the Athenians, when besieging Syracuse 
seventeen years before, had severely suffered from its influence. 51 But now the 
season was unusually hot, and from the prevalence of epidemic disease in Africa 
about this period, it is likely that the constitutions of many of the Carthaginian 
soldiers Avould be more than usually susceptible of infection. Accordingly, 53 the 
disorder which broke out in the besieging army more resembled the most malignant 
pestilence than any ordinary form of marsh or malaria fever. The patients were 
commonly carried off in five or six days ; and the disease w r as either really so con- 
tagious, or was imagined to be so, that no one dared to visit the sick, or to pay 
them the most necessary attentions : and thus all who were taken ill* were left to 
die without relief. 

This visitation broke both the power and the spirit of the Carthaginians. Dio- 
Dionysius destroys their nysius 59 now made a sally, and attacked them both by sea and land. 
fleet - He carried their post at the temple of the Olympian Jupiter, and 

that at Dascon, at the very bottom of the harbor, on the right of the Anapus, 
where the Athenians first effected their landing. Here he found their ships drawn 
up on the beach, and he instantly set fire to them. Meanwhile the Syracusan 
fleet advanced right across the harbor, and surprised the enemy's ships before 
they could be manned and worked out from the shore to offer battle. Thus tak- 
ing them at a disadvantage, the Greeks sunk or shattered them without resistance, 
or surrounded them and carried them by boarding. And now the iiames began 
to spread from the ships on the beach to those which lay afloat moored close to 
the shore. These were mostly merchant ships, worked by sails like ours, and 
consequently, even while at anchor, they had their masts up and their standing 
rigging. As the flames caught these and blazed up into the air, the spectacle 
afforded to the Syracusans on their walls was most magnificent. The crews of 
the burning ships leaped overboard, and left them to their fate ; their cables were 
burnt, and the blazing masses began to drift about the harbor, and to run foul of 
one another; while the crackling of the flames, and the crashing of the falling 
masts and of the sides of the ships in their mutual shocks, heard amidst volumes 

M KaAoV ioTiv Ivrdifnov i) Tvpawli. Isocratcs. M Diodorus, XIV. 70, 71. 
Arcludumus, § 49, p. 125. M Diodorus, XIV. 72-75. 

67 Thucydldes, VII. 47. 



Chap. XXI] RETREAT OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. I79 

of smoke and sheets of fire, reminded the Syracusans of the destruction of the 
giants by the thunder of Jove, when they had assayed in their pride to storm 
Olympus. 60 

Thus called, as they thought, by the manifest interposition of heaven to finish 
the work, the very old men and boys of Syracuse could bear to look Rejoicings of the s>t- 
on idly from their walls no longer, but getting into the large punts acusans - 
or barges, 61 which were ordinarily used for ferrying men and cattle across the har- 
bor, they put out to sea, to save and capture such of the enemy's ships as the 
fire had not yet destroyed. But the walls were crowded with fresh spectators, 
for as the report of the victory became more and more decided, the women, chil- 
dren, and slaves, all poured out from their houses, and hastened to enjoy with 
their own eyes the sight of this wonderful deliverance. When the day was over, 
the Carthaginian naval force was almost utterly destroyed, while Dionysius en- 
camped on the ground which he had won near the temple of Olympian Jupiter, 
having the remnant of the besieging army shut in between his position on one 
side, and the walls of Syracuse on the other. 

But Imilcon had no hope of continuing the contest with success any further. 
He offered all the treasure in his camp, amounting to three hun- Eetreat of the Cartha . 
dred talents, to purchase the unmolested retreat of the remainder s imans - 
of his armament. "This," said Dionysius, "cannot be granted ; but I will con- 
sent that the native Carthaginians shall be allowed to escape by night to Afr\oa," 
stipulating nothing for their subjects and allies. He foresaw that if the head \V€re 
thus taken from the body, the body would instantly fall into his power ; and he 
was not sorry to impress the Africans, Iberians, and Sikelians, with a strong sense 
of the selfish arrogance of the Carthaginians, who, thinking only of themselves, 
abandoned their allies to destruction without scruple. Accordingly, when the 
Carthaginians had escaped, the rest of the armament attempted to provide as 
they could for their own safety. The Sikelians and Africans were obliged to lay 
down their arms, after the former had endeavored in vain to make good their 
retreat to their own country ; but the Iberians held together, and made so for- 
midable a show of resistance, that Dionysius readily listened to their proposals of 
entering into his service. They became a part of his mercenary army ; and while 
they helped to secure his power against his domestic enemies, they also added to 
the glory of his arms abroad : and in the strange vicissitudes of human fortune, 
these same Iberians, who had been enlisted in Spain, taken thence to Africa, and 
afterwards had crossed the sea to Sicily as invaders, were some years later sent 
over from Sicily to Greece, 62 as a part of the auxiliary force sent by Dionysius 
to aid the Laced eemonians ; and fought with distinction in Laconia under the eye of 
Agesilaus, against the invading army of Epaminondas. 

Thus was Dionysius saved from imminent ruin, and the Greek power in Sicily 
was preserved. His subsequent wars with Carthage were of no state of the Ca rtha S ia- 
importance, for amidst much variety of fortune in particular en- ' a "powerinSidi y . 
gagements, the relations of the two states were never materially altered ; the 
Carthaginians remained masters of all the western part of the island, while the 
eastern part continued to be under the dominion of Dionysius. 

After the destruction of this great armament, Dionysius felt himself able to 
carry on his plans of conquest against the Greeks of Italy. One of „ 

l_ • *£» • y x ,-.. inur Dionysius prepares to 

nis nrst measures was to people the important city of Messana. attack a* Italian 
The remains of the old citizens, who had been driven out by the 

60 Diodorus, XIV. 73. This whole description 61 T&*op9ne7a. Diodorus, XIV. 74. This is one 

seems to have been taken from the history of of the touches -which seem to argue that the 

Philistus, who was probably an eye-witness of writer of the description was at any rate a Syra- 

the scene : so that the comparison is not to be cusan, familiar with the harbor of Syracuse. No 

regarded _ as the mere flourish of a writer, far explanation is given by him, because the use of 

removed in time and space from the action which these nopd/iela was to him so familiar, that he 

suggested it, but as one which really arose in could not fancy that any was requisite, 

the minds of the Syracusans, amidst the excite- m Xenophon, Hellenic. VII. 1, § 20. 
ment and enthusiasm of the actual spectacle. 



180 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXI 

Carthaginians, returned to their home after Imilcon's defeat ; but their numbers 
were so thinned, that Dionysius added to them a large hody of new citizens from 
Locri on the Italian coast, his old and firm ally, and from a Locrian colony, 63 Me- 
dama, on the Tyrrhenian sea, which had probably been lately conquered by the 
Lucanians. With these there were at first joined some exiles from old Greece, 
of the race of the old Messenians ; but afterwards, to satisfy the jealousy of La- 
cedeemon, they were removed from Messana, and founded for themselves the 
new city of Tyndaris. 64 

The principal object of Dionysius' hostility among the Greek cities of Italy 
was Rhegium. The Rhegians had favored his political adversa- 

Battle of the Hellepo- . i i 1 n cc ± J i_ • 1 r • 11 1 • 

ins, and conquest of nes, and had personally anrontea him by retusing to allow him 
the right of intermarriage with their citizens. But his ambition 
led him to desire the dominion of all the coast of Italy on the Ionian sea; and 
he entered into a league with the Lucanians, as has been already mentioned, 
hoping that they might exhaust the Greek cities, by their constant plundering 
warfare, and that he might then step in to reap the harvest. His defeat of the 
combined army of the Italian Greeks on the banks of the Helleporus, 65 and his 
conquest of Rhegium, 66 Caulon, 61 and Hipponium, 68 are the principal events of 
this contest. He enlarged Syracuse, by removing thither the whole, or a great 
part, of the population of the conquered cities ; and his increased power and influ- 
ence on the Italian coast facilitated those further plans of aggrandizement which 
have been already noticed, his settlements at Issa and Lissus, and on the coast 
of Picenum, his alliance with the Illyrians, and his trade in the Adriatic. 

Thus powerful at home and abroad, and possessing a far greater dominion than 
Dionysius sends chariots an y prince or state in old Greece, Dionysius yet felt that Greece 
^d he w °nrtn i e an pn a zT e o 8 f was > as ^ were, the heart and life of the civilized world, and that 
tragedy at Athens. no g] ry would be universal or enduring unless it had received its 
stamp and warrant from the genius of Athens. He sent chariots to Olympia, to 
contend for the prize at the Olympic games ; 69 he sent over also rhapsodists most 
eminent for the powers of their voice and the charm of their recitation to rehearse 
his poems ; and he was repeatedly a candidate for the prize of tragedy at Athens. 
Alexander, indeed, scorned to contend for victory at the Olympic games unless 
kings could be his competitors ; but in such matters there was a wide differ- 
ence between a king and a tyrant, between the descendant of a long line of princes, 10 
sprung from Hercules, the son of Jove, and the humble citizen of Syracuse, whom 
his fortune had unexpectedly raised to greatness. There is a story that the pub- 
lic feeling at Olympia was so strong against Dionysius as a tyrant, 11 that the tents 
of his theori, or deputies to the Olympic assembly, were plundered, and the reci- 
tation of his verses drowned amidst the clamor and hisses of the multitude. But 
whether this be true or false, we know that at Athens his tragedies were by no 
means regarded as contemptible ; he gained on different occasions the second and 
third prizes, and at last his tragedy, entitled "Hector Ransomed," 1 ' 2 was judged 
worthy of the highest prize. 

This evident desire of intellectual fame, united with the powers of earning it, 
tempted the philosophers of Greece to believe that they should find in Dionys- 

03 Diodorus, XIV. 78. The present reading 60 Diodorus, XIV. 3. 

in the text of DiodoruB is MsStixvatmis, for which OT Diodorus, XIV. 106. 

Cluverius has conjectured jvle<5/Wouj. Mn5a- 08 Diodorus, XIV. 107. 

Italovi would be still nearer the present reading, ° 9 Diodorus, XIV. 109. 

and Mtfapa is the name of the oityin Strabo, ~" tn an earlier age, however, an ancestor of the 

VI. 1, $ •">. i'. -J-".';, and, it is said, <>ii one of its great Alexander, the Macedonian king of the 

coins. MLedama, or Mesma, is described as a same name, who reigned during the Persian in- 

Locrian colony by Strabo, in the passage above vaaion, was anxious to be admitted as a compet- 

quoted, and by Scymnus I !hiuB, V. 307. itor for the prize at the Olympic games, even in 

'•' Diodorus, XIV. 78. the foot race, and he ran accordingly in the sta- 

"» Polybiua rails the river " Eaieporus," T. 6. dium. Sec Herodotus, V. 2-J. 

Diodorus calls it " Belorus," XIV. L04. I sus- " Diodorus, XIV. 109. 

pect that the true reading in Polybiua would be " Diodorus, XV. 74. 
"Helleporus." 



Chap. XXL] MANNER OF LIVING OF DIONYSIUS. 181 

ius a man who could sympathize with them in spite of his political Hi3 ;nter00l , r 
greatness, and would rejoice to associate with them on equal terms. 
Plato visited Syracuse, 73 and Isocrates, 14 at a safer distance, addressed to Dionys- 
ius a letter of compliment from Greece. As long as they remained on the op- 
posite shores of the Ionian sea, the philosopher and the tyrant might correspond 
with each other without offence. But many are the stories which show the folly 
of supposing that an equality of mind can triumph over the differences of rank 
and power. No man can associate freely with another, when his life is at the 
mercy of his companion's caprice. Plato soon returned to Greece, with a lesson 
from some of the philosophers of Syracuse, " that men of their profession would 
do well either to shun the society of tyrants, 15 or else in their intercourse with 
them, to study how they could please them most." This advice is said to have 
been occasioned by a practical lesson given to Plato by Dionysius, which ought 
to have rendered it superfluous ; the story ran, that the tyrant was so offended 
with something that Plato had said, that he sent him forthwith to the slave- 
market, and had him sold as a slave, but that the philosophers immediately re- 
deemed him by a general subscription amongst themselves, and then urged him 
to quit Sicily. A similar story is told of the poet Philoxenus, whom Dionysius 
is said to have sent from his own table to his prisons in the quarries, because he 
had expressed an unfavorable opinion of the tyrant's poetry. These stories may 
deserve but little credit for the particular facts ; yet the intercourse between 
Frederick of Prussia and Voltaire was interrupted in a similar manner, and the 
presumption of literary men on the one hand, and the pride of rank and power 
on the other, are likely to lead to such results. 

That the despot of Syracuse should not scruple to send a poet to the quarries 
and to sell a philosopher in the slave-market, is nothing wonder- tt . l ,„ 

i I 1 t i r l His private life. 

ful. We may be more unwilling to believe the reports or the 
state of miserable fear to which suspicion could reduce one so able and so daring 
as Dionysius. " He could trust no man," it was said, 16 " but a set of miserable 
freed men, and outcasts, and barbarians, whom he made his body-guard. He 
fenced his chamber with a wide trench, which he crossed by a draw-bridge ; he 
never addressed the Syracusan people but from the top of a high tower, where 
no dagger could reach him ; he never visited his wives without having their 
apartments previously searched, lest they should contain some lurking assassin ; 
nay, he dared not allow himself to be shaved by any hands except his own 
daughters' ; and even them he was afraid to intrust with a razor ; but taught 
them how to singe off his beard with hot walnut-shells." Much of this is prob- 
ably exaggeration, but the Greek tyrants knew that to kill them was held to be 
no murder ; and it is no shame to Dionysius, if his nerves were overcome by the 
hourly danger of assassination, a danger which appalled even the iron courage of 
Cromwell. 

The Greeks had no abhorrence for kings : the descendant of a hero race, rul- 
ing over a people whom his fathers had ruled from time imme- p eC uiiar character of 
morial, was no subject of obloquy, either with the people, or with «»•»«*»» *y~»^ 
the philosophers. But a tyrant, a man of low or ordinary birth, who by force 
or fraud had seated himself on the necks of his countrymen, to gorge each pre- 
vailing passion of his nature at their cost, with no principle but the interest of his 
own power, such a man was regarded as a wild beast that had broken into the 
fold of civilized society, and whom it was every one's right and duty by any 
means, or with any weapon, presently to destroy. Such monsters of selfishness 
Christian Europe has rarely seen. If the claim to reign by " the grace of God" 

73 Diodorus, XV. 7. though the fact of his having corresponded 

74 "Whether the letters professing to be writ- witk'them may be true notwithstanding. 

ten from Isocrates to Dionysius and Philip of 75 Diodorus, XV. 7. AeT tov ao<pbv rots rvpdv- 
Macedon, and published at the end of his ora- voig r) ws Sj/aora J) <!>s riSiura 5/jiXeiv. 
tions, are genuine, may well be doubted ; al- 76 Cicero, Tusculan. Disputat. V. 20. 



182 HISTORY OF EOME. [Chap. XXII 

has given an undue sanction to absolute power, yet it has diffused at the same 
time a sense of the responsibilities of power, such as the tyrants, and even the 
kings of the later age of Greece, never knew. The most unprincipled of modern 
sovereigns would yet have acknowledged that he owed a duty to his people, for 
the discharge of which he was answerable to God ; but the Greek tyrant regarded 
his subjects as the mere instruments of his own gratification ; fortune, or his own 
superiority, had given him extraordinary means of indulging his favorite passions, 
and it would be folly to forego the opportunity. It is this total want of regard 
for his fellow-creatures, the utter sacrifice of their present and future improve- 
ment, for the sake of objects purely personal, which constitutes the guilt of Dio- 
nysius and his fellow-tyrants. In such men all virtue was necessarily blighted ; 
neither genius, nor courage, nor occasional signs of human feeling, could atone for 
the deliberate wickedness of their system of tyranny. Brave and able as Dionys- 
ius was, active, and temperate, and energetic, he left behind him no beneficial 
institutions ; he degraded rather than improved the character of his countrymen ; 
and he has therefore justly been branded with infamy, by the accordant voice of 
his own and of after ages ; he will be known forever as Dionysius the tyrant. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



CABTHAGE— BABBAEIANS OF WESTEKN EUEOPE— EAST OF EUEOPE— GEEECE— 

MACEDONIA— ILLYEIA. 



" Cseterum — qui mortales initio coluerint, indigense an advecti, parum compertum." — Tacitus, 
Agricola, XL 

The enlarged researches of our own times, while they make us more sensible 
Difficulties of ancient °f the actual extent of our ignorance, yet encourage us with the 
hUtory - hope that it will gradually be diminished. But he who attempts 

to write history in the interval between this awakened consciousness of the defects 
of our knowledge, and that fuller light which may hereafter remove them, labors 
under peculiar disadvantages. A reputation for learning was cheapty gained in 
the days of our fathers, by merely reading the works of the Greek and Roman 
writers, and being able to repeat the information which they have communicated. 

But now we desire to learn, not what existing accounts may have recorded of 
a people or a race, but what that people or race really was, and did ; we wish 
to conceive a full and lively image of them, of their language, their institutions, 
their arts, their morals ; to understand what they were in themselves, and how 
they may have affected the fate of the world, either in their own times, or in 
after ages. These, however, are questions which the ancient writers were often 
as unable to answer as we are ; happier, it may be thought, than we in this, that 
they had no painful consciousness of ignorance. To repeat what the Greek and 
Roman writers have left on record of Carthage, and its dominion in Spain and 
Africa, would be an easy task, but at the same time most unsatisfactory. We 
look around for other witnesses, we question existing languages, and races, and 
manners, in the hope of gleaning from them some fuller knowledge of extinct na- 
tions, than can be gained from the scanty accounts of foreigners or enemies. 

The internal state of Carthage may fitly be reserved for a later period of this 
canimge. history. It will be enough now to fill up, so far as I can, that 



Chap. XXII] DOMINION OF CARTHAGE. 183 

sketch of her dominion and foreign relations, which has been begun in some 
measure in the two preceding chapters. 

In the middle of the fourth century before the Christian era, the Carthaginians 
possessed the northern coast of Africa, from the middle of the ' t _ ., _ . 

tr . i • r Extent of the Cartna- 

greater Syrtis to the pillars of Hercules, a country reaching from gmian dominion in m- 
19 degrees, east longitude, to 6 degrees, Avest; and a length of ' 
coast which Polybius 1 reckoned at above sixteen thousand stadia. But unlike 
the compactness and organization of the provinces of the Roman empire, this long 
line of coast was, for the most part, only so far under the dominion of the Car- 
thaginians, that they possessed 2 a chain of commercial establishments along its 
whole extent, and with the usual ascendency of civilized men over barbarians, 
had obliged the native inhabitants of the country, whether cultivators of the soil 
or wandering tribes, to acknowledge their superiority. But in that part where 
the coast runs nearly north and south, from the Hermsean headland, or Cape 
Bon, to the lesser Syrtis, they had occupied the country more completely. This 
was one of the richest tracts to be found ; 3 ant 1 here the Carthaginians had planted 
their towns thickly, and had covered the open country with their farms and villas. 
This was their <pegioix:g, the immediate domain of Carthage, where fresh settle- 
ments were continually made as a provision for the poorer citizens ; 4 settlements 
prosperous, indeed, and wealthy, but politically dependent, as was always the 
case in the ancient world ; insomuch that the term rfsgiomoi, which in its origin 
expressed no more than " men who dwelt not in, but round about a city," came 
to signify a particular political relation, theirs, namely, who enjoyed personal 
freedom, but had no share in the government of their country. 

Distinct from these settlements of the Carthaginians themselves were the sister 
cities of Carthage, founded immediately, like herself, by the Phoeni- p) 103moLail co i nies in 
cians of Tyre and Sidon, although her fortune had afterwards so Afnoa - 
outgrown theirs. Amongst these Phoenician colonies were Utica, 5 more famous 
in Roman than in Carthaginian history, Adrumetum, 6 the two cities known by 
the name of Leptis, situated, the one near the western extremity of the great 
Syrtis, and the other on the coast between the lesser Syrtis and the Hermeean 
headland ; and Hippo, a name so closely connected in our minds with the piety 
and energy of its great bishop, Augustine. These were the allies of Carthage, 
and some of them were again at the head of a small confederacy of states, 7 who 
looked up to them for protection, as they in their turn looked up to Carthage. 
They enjoyed their own laws, and were independent in their domestic govern- 
ment ; but in their foreign relations they found, in common with all the weaker 
states of the ancient world, that alliance with a greater power ended sooner or 
later in subjection. 

The Phoenician colonists, who founded Carthage, at first paid 8 a tribute to the 
native Africans on whose land they had settled, as an acknowl- condition of tte African 
edgment that the country was not their own. But in process of ™ b J e < !ts ° t ' Carfha s e - 
time they became what the, Europeans have been in later times in India, no longer 
dependent settlers, but sovereigns ; and the native Africans, driven back from the 
coast and confined to the interior, were reduced to the condition of strangers on 

1 Polybius, III. 39. of Basel ; and the disputes between the citizens 

s "Oo-u ytypairrai iroXianaTa t\ ln-ndpia Ivrij Ai(3ijj of Basel and the inhabitants of Liechstal, and 

aito ri)g TvpnSoi rris mip" 'Etnrepi&as pexpt 'Hpa- the other country towns, seemed, to those famil- 

Kkziiiiv (jti}\L)v h Aifivfj navra kari Kapxri&oviiov. iar with ancient history, like a revival of the po- 

Seylax, Periplus, p. 51, 52. Ed. Hudson. litical relations of Lacedsemon and Carthage. 

* Polybius, HI. 23. Diodorus, XX. 8. Scy- 5 Justin, XVIII. 4. 

lax, p. 49. 6 Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. 22, 80. 

4 Aristotle, Politica, VI. 5. Within the last 7 In the second treaty between Eorne and 

ten years an exact image of the relation of the Carthage, the contracting parties on the one 

ancient irepioiKoi to their v6\ig, and of the irrita- side are, " the people of Carthage, the people of 

tion occasioned by it, has been exhibited to the Tyre, and the people of Utica, with tlieir allies." 

notice of Europe on more than one occasion in Polybius, III. 24. 

Switzerland. Liechstal was one of the ntptotKiies B Justin, XVIII. 5. 



184 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIL 

their own soil. They understood and practised agriculture, but we know not 
how far they were allowed to retain the property of the land, or to what extent 
the rich Carthaginians bad ejected them, and employed them as tenants and cul- 
tivators of the soil of which they had been once proprietors. At any rate, the 
Africans were in the condition of a Roman province ; they 9 were ruled despoti- 
cally by the Carthaginian officers sent amongst them, and were subject to taxes, 
and to a conscription of their youth to serve as soldiers, at the discretion of their 
governors. In the first Punic war, they were taxed to the amount of fiftv per 
cent, on the yearly produce of their land, and the oppression to which they were 
subjected made them enter readily and zealously into the quarrel of the merce- 
nary soldiers, during their famous war with the Carthaginians. 

The contrast between Carthage exercising absolute dominion over her African 

subjects, and Rome surrounded by her Latin and Italian allies, 

situation of cartinge and gradually communicating more widely the rights of citizen- 

and Rome with respect ,.° ^ , ,,. °. . i -j p i 

to their subjects and ai- ship, so as to change alliance into union, has been often noticed, 
and is indeed quite sufficient to account for the issue of the Punic 
wars. But this difference was owing rather to the good fortune of Rome and to 
the ill fortune of Carthage, than to the wisdom and liberality of the one and the 
narrow-mindedness of the other. Rome was placed in the midst of people akin 
to herself both in race and language ; Carthage was a solitary settlement in a 
foreign land. The Carthaginian language nearly resembled the Hebrew ; it be- 
longed to the Semitic or Aramaic family. Who the native Africans were, and to 
what family they belonged, are among the most obscure questions of ancient his- 
tory. But it is one of the consequences of that wider view of the connection of 
races and languages, which we have learnt of late to entertain, that the state- 
ments to be found in the traditional or mythic reports of the origin of nations, 
appear in some instances to contain in them a germ of truth, and we do not ven- 
ture, as formerly, to cast them aside as mere fables. Thus in that strange ac- 
count of the peopling of Africa, which Sallust 10 copied from Carthaginian books, 
the stream of migration is described as having poured into northern Africa at its 
western, not at its eastern extremity, by the straits of Gibraltar, not by the isth- 
mus of Suez and by Egypt. And we read that the invaders were Medians and 
Persians, who had marched through Europe into Spain, as a part of the great 
army of Hercules. They found the north of Africa possessed by an older race 
of inhabitants, the Gaetulians and Libyans, of whose origin no account is given. 
But the story of the expedition of Hercules, and of the Medians and Persians 11 
following in his army, and entering Africa by crossing over thither from Spain, 
may at least lead us to inquire whether any affinity can be traced between the 
language of the Berbers, the descendants of the ancient Mauritanians, and that 
of the Basques, the descendants of the old Iberians ; and whether the languages 
of the native tribes of north Africa, whether agricultural or wandering, may not 
be supposed to have belonged either wholly or in part to the Indo-Germanic 
family, rather than to the Semitic. These are the points in which we are stand- 
ing half way between the equally extreme credulity and skepticism of the last 
two centuries, and that fuller knowledge which may be the portion of our pos- 
terity. But whatever may be discovered as to the African subjects of Carthage, 
they were become so distinct from their masters, even if they were originally 
sprung from a kindred race, that the two people were not likely to be melted 
together into one state; and thus they remained always in the unhappy and 
suspicious relation of masters and of slaves, rather than in that of fellow-citizens, 
or even of allies. 

8 Polybius, I. 72. that is, in what is now Hungary, wore said by 

111 Bell. Jugurthin. 20. I'ti ex libris Puniois, some, he tells us, to have been a colony of the 

qui regis Hiempsalis dicebantur, interpretatum Medes, at which he naturally wonders. It is so 

-t. difficult, in these stories, to distinguish what is 

11 The Sijr.vnme, a people whom Herodotus mere confusion or invention from what contains 

describes, V. 9, as living beyond the Daiiube, a germ of truth, under more or less of disguise. 



Chap. XXIL] THE HALF-CASTE AFRO-PH(ENICIANS. 185 

The dominion of Carthage in Africa, as it resembled in many other respects 
that of the British in India, had produced also, as in our Indian n , . 

... 1 1 . „ . Colonies of the Afro- 

empire, a numerous halt-caste population, sprung from intermar- Phanicians, or people 

riages between the Carthaginians and the native Africans. This 
mixed race was known by the name of Liby or Afro-Phoenicians ; 12 but whether 
they were regarded by Carthage as a source of strength, or suspected as danger- 
ous enemies, we have no sufficient information to determine. Perhaps they were 
thought to be dangerous at home, but useful and trustworthy abroad ; and thus 
they were sent as colonists to Spain, 13 and to the more remote parts of the coast 
of Africa, without the Pillars of Hercules, just as the poorer citizens of Carthage 
itself were sent, as we have seen, to settlements nearer home. If we can trust 
the text and the authenticity of the Greek version now existing of the voyage of 
Hanno, these Afro-Phoenician colonies were planted on a very large scale ; for 
that voyage was undertaken for the purpose of settling no fewer than thirty 
thousand Afro-Phoenicians 14 along the shore of the Atlantic southward of the 
straits of Gibraltar. 

In the seventh century before the Christian era, i Samian ship 15 bound for 
Egypt was caught in a violent storm, with the v* ind blowing . 

strongly from the east. The ship was carried altogether out of nician'coionyofGadir, 
her course, the wind continued to blow from the east, and at last 
she was actually driven through the Pillars of Hercules, and the first land which 
she succeeded in making was the coast of Tartessus or Tarshish, the southwest- 
ern coast of Spain. The Samians found that the storm had proved their best 
friend ; they returned home enriched beyond all their hopes, for the port of Tar- 
shish, says Herodotus, was at that time fresh 16 and undisturbed ; the gold of its 
neighboring mines was a treasure not yet appreciated by its possessors ; they 
bartered it to the Samian strangers in return for the most ordinary articles of civ- 
ilized living, which barbarians cannot enough admire. This story makes us feel 
that we are indeed living in the old age of the world. The country then so fresh 
and untouched has now been long in the last stage of decrepitude : its mines, 
then so abundant, have been long since exhausted ; and after having in its turn 
discovered and almost drained the mines of another world, it lies now like a for- 
saken wreck on the waves of time, with nothing but the memory of the past to 
ennoble it. In the middle of the fourth century of Rome, the coast of Spain, 11 
both on the ocean and on the Mediterranean, was full of Carthaginian trading 
settlements, but these were mostly small, and of no great celebrity. Gadir, or 
Gades, on the other hand, a colony founded directly from Tyre, 18 had been long 
since famous. Here was one of the most celebrated temples of the Tyrian Her- 
cules, and its trade and wealth were considerable ; the neighboring country 
being rich in mines, while the sea jdelded an inexhaustible supply of fish, which 
was commonly sold in the Athenian markets as early as the Peloponnesian war. 19 
But except Gades, the Greek seamen knew of no other place of importance on 
the coast of Spain at this period, till they came north of the Iberus, to the coun- 
try which was then inhabited by the Ligurians. Here there was the Greek set- 
tlement of Emporion, 20 an offshoot from the Phocsean colony of Massalia. If Sa- 
guntum was really a city of Greek or Tyrrhenian origin, founded by colonists 
from Zacynthus and Ardea, it seems to have retained no marks of the Greek 
character ; it had no seaport, and though it was itself near the coast, yet it was 
not of sufficient importance to attract the notice of the Greek navigators. 

The great Spanish peninsula itself, and its original inhabitants, the various tribes 
of the Iberian race, were as yet but little known to the rest of the world. Sicil- 

12 Polybius, III. 33. « Scylax, Periplus, p. 1. 

13 Scyninus Chius, V. 195, 196. 18 Strabo, III. prope finera, 

14 Hanno, Periplus, p. 1. Ed. Hudson. M Pollux, VI. 48. Eupoli, quoted by Stepja- 
16 Herodotus, IV. 152. nus Byzant. in TdSetpa. 

16 'Aic/Spai-ov. 20 Scylax, Periplus, p. 1. 



186 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXII. 

Native rberians; their i an antiquarians 21 derived the oldest part of the population of their 
race and character. island, the Sicanians, from the northeastern coast of Spain. The 
Iberians had for some time been accustomed to serve in the Carthaginian armies ; 
their name occurs amongst the various nations who composed the great host of 
Hamilcar 22 when he invaded Sicily in the time of Gelon, and was defeated in the 
famous battle of Himera. The Iberians were known to the Athenians 23 as amongst 
the most warlike of the barbarians of the west, whom they purposed to employ 
in conquering their Peloponnesian enemies, had success at Syracuse enabled them 
to fulfil their more remote designs ; and we have seen Iberians distinguished above 
all the other soldiers in the same service, in the great Carthaginian expedition 
which Imilcon led against the tyrant Dionysius. Another circumstance removed 
them even more than their remarkable courage from the common mass of barba- 
rians. Writing was common among them ; and some of their tribes 24 possessed 
written records of their past history, not composed in verse, besides numerous 
poems, and large collections of laws and institutions in a metrical form, amount- 
ing, it was said, to about six thousand lines. We ourselves have, in some degree, 
a national interest in the Iberians, if it be true that colonies of their race crossed 
the Bay of Biscay, and established themselves on the coast of Cornwall. But 
their memory has almost utterly perished ; we know not with what race of man- 
kind they were connected ; and although the Basque dialect, still spoken on both 
sides of the Pyrenees, is supposed to be a remnant of their language, yet its rela- 
tion to other languages appears to have been not yet ascertained, so as to inform 
us to what family it belongs. It may be hoped that this, as well as the deci- 
phering of the Etruscan monuments, may be amongst the discoveries reserved for 
our own generation, or for that of our children. 

From the Pyrenees to the frontiers of Etruria, 25 the coast of the Mediterranean 
was occupied by the Ligurians, a people distinguished by the 
Greeks both from the Iberians and from the Kelts, although they 
are supposed to have been connected with the latter nation in their race and 
language. As the Ligurians dwelt on the coast, they became known to the Car- 
thaginians ; and thus Ligurians 26 are named together with Iberians amongst the 
soldiers of Hamilcar's expedition to Sicily, at the beginning of the fifth century 
before the Christian era. In the time of Scylax, a few years later than our pres- 
ent period, the Ligurians and Iberians were mixed together on the coast, between 
the Pyrenees and the Rhone, and the exclusive dominion of the Ligurians only 
extended from the Rhone to Etruria. But Thucydides mentioned it as an ascer- 
tained fact, 27 that at a very remote period they had dislodged the Sicanians from 
their land on the Sicanian river in Iberia, and that these, flying before their con- 
querors, went over and settled in Sicily. We cannot certainly tell what river is 

21 Thucydides, VI. 2, following Antiochus. country there are three distinct dialects, and 

22 Herodotus, VII. 165. that with regard to one of these nothing satis- 

23 Thucydides, VI. 90. factory had been published when Von Hum- 
'-' Btrabo, 111. p. L89. Here again Niebuhr's boldt wrote, while the lexicon or vocabulary of 

sagacity has corrected the common reading, another was far from perfect. I notice this, be- 



vipovs if^irpovi {£aKi<r;£(X<W f'rii', which, as he cause words may exist in these dialects which 

observes, would not be Greek, into vdpovs I^uki- may i. r o far to establish the resemblance of the 

ax^'^v i-^mv. Basque language to others, or to prove its di- 

W'Im'Ii this page was written, T had not seen vcrsity; and may explain those names in the 

the excellent work of the lamented William Yon aneient geography ot'Snain which have nol been 

Humboldt, "on the earliest inhabitants of hitherto interpreted. The Iberians, in Hum- 
Spain," although I was aware generally of its boldt's judgment, were a people quite distinct 
oharacter, and of the conclusion \\ hioh it endeav- from the Kelts; but they may have had the 
ored to establish. He considers it to be cer- Bame degree of connection with them which sub- 
tain that tii j ' present Basque language is sub- Bisted between all the nations of the great Indo- 

stantially the same with the, aneient Iberian: Germanic family. Be does not believe in the 

the names of places in the aneient geography Iberian extraction of anj part of the inhabitants 

of Spain Ijcinjr, for the most part, not only Big- of the British Islands. 

niflcant in Basque, but exhibiting m their sound, * Scylax, p. 2. Herodotus speaks of "the 

and in their omission of some letters, and their Ligurians who live above Massalia." V. 9. 

combinations of others, the peculiarities of the -" Herodot. VII. 105. 

existing language. ItappearsthatintheBlBque ai Thucydides, VI. 2. 



Chap. XXIL] THE KELTS, OR GAULS. 187 

meant, nor what limits Thucydides assigned to Iberia ; but a migration to Sicily, 
rather than to Corsica or Sardinia, becomes probable, in proportion as we place 
the Sicanians further to the south, and nearer to the trading settlements of the 
Carthaginians or Phoenicians. Perhaps the Ligurians advanced along the coast 
from east to west, expelling or conquering the Iberian tribes ; till at last, when 
the force of their irruption was spent, the Iberians recovered their former coun- 
try, wholly between the Iberus and the Pyrenees, and partially between the Pyr- 
enees and the Rhone. At any rate, it should be remembered that the Iberians, 
and not the Kelts, were the inhabitants of the country between the Pyrenees and 
the Garonne and the Cevennes, as is shown even to this day, by the existence of 
the Basque language in the south of France no less than in Spain. 

It may be true, indeed, that the Kelts or Gauls had long before the fourth cen- 
tury of Rome crossed the Alps, and established themselves in that m , rr , 

J i-rii • j-ia • The Kelt8 > or Gauls : 

country, which now forms the Lombard portion ot the Austrian why they were a 3 yet 

i • • • i ti t i ii T7" i • 'l bo little known. 

dominions in northern Italy. It may be true also that Keltic tribes 
were to be found in the heart of Spain ; for, before civilization has asserted its 
power, nations, like rivers, are continually changing their boundaries, and take 
their own course almost at pleasure. But as the Kelts had most certainly nei- 
ther crossed the Apennines, nor readied as yet the shores of the Adriatic, they 
had no connection Avith the civilized world ; the Carthaginians had no opportunity 
of enlisting them into their armies, nor had the Greek traders acquired any direct 
knowledge of them. Their name was known only through the reports of those 
Phoenicians 28 who navigated the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, on their way to 
the tin mines of Britain. And this explains the strange description of their position 
given. by Herodotus, 29 " that the Kelts dwell without the Pillars of Hercules, and 
that they border on the Kynesians, who live the farthest to the west of all the 
people of Europe." This is clearly the language of some Phoenician Periplus of 
the western coasts of France and Spain : the Kynesians 30 must have lived on the 
coasts of Portugal, Gallicia, and Asturias ; perhaps on that of Gascony and Gui- 
enne : beyond these, as the voyager pursued his course along the land, he came 
to the country of the Kelts who occupied the whole coast north of the Garonne, 
and were, very probably, intermixed with the Iberian Kynesians on the coasts of 
Gascony and Navarre. The Greeks, when they read this account, little suspected 
that these same Kelts reached from the shores of the ocean inland as far as the 
Alps, and, possibly, nearly to the head of the Adriatic ; and that while they heard 
of them only as dwelling without the Pillars of Hercules, they were advanced in 
the opposite direction, almost within the ordinary horizon of Greek observation, 
and in a very short time would unexpectedly appear like a wasting torrent in the 
heart of Italy. The narrow band of coast occupied by the Ligurian and Venetian 
tribes was as yet sufficient to conceal the movements of the Kelts from the notice 
of the civilized world. Thus immediately before that famous eruption which de- 
stroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii, the level ridge 31 which was then Vesuvius ex- 
cited no suspicion ; and none could imagine that there were lurking close below 
that peaceful surface the materials of a fiery deluge, which were so soon to burst 
forth, and to continue for centuries to work havoc and desolation. 

28 _ We can trace with great distinctness the and character in different parts of his philosoph- 

period at which the Kelts became familiarly ical works, 

known to the Greeks. Herodotus only knew 29 II. 33, IV. 49. 

of them from the Phoenician navigators : Thu- 30 fhere is no mention of these Cynesians, so 

cy elides does not name them at all: Xenophon far as I remember, in any ancient writer, except 

only notices them as forming part of the aux- in the two passages of Herodotus quoted above, 

iliary force sent by Dionysius to the aid of La- Niebuhr places them to the north, rather than 

cedifimon. Isocrates makes no mention of them, to the west, of the Kelts (Kleine Histor. Schrif- 

But immediately afterwards, their incursions ten, p. 142) ; but I do not see why this is neces- 

into central and southern Italy on the one hand, sary. The account in the text seems sufficiently 

and into the countries between the Danube to explain the description in Herodotus, 

and Macedonia on the other, had made them 31 Vicina Vesevo ora, jugo. Since the erup- 

objects of general interest and curiosity ; and tion no one would ever have called the top of 

Aristotle notices several points in their habits Vesuvius a " jugum." 



188 HISTORY OP ROME. [Chap. XXIL 

From the countries of -western Europe, on which the first faint dawn of histor- 
, ical lip-ht had as yet scarcely broken, we turn to the heart of the 

Greece. Supremacy of . .,. ° . 111 iv {•/-*< i-ii-ii 

Lacedeemon. oiynthian civilized world, to those republics or Greece which had already 

confederacy. iii-i-t • e l it 

reached their highest point or glory and advancement, and were 
now feeling the first approach of decay, like a plant when its seed is almost ripe, 
and ready to be shed or wafted by the winds to a distance, there to multiply the 
race of its parent. According to the synchronism of Polybius, 32 the invasion of 
Rome by the Gauls took place in the same year with the conclusion of the peace 
of Antalcidas, that is, in the second year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad. Prob- 
ably it should be placed a few years later ; but at any rate, it falls within the 
period of the Lacedaemonian supremacy in Greece, after the humiliation of Athens 
by the result of the Peloponnesian war, and before the rise of the power of 
Thebes. Never was dominion wielded by such unfit hands as those of the Spar- 
tans. Living at home under an iron system, which taught each successive gen- 
eration that their highest virtue was to preserve and not to improve the institu- 
tions of their fathers, the Lacedaemonians were utterly unable to act the part of 
conquerors ; for conquest, being the greatest of all possible changes, can only be 
conducted by those who know how to change wisely ; 33 a conqueror who is the 
slave of existing institutions, is no better than a contradiction. Thus the Spartans 
had no idea of turning their triumph over Athens to any other account than that 
of their own pride and rapacity ; neither the general intercourse between nation 
and nation, nor commerce, nor intellectual nor moral excellence, derived any benefit 
from their ascendency. It was therefore unnatural, and fulfilled no object of 
God's providence, except that of being an instrument for the chastisement of others; 
so that it could only sow the seed of future wars, till, having heaped up the meas- 
ure of insult and oppression, it at last drew down its just judgment. But the 
growth of that spirit of organization and self-government, which the high intelli- 
gence of the Greek mind could not but foster, was seen in the formation of the 
Oiynthian confederacy. 34 Among the Chalcidian and Bottieean towns of the penin- 
sula of Pallene and its neighborhood, places whose fate it had been hitherto to be 
the mere subjects of some greater power, we now witness the growth of an inde- 
pendent political system, of which the head was not to be Sparta nor Athens, 
but Olynthus. This was a proof that the vigor of the Greek character was de- 
veloping itself in a wider circle than heretofore, and prepares us for the change 
so soon to be effected by the genius of Philip and Alexander, when the centre of 
the power and outward activity of Greece was to be found in Macedon, while 
Athens still remained the well-spring of its- intellectual vigor. 
• The eastern coast of the Adriatic is one of those ill-fated portions of the earth 
. , which, though placed in immediate contact with civilization, have 

Eastern coast of the ■ i i, i i • TT • • i 1 • i 1 i 

Adnatio. iioiossians remained perpetually barbarian. Unvisited, and indeed almost 

and 1 lwsprotniDs. . ■ v l r t • p l 

inaccessible to strangers from the robber habits M the population, 
the Dalmatian provinces of Austria, no less than those of Montenegro and Al- 
bania, which are not yet reunited to Christendom, are to this hour as devoid of 
illustrious names and noble associations, as they were in the fourth century be- 
fore the Christian era. From the gulf of Ambracia, the northwestern boundary 
of Greece, up to the head of the Adriatic, the coast was occupied by the Mo- 
lossians, Thesprotians, Chaonians, and beyond these, by the various tribes 35 of 
the great Ulyrian nation, amongst whom Herodotus included ev«n the Henetians 
or Venetians, at the northern extremity of this whole region. In remote times, 
before the Hellenic race began to assume a character so distinct from all its 

34 I. 6. ians, pp. 6, 7. And so also does Livv, X. '2. 

33 ' llovx"£ovari piv irdXti ra aidvnTa u5»i/ki But Herodotus, as I have said, reckons even 

Sptara' jrpoc TrnAAa 8i ivayKa^opivois livai xoWijs the Venetians as Hlyrians, I. 196, and Btrabo 

ical tTjs (mTCxvijatuys Au. Tliurul. I. 71. calls the. wholo eastern OOaSl Of the Adriatic, 

84 Xenophon, BeUeniea, V. - j, § 12, "et seqq. Dlyricnm, as far as the very head of the gulf. 
:,i ' Scylax distinguishes the Venetians, as well Yll. pp. 313, 3M. 
as the lstrians and Iibumians, from the lllyr- 



Chap.XXIL] MOLOSSIANS, THESPROTIANS, ETC. 189 

kindred nations, the Molossians, Thesprotians, and Chaonians, all of them, it is 
probable, Pelasgian tribes, were both, in their religion and in their traditions of 
tbeir heroes, closely connected with the Greeks. The ancient temple of Dodona, 
once no less famous than Delphi became afterwards, belonged to the Thespro- 
tians ; the son of Achilles was said to have reigned over the Molossians ; and 
even within historical memory, the names of Molossian kings and chiefs are of 
Greek origin, such as Alcon, one of the suitors of the fair Agariste, the daugh- 
ter of Clisthenes of Sicyon, and still later, Admetus, the protector of Themisto- 
cles in his disgrace, and Alcetas, the ally of Dionysius of Syracuse. But the 
mass of the people were considered to be barbarian, and their fortunes were dis- 
tinct from those of Greece, till the brilliant reign of Pyrrhus, more than a cen- 
tury after our present period, for a time united them. 

The Illyrians were already notorious for their piracies, and it was remarked of 
them, that some of their tribes were governed by queens. 36 Their m .^ 
queen Teuta, and her wars with the Romans, will give me an op- 
portunity of noticing them more fully hereafter ; and so rapidly is our knowl- 
edge increasing, that ere long we may possibly gain some clue to assist us in 
discovering the race and language of the Illyrians, points which at present are 
involved in the greatest obscurity. 

We are within five-and-twenty years of the accession of Philip to the throne 
of Macedon, but so entirely was the Macedonian greatness his 

■' . S; , Macedon. Reign of 

own personal work, that nothing as yet gave sign of what it was Amyntaa, the father of 
so soon to become. His father, Amyntas, was at this time king, 
and unable even to cope with the Olynthian confederacy, which had lately grown 
up in his neighborhood. Many of the cities of Macedonia were won by the 
Olynthians, 31 and Amyntas was most rejoiced to obtain the aid of Lacedsemon 
to establish him on his throne by putting down this formidable enemy. The 
Macedonians 38 were not allowed to be Greeks, although they were probably of 
a kindred stock, and although the Greek language was now in universal use 
among them. But their kings were of the noblest Greek blood, being Heracli- 
dse from Argos, claiming descent from Temenus, one of the three hero chiefs of 
the race of Hercules, who had established themselves in Peloponnesus by the aid 
of the Dorians. The people were stout, brave, and hardy, and more numerous 
than the citizens of the little Greek commonwealths ; so that Philip afterwards 
found no difficulty in raising a considerable army, when he began to aspire to 
the honor of making himself the first power in Greece. But as yet, though 
Archelaus had made roads through the country, 39 and had collected large sup- 
plies of arms to arm his people, the friendship and the enmity of Macedon were 
of little value, and none could have imagined that the fatal blow to the inde- 
pendence of Greece was to come from a kingdom which as yet scarcely belonged 
to the Greek name, and in the struggles for dominion between Athens and La- 
cedaemon, had been only a subordinate auxiliary. 

Further to the east, the great Persian monarchy still existed unimpaired in 
the extent of its visible dominion, although ready at the first st8te of the Persian 
touch to fall to pieces. All of Asia, of which the Greeks had any moo ^^y- 
knowledge, from the shores of the iEgaean to the Indus and the Araxes, from 
the Erythraean sea l^th wards to the Caspian and the chain of Caucasus, obeyed, 
to speak generally, the great king. In Africa, however, it was otherwise : Egypt 

36 Ai(3vpvol ywatKOKparovvTai. Scylax, Periplus, saying, that lie himself was of Greek origin, al- 
p. 1. This is on the assumption that the Libur- luding to his supposed descent from Temenus 
nians were either Illyrians, or, at any rate, of a the Heraclid. This would have been needless, 
kindred stock. had his birth as a Macedonian made him a 

37 Xenophon, Hellenica, V. 2, § 18, 3, § 9. Greek. Again, Thucydides distinguishes the 

38 Alexander, the son of Amyntas, when he Macedonians from the Greeks who were settled 
went over with some secret information to the on their coast, and even expressly includes 
Greek camp, before the hattle of Platjea, is them amongst the barbarians, IV. 124, 126. 
represented by Herodotus (IX. 45) as account- a9 Thucydides, II. 100. 

ing for his interest in the welfare of Greece by 



190 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIII 

had been for some years in revolt, was again governed by a dynasty of its na- 
tive princes, and had defied the efforts of the Persian kings to reconquer it. 
And this example, together with the long war carried on against the Persians by 
Evagoras, the tyrant of the little state of Salamis, in Cyprus, and the belt of 
Greek cities encircling the whole coast of Asia Minor, from Trapezus on the 
Euxine to Cnidus by the Triopian cape, was tending gradually to dissolve the 
Persian power. The great king's hold on Caria and Cilicia was loosened, and 
when Isocrates wrote his Panegyrical Oration, in the beginning of the hundredth 
Olympiad, 40 Tyre was in the possession of the king's enemies, and its naval force 
strengthened for a time the arms of Evagoras. 

Such was the state of the civilized world, when the Kelts or Gauls broke 
through the thin screen which had hitherto concealed them from 
sight, and began, for the first time, to take their part in the great 
drama of the nations. For nearly two hundred years they continued to fill Eu- 
rope and Asia with the terror of their name ; but it was a passing tempest, and 
if useful at all, it was useful only to destroy. The Gauls could communicate no 
essential points of human character in which other races might be deficient ; 
they could neither improve the intellectual state of mankind, nor its social and 
political relations. When, therefore, they had done their appointed work of 
havoc, they were doomed to be themselves extirpated, or to be lost amidst na- 
tions of greater creative and constructive power ; nor is there any race which has 
left fewer traces of itself in the character and institutions of modern civilization. 



CHAPTER XXIII, 

MISCELLANEOUS— PHYSICAL HISTORY. 



" Postrema vero partitio historiae civilis ea sit, ut dividatur in rnerarn aut mix'tam. Mixtune 
celebres dua3 : altera ex scientia civili ; altera praecipue ex naturali." — Bacon, De Augmentis 
Sciential - . II. 10. 

A great work might be written on the connection between the revolutions of 
nature and those of mankind : how they act each upon the other ; 

Imperfection of the ma- ., . rv.ii i • . it l" ■ • n J 

tenuis of physical til- how man is affected bj 7 climate, and now climate is again altered 
by the labors of man ; how diseases are generated ; how different 
states of society are exposed to different disorders, and require different sorts of 
diet ; how, as all earthly things are exhaustible, the increased command over 
external nature given by increased knowledge, seems to have a tendency to 
shorten the period of the existing creation, by calling at once into action those 
resources of the earth which else might have supplied the wants of centuries to 
come ; how, in short, nature, no less than human society, contains tokens that 
it had a beginning, and will as surely have its end. But, unfortunately, the 
physical history of ancient times is even more imperfect than the political his- 
tory; and in the place of those exact and uninterrupted records of natural phe- 
nomena, from which alone any safe conclusions can be drawn, we have only a 
few scattered notices ; nor can we be sure that even these have recorded what 
was most worthy of our knowledge. Still, these scanty memorials, such as they 

40 Isocrates, Panegyric. § 188, p. 74. 



Chap. XXIIL] CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE OF ITALY. 191 

are, must not be neglected ; and as we gain a wider experience, even these may 
hereafter be found instructive. 

The first question with regard to the physical state of ancient Rome is, wheth- 
er the climate was such as it is at present. Now here it is impos- 

. , , li i- ■ c A ■ climate of Italy 

sible not to consider the somewhat analogous condition ot America was anciently colder in 

.. i-i -i-r> lxj.1 winter than it is now. 

at this day. Boston is in the same latitude with Rome ; but the 
severity of its winter far exceeds not that of Rome only, but of Paris and Lon- 
don. Allowing that the peninsular form of Italy must at all times have had its 
effect in softening the climate, still the woods and marshes of Cisalpine Gaul, 
and the perpetual snows of the Alps, far more extensive than at present, owing 
to the uncultivated and uncleared state of Switzerland and Germany, could not 
but have been felt even in the neighborhood of Rome. Besides, even on the 
Apennines, and in Etruria and in Latium, the forests occupied a far greater space 
than in modern times : this would increase the quantity of rain, and consequently 
the volume of water in the rivers ; the floods would be greater and more numer- 
ous, and before man's dominion had completely subdued the whole country, 
there would be large accumulations of water in the low grounds, which would 
still further increase the coldness of the atmosphere. The language 1 of ancient 
writers, on the whole, favors the same conclusion, that the Roman winter, in 
their days, was more severe than it is at present. It agrees with this, that 'the 
olive, which cannot bear a continuance of severe cold, was not introduced into 
Italy till long after the vine : Fenestella 2 asserted that its cultivation was un- 
known as late as the reign of Tarquinius Priscus ; and such was the notion en- 
tertained of the cold of all inland countries, even in the latitude of Greece, that 
Theophrastus 3 held it impossible to cultivate the olive at the distance of more 
than four hundred stadia from the sea. But the cold of the winter is perfectly 
consistent 4 with great heat in the summer. The vine is cultivated with success 
on the Rhine, in the latitude of Devonshire and Cornwall, although the winter at 
Coblentz and Bonn is far more severe than it is in Westmoreland ; and ever- 
greens will flourish through the winter in the Westmoreland valley far better 
than on the Rhine or in the heart of France. The summer heat of Italy was 
probably much the same in ancient times as it is at present, except that there 

1 It is by no means easy to know what weight in the 58th volume of the Philosophical Trans- 
is to be given to the language of the poets, nor actions. Gibbon, also, after stating the argu- 
how far particular descriptions or expressions ments on both sides of the question, comes to 
may have been occasioned by peculiar local cir- the same conclusion. Miscellaneous Works, 
cumstances. Pliny's statement, Epistol. II. 17, Vol. III. p. 246. He quotes, however, the Abbe 
that the bay-tree would rarely live through the de Louguerue, as saying that the Tiber was 
winter without shelter, either at Kome, or at frozen in the bitter winter of 1709. 
his own villa atLaurentum, if taken absolutely, 2 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XV. 1. 
would prove too much; for although the bay 'is 3 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XV. 1. 
less hardy than some other evergreens, yet how 4 It is a common notion that climate follows 
can it be conceived that a climate in which the latitude, and that a northern country will be 
olive would flourish, could be too severe for the cold, and a southern one warm, as compared 
bay? _ There must either have been some local with each other throughout the year. But this 
peculiarity of winds or soil, which the tree did is by no means a universal rule ; on the con- 
not like, or else the fact, as is sometimes the trary, climate in England is more affected by 
case, must have been too hastily assumed ; and the longitude of a place, than by its latitude ; 
men were afraid, from long custom, to leave and the winters are often mildest in those parts 
the bay unprotected in the winter, although, in where the summers are least genial. The whole 
fact, they might have done it with safety. Yet eastern coast, from Kent to Caithness, is much 
the elder Pliny, XVII. 2, speaks of long snows colder in winter than the western ; and this to 
being useful to the corn, which shows that he such a degree, that Kent is not only colder than 
is not speaking of the mountains ; and a long CornwaU, but colder than Cumberland, or Ar- 
snow lying in the valleys of central or southern gyleshire. On the other hand, the eastern coast 
Italy would surely be a very unheard-of phe- in summer enjoys a much greater share of steady 
nomenon now. Again, the freezing of the riv- fine weather and sunshine than the western. 
ers, as spoken of by Virgil and Horace, is an Wall-fruit will ripen in the neighborhood of Ed- 
image of winter, which could not, I think, nat- inburgh far more surely than in Westmoreland, 
urafly suggest itself to Italian poets of the pres- and wheat grows luxuriantly as far north as 
ent day, at any point to the south of the Apen- Elgin, while it is a rarity on the coast of Ar- 
nines. Other arguments, to the same effect, gyleshire. 
may be seen in a paper by Daines Barrington, 



192 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XXHI. 

were a great number of spots where shade and verdure might be found, and 
where its violence would, therefore, be more endurable. But the difference be- 
tween the temperature of summer and winter may be safely assumed to have 
been much greater than it is now. 

It then becomes a question whether the greater cold of the winter, and the 
Thisperhapshadanef- greater extent of wood and of undrained waters which existed in 
of'!h™nl'ighborhood e rf the times of the Romans, may not have had a favorable influence 

in mitigating that malaria which is now the curse of so many parts 
of Italy, and particularly of the immediate neighborhood of Rome. On a subject 
so imperfectly understood, even by those who have had the fullest experience, it 
were most unbecoming in a foreigner to speak otherwise than with the greatest 
diffidence. We know, however, that the Campagna at Rome, which is now 
almost a desert, must, at a remote period, have been full of independent cities ; 
and although the greater part of these had perished long before the fourth cen- 
tury of Rome, yet even then there existed Ostia, Laurentum, Ardea, and Antium 
on one side, and Veii and Caere on the other, in situations which are now regarded 
as uninhabitable during the summer months ; and ah the lands of the Romans, on 
which they, like the old Athenians, for the most part resided regularly, lie within 
the present range of the malaria. 

Some have supposed that, although the climate was the same as it is now, yet 

the Romans were enabled to escape from its influence, and their 

The range of the mala- „ .. • i i s 1 ' • • n ■ n 

ria less extensive for- safety has been ascribed to their practice ot weanno- woollen next 

merly than at present. . i i • ■ irv t> • 

to the skin, instead ot linen or cotton. .But not to notice other 
objections to this notion, it is enough to say that the Romans regarded unhealthy 
situations with the same apprehension as their modern descendants ; it is one 
of the first cautions given by Cato 6 and Varro 1 to a man going to purchase land, 
that he should buy only where the air is healthy ; " otherwise," says Varro, 
" farming is nothing else than a mere gambling Avith life and property." The truth 
seems to be, that the malaria, although well known and extremely fatal, was 
much more partial than at present, and that many spots which are now infected 
were formerly free from it. " The whole of Latium," says Strabo, 8 " is a flour- 
ishing and very productive country, with the exception of a few spots near the 
coast, which are marshy and unhealthy." And again, when speaking expressly 
of the Campagna between the Alban hills and Rome, 9 he says, " that the parts 
towards the sea are not so healthy ; but that the rest is a good country to live 
in, and well cultivated accordingly." Now, although this is probably going too 
far, for the unhealthy spots could not have been confined altogether to the sea- 
coast, yet with every allowance for exaggeration and careless writing, this is a 
description of the Campagna which no man in his senses would think of giving 
now. 

On the other hand, Cicero 10 and Livy 11 both speak of the immediate neighbor- 
Rome itself, then as hood of Rome as unhealthy, but at the same time they extol the 
S?7th™itomim^fato positive healthiness of the city itself ; ascribing it to the hills, which 
neighborhood. are at once a j r y. themselves, and offer a screen to the low grounds 

from the heat of the sun. Bunsen, also, from an experience of many years, 
gives a favorable account of the healthiness of the city itself. "The site of 
Rome," he says, " taken generally, may be called healthy." It is true, that one 
of the most unhealthy parts of modern Rome, the Piazzi di Spagna and the 
slope of the Pincian hill above it, was not within the limits of the ancient city. 
Yet the praise of the healthiness of Rome must be understood rather com- 

5 By Brocchi, in his "Discorso Bulla oondi- ° V. 3, § 12, p. 239. 

ziQne dell' aria di Roma aegli antichi tempi," I0 De Republics, II. 6. "Locum delegit 

printed at the end of his work on the Geology (Romulus) in regione pestilenti Balubrem." 

of Borne. u Compare VII. 88. "In pcstilente atque 

'• Cato, de Re RuBtica, II. arido circa urbem solo;" and V. 54. "Salu- 

1 Varro. de Re RusticA, II. 4. bcrrimos colics." 

8 V. 3, § 5, p. 231. 



Chap. XXIIL] SUPPOSED CAUSES OF THE MALARIA. 193 

paratively with that of the immediate neighborhood than positively. Rome, 
in the summer months, cannot be called healthy, even as compared with the 
other great cities of Italy, much less if the standard be taken from Berlin or from 
London. 

Again, the neighborhood of Rome is characterized by Livy as a " pestilential 
and parched soil." The latter epithet is worthy of notice, because , „ 

1 . .. l ..•'. 1-1 The Campagna has per- 

the favorite opinion has been that the malaria is connected with taps become lessheai- 

,., . -,-.., 'li l *^y from the winters 

marshes and with moisture. .But it is precisely here that we may having become milder, 

n 1 _ 1 . - . . . P1 l f 1 i l ftn0 ^ trom tne diminu- 

nnd, 1 think, the explanation ot the spread oi the malaria in mod- tum m the quantity of 
ern times. Even in spring, nothing can less resemble a marsh than 
the present aspect of the Campagna. It is far more like the down country of 
Dorsetshire, and as the summer advances it may well be called a dry and parched 
district. But this is exactly the character of the plains 12 of Estremadura, where 
our soldiers suffered so grievously from malaria fever in the autumn of 1809. In 
short, abundant experience has proved, that when the surface of the ground is 
wet, the malaria poison is far less noxious than when all appearance of moisture 
on the surface is gone, and the damp makes its way into the atmosphere from a 
considerable depth under ground. After a wet and cold summer in 1799, when 
the whole face of the country was nearly flooded with water, the British army 
remained the whole autumn in one of the most unhealthy parts of Holland, with- 
out suffering in any remarkable degree from malaria fever. But in 1809, when 
the summer had been hot and fine, every one remembers the deadly effecvt in the 
autumn fevers on the soldiers who were holding Walcheren. If, then, more rain 
fell in the Campagna formerly than is the case now ; if the streams were fuller 
of water, and their course more rapid ; above all, if, owing to the uncleared state 
of central Europe, and the, greater abundance of wood in Italy itself, the summer 
heats set in later, and were less intense, and more often relieved by violent storms 
of rain, there is every reason to believe that the Campagna must have been far 
healthier than at present ; and that precisely in proportion to the clearing and 
cultivation of central Europe, to the felling of the woods in Italy itself, the con- 
sequent decrease in the quantity of rain, the shrinking of the streams, and the 
disappearance of the water from the surface, has been the increased unhealthiness 
of the country, and the more extended range of the malaria. 

It must be observed also, that the present desolation of the Campagna, and 
even that comparative want of population which prevailed in it Causes of it3 gradual 
during the later times of the Roman republic and under the em- desolatlon - 
pire, are not wholly to be attributed to physical causes. The aguish districts of 
England continue to be inhabited, nor have the terrors of the yellow fever driven 
men away from the unhealthiest situations of the West Indies, or from Vera Cruz, 
Acapulco, or Carthagena. The old cities of the Campagna would have continued 
to defy the malaria ; their population would have been kept down, indeed ; many 
of their children would have died young, and the average length of human life 
would have been far short of threescore years and ten ; but men do not readily 
leave their country, and they would have continued, as their fathers had done 
before them, to struggle with disease and death. When, however, political causes 
had destroyed the cities of the Campagna one after the other, and the land be- 
came the property of Roman citizens ; when again, at a later period, the small prop- 
erties disappeared, and whole districts fell into the hands of a few individuals ; 
then it was natural that those who could afford to live where they chose, should 

12 The view here given of some of the phe- of his description of Rome. An unprofessional 

nomena of marsh or malaria fevers was obtained man's judgment of a medical work is worth lit- 

from a paper by Dr. Ferguson of Windsor, " on tie ; but the subject of Dr. Ferguson's paper is 

the nature and history of the Marsh Poison," one in which I have long felt a lively interest ; 

which was read before the Eoyal Society of Edin- and all that I have observed myself, or heard 

burgh in 1820. I directed Buns'en's attention from medical men, in answer to my inquiriesaa 

to it, and he has made much use of it in his own to matters of fact, has been in agreement with 

paper on the " Aria Cattiva," in the first volume his statements. 
13 



194 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIII. 

not fix themselves in a spot of even partial unhealthiness, and thus a great part 
of the Campagna was left only to the slaves by whom it was cultivated. In 
modern times, when slave labor was no longer to be had, and there Avere no at- 
tractions strong enough to induce a free population to migrate from their homes to 
an unhealthy district, the Campagna has remained a wilderness, and its harvests 
are reaped by a temporary immigration of laborers from other parts of the coun- 
try. To repeople it under such circumstances is far more difficult than to keep 
up a population already existing ; and if, as I believe, the physical state of the 
Campagna has become more and more unfavorable, it seems likely, without some 
extraordinary advances in our knowledge of the malaria, and in our ability to 
combat it, to remain a wilderness forever. 13 

The disorders produced by malaria, whether more or less fatal, so regularly 
accompanied the return of hot weather, that they were not likely 

Various epidemic dis- , x 1 1 • ii i nil |> l • l • i 

orders noticed m the an- to be recorded in the annals. Ihe diseases which were noticed 
there were of a very different character, and belonged rather to 
another class of phenomena, those extraordinary sicknesses which, in obedience to a 
law hitherto undiscovered, visit the earth at different periods, prevail more or less 
extensively, and acting independently, as it seems, of any recognized causes of 
disease, are also beyond the reach of all known remedies. The first half of the 
fourth century of Rome was one of these calamitous periods, and the pestilences 
which occurred at the beginning of it have already been noticed. Seven others 
are recorded between the years 318 and 365 ; that is to say, 14 in 319, 320, 322, 
327, 343, 356, and 363. They are described in general terms, with the excep- 
tion of those of the years 327 and 363, which are ascribed to unusual droughts ; 
and said also to have nearly resembled each other in their symptoms. The epi- 
demic of 327 first, as we are told, attacked the cattle, th$ herdsmen, and others who 
tended the cattle, and lastly it became general. It appears to have been wholly 
inflammatory, and to have shown itself particularly on the skin ; first, in the form of 
a violent rash, 15 accompanied with extreme irritation, and afterwards in the shape of 
erysipelas of a very malignant kind. This visitation took place just after the con- 
clusion of the peace of Nicks, and we do not hear of any coincident prevalence 
of pestilence in Greece. The epidemic of 363 16 is described in similar terms; it 
was brought on by the same causes, an exceedingly hot and dry summer ; and 
the symptoms were the same, an eruption terminating in large and painful ulcers, 
accompanied with such irritation, that their patients tore their flesh even to the 
bone. The date of this disorder falls about the beginning of the ninety-ninth 
Olympiad, that is to say, it coincides with the Olynthian war ; and as it arose 

13 This opinion should be expressed with the prictors disposed to follow a new system, at 
greatest hesitation and diffidence, because Bun- variance with their old habits, it must be allowed 
sen believes that the Campagna is reelairaable that the duke of Zagarolo 1 s experiment was made 
by encouraging human habitation in it ; and he under circumstances unusually favorable. The 
thinks that lftnegreat land holders were to let out country round Zagarolo is high ground; it 
their property on leases to a number of small forms a sort of shoulder, connecting the Alban 
farmers, who would thus naturally create a resi- hills with the Apennines, and forms the divor- 
dent population, the unhealthiness of the air tium aquarum, or water-shed, of the feeders of 
would, in a great measure, be obviated. It is said the Tiber on the one hand, and ofthoGarig- 
that the breaking up of the surface of the ground liano on the other. Its character also is wholly 
is found to lessen the virulence of the malaria; different from the general aspect of the Cam- 
and the tires which necessarily accompany hu- pagna; it is not a country of long swelling slopes, 
man dwellings, are another known antidote to notched as it were here and there with deep 
it. As a proof of this, Bunsen appeals to the narrow stream beds; but a succession of nearly 
great improvement thus effected by the. duke parallel ridges, rising to a considerable height, 
of Zagarolo in the neighborhood of that little with valleys rather than gorges between them, 
town, which stands on the edge of the Cam- To all appearance, therefore, it was more easily 
pagna, a few miles from Palestrina, about a mile reclaimable than the great mass of the Cam- 
on the left of the road coming from Borne. The pagna. 
air, which was decidedly unhealthy, has been " Livy, IV. 21,25, 30, 52. V. 18, 81. 

f untied ; and the whole district, by having 16 Dio'nysius, XII. 3. Fragm. Mai. 

een peopled, has become actually capable of I6 Dionysius, XIII. 4. Fragm. Mai, Livy, 

supporting a population in health and prosper- V. 31. Dionysius appears to put this epidemic 

ity. However, without reckoning on the moral a year earlier than Livy, namely, 362. 
improbability of finding the great body of pro- 



Chap. XXIII.] VOLCANIC LAKES— LAKE OF ALBA. 195 

from local causes, we cannot be surprised that we hear no mention of its having 
extended into Greece. But the epidemic of 322 and of the years almost imme- 
diately preceding it, was contemporary with the great plague of Athens : and that 
of 356 coincided, according to the chronology of Diodorus, with the violent sick- 
ness which destroyed Imilcon's army before Syracuse, and had been preceded by 
three or four years of epidemic disease in Africa. 

If from diseases we turn to the phenomena of the weather, with which they are, 
in all probability, closely connected, we find the years 327 and 363 

■.-, liii i it ■ i i i Phenomena of the wea- 

marked, as nas already been observed, by excessive droughts ; and ther. Great frost of the 
the summer of 356 is said by Diodorus 17 to have been of the same >e 
character. On the other hand, the winter of 355 had been one of unusual sever- 
ity ; 18 the Tiber was choked up with ice, the snow lay seven feet deep, where 
it was not drifted ; many men and cattle were lost in it,- and many of the cattle 
were killed by the extreme cold, or starved from want of pasture, the resources by 
which we now provide for their subsistence during the winter being then little 
practised. It is added that the fruit-trees, by which are meant the figs and olives 
in particular, either perished altogether, or suffered so severely that they did not 
bear for a long time afterwards ; and that many houses were crushed by the 
weight of snow which lay on them, or carried away by its melting when the frost 
at last broke up. There is also a notice in Diodorus of the winter of 321, 19 which 
is described as having been excessively wet, so that the fruits of the following- 
season never ripened properly, and the corn was considered unwholesome. 

The period about the year 322 was remarkable in Greece for the frequency 
and severity of earthquakes ; the numerous earthquakes which, volcanic phenomena. 
from their occurring so nearly together, were remembered afterwards ^^i"^ 68 - 
as an epoch, happened, says Thucydides, 20 at this time. In the same way the 
Romans were alarmed in the year 319 by reports 21 of frequent earthquakes in 
the country immediately adjoining Rome, and many houses were thrown down 
by the shocks. It is probable some phenomenon of this sort occasioned also the 
great overflow of the Alban lake during the war with Veii ; an event remarkable 
in itself, and still more so as having led to the famous work existing to this day ; 
the tunnel by which the water of the lake is carried through the range of hills 
which encircle it, and from thence is discharged into the Campagna. 

The lakes of Alba and Nemi, like others in the neighborhood of Rome, are of 
a peculiar character. In their elevation, lying nestled as it were The volcanic lalce8 of 
high up in the bosom of the mountains, they resemble what in RoU^T^Tof the 
Cumberland and Westmoreland are called tarns; but our tarns, lakeofAlba - 
like ordinary lakes, have their visible feeders and outlets, their head which re- 
ceives the streams from the mountain sides, and their foot by which they dis- 
charge themselves, generally in a larger stream, into the valley below. The 
lakes of Alba and Nemi lie each at the bottom of a perfect basin, and the un- 
broken rim of this basin allows them no visible outlet. Again, it sometimes hap- 
pens that lakes so situated have their outlet under ground, and that the stream 
which drains them appears again to the day after a certain distance, having made 
its way through the basin of the lake by a tunnel provided for it by nature. 
This is the case particularly where the prevailing rock is the mountain or metal- 
liferous limestone of Derbyshire, which is full of caverns and fissures : and an in- 
stance of it may be seen in the small lake or tarn of Malham in Yorkshire, and 
another on a much larger scale in the lake of Copais in Boeotia. But the volcanic 
rocks, in which the lake of Alba lies, do not afford such natural tunnels, or at 

17 XIV. 70. or since, down to his time. I cannot find any 

18 Livy, V. 13. Dionysius, XII. 8. Fragm. particulars of the freezing of the Tiber in 1709, 
Mai. Bimsen observes that ice in the Tiber is already noticed in note 1. 

now as unknown a phenomenon as it would be w XII. 58. 

between the tropics. The winter of 355 is in- 20 III. 89. 

deed described by Dionysius as one altogether 21 Livy, IV. 21. 
unparalleled in the Eoman annals, either before 



196 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIH. 

least they are exceeding small, and unequal to the discharge of any large quan- 
tity of water ; so that if any unusual cause swells the lake, it can find no adequate 
outlet, and rises necessarily to a higher level. The Roman tradition reported 
that such a rise took place in the year 357 ; it was caused probably by some 
volcanic agency, and increased to such a height, that the water at last ran over 
the basin of hills at its lowest point, 2 ' 2 and poured down into the Campagna. 
Traces 23 of such an outlet are said to be still visible ; and it is asserted that there 
are marks of artificial cutting through the rock, as if to enlarge and deepen the 
passage. This would suppose the ordinary level of the lake in remote times to 
have been about two hundred feet higher than it is at present ; and if this were 
so, the actual tunnel was intended not to remedy a new evil, but to alter the old 
state of the lake for the better, by reducing it for the time to come to a lower 
level. Possibly the discharge over the edge of the basin became suddenly greater, 
and so suggested the idea of diverting the water altogether by a different chan- 
nel. But the whole story of the tunnel, as we have it, is so purely a part of the 
poetieal account of the fall of Veii, that no part of it can be relied on as histori- 
cal. The prophecy of the old Veientian, and the corresponding answer of the 
Delphian oracle, connecting the draining of the lake with the fate of Veii, must 
be left as we find them ; only it is likely enough that any extraordinary natural 
phenomenon, occurring immediately after the visitation of pestilence, and in the 
midst of a long and doubtful war, should have excited unusual alarm, and have 
been thought important enough to require an appeal to the most famous oracle 
in the world. But other questions of no small difficulty remain : the length of 
the tunnel, according to the lowest statement given, exceeds two thousand one 
hundred yards ; 24 according to others it exceeds two thousand six hundred ; 25 and 
one estimate makes it as much as two thousand eight hundred :" 6 its height varies 
from seven feet and a half to nine or ten feet ; and its width is not less than four 
feet. Admitting that it was wholly worked through the tufo,' 27 which is easily 
wrought, still the labor and expense of such a tunnel must have been consider- 
able ; and in the midst of an important war, how could either money or hands 
have been spared for such a purpose ? Again, was the work exclusively a Ro- 
man one, or performed by the Romans jointly with the Latins, as an object of 
common concern to the whole confederacy ? The Alban lake can scarcely have 
been within the domain of Rome ; nor can we conceive that the Romans could 
have been entitled to divert its waters at their pleasure without the consent of 
the neighboring Latin cities. But if it Avere a common work ; if the Latins en- 
tered heartily into the quarrel of Rome with Veii, regarding it as a struggle be- 
tween their race and that of the Etruscans ; if the overflow of the waters of their 
national lake, the lake which bathed the foot of the Alban mountain, where their 
national temple stood and their national solemnities were held, excited an interest 
in every people of the Latin name, then we may understand how their joint labor 
and joint contributions may have accomplished the work even in the midst of 
war ; and the Romans, as they disguised on every occasion the true nature of 
their connection with the Latins, would not fail to represent it as exclusively 
their own. 

" Dionysius, XII. 11. Fragm. Mai. " Westphal says it is worked through lava. 

- 3 Sir \V. Gell, Topography of Rome, &c. Vol. Sir W. Gell says "it is excavated generally in the 

I. p. 48. tufo. Mr. Meason, whose authority is consid- 

* Westphal. Romische Kampagne, p. 25. erahle, as he had had much practical BCqnaint- 

86 Sir W. QelL Topography ot Rome, p. 89. ance with mining, and wont into the tunnel for 

28 Mr. Laing Meason, ([iioted by Sir W. Gell about 180 yards from the lake, speaks of the 

in a note to p. 53 of his Topogr. of Rome, Vol. I. work as cut in the tufo. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE GAULS INVADE CENTBAL ITALY— BATTLE OF THE ALIA— BUBNING OF 
BOME— EANSOM OF THE CAPITOL AND OF THE CITY— EETEEAT OF THE 
GAULS. 



" Hark ! the Gaul is at her gates !" 

Cowpeb. 

" Aurea caesaries ollis,'atque aurea vestis : 
Virgatis lucent sagulis ; turn laetea colla 
Auro innectuntur : duo quisque Alpina coruscant 
Gsesa manu, scutis protecti corpora longis." 

Viegll, ^n. VIII. 658. 



The fourth century before the Christian eera brought the Gauls, as we have 
seen, for the first time within the observation of the civilized world. 

rm .i l xi a • l j i i , i Common account of 

lhey then crossed the Apennines, and overran central and south- the settlements of the 
era Italy ; they then also broke in upon the Illyrian 1 tribes, estab- 
lished themselves between the Danube and Greece, and became known to the 
kings of Macedon. 2 But whether it was in this same century that they had first 
crossed the Alps as well as the Apennines, is a question much more difficult to 
answer. If we follow the well-known account of Livy, 3 we must fix their passage 
of the Alps two hundred years earlier : it was about six hundred years before the 
Christian aera, according to this statement, that there happened a vast emigration 
of the inhabitants of central Gaul ; one great multitude, said the story, crossed 
the Rhine, and sought a home amidst the wilds of the Hercynian forest ; another 
made its way over the Alps, descended into the plain of the Po, encountered and 
defeated the Etruscans, who were then the masters of the country, near the river 
Ticinus, and founded the city of Mediolanum. After this other tribes of central 
Gauls, entering Italy by the same course, and finding their countrymen already 
in possession of all to the westward of the Adda, penetrated still deeper, and ex- 
tended the Gaulish settlements as far as the Adige. Again, at a later period, 
but how much later we are not told, the Boii 4 and Lingones set out from the east 

1 Justin, XXIV. 4. This is the great expedi- as having entered Italy last of all the Gauls, are 
tion which Scylax alludes to, when he describes also included amongst the tribes of the first 
the Gauls on the northwestern coast of the swarm who founded Mediolanum. Both these 
Adriatic, as_"_ men who had stayed behind from circumstances seem to show, that in the view 
their expedition;" airoXeubeivTcs rris. The fol- of the author of this account, all the migrations 
lowing words, hi artvuv, appear to me to be into Italy took place nearly continuously, and 
corrupt. were the result of one and the same cause. 

2 In the very beginning of the reign of Alex- This also seems to agree best with the fact, that 
ander, when a Gaulish embassy came to con- the last comers, instead of attempting to dis- 
gratulate him on his victory over the Getze. lodge those who had arrived before them, passed 
Arrian, Exp. Alex. I. 4. on quietly to a more distant settlement. This 

3 Livy, V. 34, 35. is very conceivable, if all had left their country 

4 The Lingones came from the neighborhood from one and the same impelling cause, and in 
of Langres, that high table-land which looks the course of one generation ; but had the Boii 
down on the infant Marne to the north, and on and Lingones entered Italy a century or a cen- 
the streams which feed the Saone to the south, tury and a half later than the founders of Me- 
The situation of the Boii in Gaul is not known ; dio'lanum, and from causes wholly unconnected 
their nation is only to be traced in the countries with their miration, they would, in all proba- 
te which it had emigrated, in Germany and bility, have tried to establish themselves be- 
Italy. It is remarkable that the story speaks of tween the Ticinus and the Adda, and would 
a simultaneous migration into Germany and have paid little regard to the tie of a common 
Italy ; and we find Boii in both of these coun- extraction, when distance of time and place had 
tries. Again, the Senones, who are mentioned done so much to weaken it. 



198 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



and northeast of Gaul, made their way to the lake of Geneva, ascended the val- 
ley of the Rhone, crossed the Alps by the pass which now bears the name of the 
Great St. Bernard, and as the whole country on the north of the Po was already 
occupied, these new adventurers passed that river, and drove out the Etruscans 
and Umbrians from their possessions between the Po and the Apennines, from 
the neighborhood of the modern cities of Parma, Modena, and Bologna. Last of 
all, but again the time is not specified, came the Senones from the same quarter 
of Gaul, and following the track of the Boh and Lingones, crossed as they had 
done both the Alps and the Po, reached the coast of the Adriatic, and finally 
spread themselves along its shores from the neighborhood of Ravenna to that of 
Ancona. 

The geographical part of this account appears to deserve our full belief ; but 
its chronology is suspi- it does not follow that its chronology is equally trustworthy. The 
CIOua ' narrative itself seems to imply that all these migrations were nearly 

continuous, and it is for many reasons most probable 5 that they were so ; yet it is 
not credible that the Senones should have been settled on the coast of the Adri- 
atic 6 for two hundred years before they crossed the Apennines ; and there is a 
preponderance 7 of evidence to prove that their inroad into Etruria followed close 
upon their first establishment in north Italy. It is impossible to say at how early 
a period tribes of Gauls may have passed over the Cottian Alps, and settled in 
the valleys and plains of Piedmont. But the general overthrow of the Etruscan 
power between the Alps and the Apennines has every appearance of having been 



5 . Partly for the reasons given in the preced- 
ing note, and also, hecause a general hurst of 
migration at one particular period is more prob- 
able amongst a barbarian people than a succes- 
sion of migrations to the same quarter, during 
a term of two hundred years. 

They crossed the Apennines, according to 
Diodorus and the author of the little work, 
"De Viris Illustribus," hecause their settle- 
ment on the Adriatic was parched and barren : 
they surely would have discovered this in less 
time than a hundred years. Niebuhr notices 
the general rapidity of barbarian incursions ; 
they "advance further and further till they meet 
with some invincible obstacle. And those who 
had exterminated the Etruscans from the north 
of the Apennines, would have had nothing to 
deter them from attacking the same enemies in 
their southern possessions in Etruria Proper. 

7 Diodorus, XIV. 113. Dionvsius, XIII. 14, 
15. Fragm. Mai. P'Jny, Hist. Natur. III. 17, 
where he says that :he Gauls destroyed the 
Etruscan city of Melpum in northern Italy in 
the same year and day on which the Romans 
took Yeii. Justin, XXIV. 4, and XX. 5, and 
even Livy himself, in two passages referred to 
by Xiebuhr, V. 17, and 37, where he makes the 
Etruscans speak of the Gauls as a people whom 
they had never seen, who were recently become 
their neighbors, and with whom they knew not 
whether they were to have peace or war: and 
where in the same way he speaks of the Gauls 
as a new enemy to the Romans, who were come 
upon them from the shores of the ocean and the 
extremities of the earth. The only plausible ar- 
gument tiir the more ancient settlement of the 
Gauls in Italy I tin- little stress is to be laid on 
their pretended alliance with the Phoceean exiles 
who wei'e founding Massilia), is^o be found in 
the statement <>t' Dionysius, VII. :'». which some 
understand as Baying that the Greek city of 
C^ma in Campania was besieged in the reign 
of Tarquinina Superbua by some Etruscans who 

had dwelt Oil the shores of the Ionian gulf, and 
who had been in the course of time driven from 



their country by the Gauls. This is the inter- 
pretation of Dionysius' words, as Muller under- 
stands them. (Etrusker, Vol. I. p. 153, note 
78.) Niebuhr, however, understands them dif- 
ferently ; and the language is not sufficiently 
precise to enable us to be certain as to the wri- 
ter's meaning. The words are, TvpfaviZv oi Ttepl 

TOV 'IdviOV Kd^TTOV Ka70lK0VVT£S, {Kcidev 6' v-zh TU)V 

Ke\tS)v i^e\adivTc; guv xprii'W, Kai civ auroij Ofi- 
(SptKoi te koi Aavvioi nal cvxvol w aWwv fiapfidpoii- 

i-£X £ ''P'i< T <*v avehziv (rfiv Kii^r/i/). Niebuhr thinks 
that this means, " those Etruscans who then 
were dwelling on the Ionian gulf, but who in 
the course of time were afterwards driven from 
thence by the Gauls." Muller objects that if this 
were the meaning, Dionysius must have writ- 
ten oi t6ti \ihv KaToiKovvrcs, vcrtpov oi i^t.Xa8ivTC$. 
This would have been clearer, undoubtedly ; 
but Dionysius does not write with the perfect 
clearness'of Isocrates or Demosthenes, and the 
words avv xpdi'w are meant to express the same 
thing as Midler's vo-tzqov. But after all, what 
can be made of the passage under any interpre- 
tation ? " The Etruscans on the Ionian gulf," 
that is, on the Adriatic, could not have been 
driven out by the Gauls as early as the sixty- 
fourth Olympiad, for all allow that the Senones, 
who expelled the Etruscans from the coast, en- 
tered Italy after all the other Gauls; and their 
invasion was so recent, that Seylax speaks of 
the Etruscans, as well as of the Umbrians and 
Daunians, as still dwelling on the shores of the 
Adriatic even in his time. Nor is there any 
I'eason for considering the expedition against 
Coma as occasioned by the expulsion of the in- 
vaders from their own country by another ene- 
my. The Umbrians and Daunians who took 
part in it were certainly never driven out from 
their country by the Gauls: and it is more 
probable that the Etruscans, who are named as 
the tirst people in the confederacy, were not a 
band of fugitives ; but were rather attempting, 
in conjunction with their dependent allies, to 
extend their dominion still further over Italy; 
for this was the period of their greatest power. 



Chap. XXIV.] DIVISIONS OF THE KELTIC RACE. 199 

effected suddenly, speedily, and not earlier than the middle of the fourth century 
of Rome, when some causes, to us unknown, set the whole Keltic or Gaulish na- 
tion in motion, and drove them southward and eastward to execute their ap- 
pointed work of devastation and destruction. 

Another question next presents itself. Can we recognize these Gaulish inva- 
ders of Italy as belonging to either of the existing divisions of the To ^ hat Kdfe raee 
Keltic race? Were they Gael, or were they Kymry ? or did they did the Gauis who iu- 

. t J . . , . . P J J i /.i i • i. Taded Ita, 5"> belong ! 

belong to some third division, distinct from each or these, which 

has since utterly perished ? Much has been written upon the subject of the Kelts 

and their language ; but we seem as yet unable to connect our knowledge of the 

existing Keltic races with the accounts which we have received of them from the 

writers of antiquity. •— 

*- Diodorus 8 tells us that the Romans included under one common name of Gauls 

two great divisions of people : the one consisting of the Keltic re j , . 

o p r 1 o Diodorus' nistinction be- 

tribeS of Spain, of the south and centre ot Gaul, and or the north twee* the Gauis and 

of Italy ; the other embracing those more remote tribes which 

lived on the shores of the ocean, and on the skirts of what he calls the Hercyn- 

ian mountains, and eastward as far as Scythia. This last division, he says, were 

the proper Gauls, while the others were to be called Kelts. Niebuhr supposes 

that Diodorus learnt this distinction from Posidonius, and it is undoubtedly well 

worth noticing. Diodorus further says, that to these more remote tribes belonged 

the Kimbri, whom some writers identified with the old Kimmerians ; and that 

these Kimbri were the people who took Rome, and sacked Delphi, and carried 

their conquests even into Asia. 

It may be doubted, however, whether there be not in this statement a show 

of knowledge greater than the reality. Keltse and Galatse are 

OO ■/ Kelt and Gaul are but 

undoubtedly only different forms ot the same name : the hrst was different forms of the 

• i i • -i i *~i l v • i same name. 

the form with which the Greeks were earliest acquainted, at a 
time when their knowledge of the Kelts was confined to the tribes, of Spain and 
Gaul. The great Gaulish migration of the fourth century before Christ, intro- 
duced the other and more correct form " Galatse ;" yet many writers 9 continued 
to use the old orthography, and in fact, with the exception of the Galatians of 
Asia Minor, the other Gauls, in all parts of the world, are generally called by the 
Greeks according to their old form of the name, not Galatse, but Keltss. These 
names, therefore, would in themselves rather show that the invaders of Italy and 
Greece were the same people with the old inhabitants of the west of Europe, 
than establish any diversity between them. 

But when we find from Csesar, 10 that the Gauls on the shores of the ocean, 
that is, on the coasts of the British channel and the North sea, the Ye t the distinction of 
Gauls whom he calls Belgians, were distinguished both in language DiodoriIS ^-partly true, 
and customs from the Gauls of the interior ; when we consider that these more 
remote Gauls included, according to Diodorus, the people called Kimbri, and 
when we see that the people now calling themselves Kymry, namely, the Welsh, 
do actually differ in language and in customs from the Keltic tribes in Ireland 
and Scotland, the statement of Diodorus does appear to contain a real truth, and 
we begin to recognize in the Keltse and Galatse of his geography two great di- 
visions of the same race, analogous to the Gael and Kymry existing at this day 
in Great Britain. 

Yet the gleam of light thus gained is almost instantly overclouded. The Gauls 
of the north of Italy appear, according to every testimony, 11 to have been the 

8 Diodorus, V. 32. is, of the Galatse of Diodorus, and not of the re- 

9 Aristotle ascribes to the Keltte a peculiarity mote inhabitants of Gaul and Spain. 
in national manners, which Diodorus reports of 10 De Bello Gallico, I. 1. 

the Galata?. And in those notices ot Keltic u Polybius, II. 15. TpavaaXirivol yt fxiiv ov d<d 

manners and character which occur in several rPji.' tov yivovs oAXa Sta rljv tuv t6kov StaQopav xpo- 

places of his works, he must have been speak- caynpevovrai. 
ing of the Kelts of Pannonia and Thrace, that 



200 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIV. 

but involved in much same people with the Gauls of the centre of France, or in the lan- 
difficuity. guage of Diodorus, with the Keltae. The names of their tribes, the 

Senones, 12 Lingones, Insubres, Cenomani, can be connected at once with particu- 
lar districts of Keltic Gaul, which bore, it may almost be said which bear to this 
day, the same names, and from which their origin is distinctly traced. We find 
among them no traces of Belgian or Kimbrian names, or of their having come 
from the shores of the Northern ocean, 13 or the Hercynian mountains. How then 
can it be said that the invaders of central Italy were not Keltee, but Galatse ; not 
Gael, but Kymry ? 

It has been maintained, indeed, that 14 the Boii, Lingones, and Senones, the 
_. „ , , . , , tribes which were the last to enter Italy, and which crossed the 

The Gauls who invaded A , , _ n rn 

itaij came from Keltic Alps, not by the passes to the west of Turin, but by the Great 
St. Bernard, were of a different race from the earlier invaders, and 
that while those were Gael, these who came last were Kymry. But the Roman 
writers, and Polybius, who was well acquainted with the Cisalpine Gauls, ac- 
knowledged no such diversity. And though we cannot ascertain the country 
of the Boii, yet the Lingones and Senones both fall within the limits assigned by 
Caesar to Keltic Gaul, as distinguished from the country of the Belgse or Kymry. 
If, however, we are disposed to rely on the statement of Diodorus and Appian, 
But possibly the Kim- that the Gauls who invaded Greece were Kimbri, it may be very 
haveTak^fS'in'the possible that there was a more general movement among the 
mv,, 5 io n wuh them. Eeltic tribes • the fourth century f Rome, than the Greek or 

Roman writers were aware of. The Kymry, breaking in upon the Gael from the 
east and north, may have persuaded or forced some of their tribes to join them 
in their march southwards ; the two nations may have poured into Italy together, 
and while the Gaelic tribes settled themselves on the Po or on the coast of the 
Adriatic, the mass of the Kymrians may have pressed forward round the head of 
the gulf, and so penetrated into Pannonia and Thrace. Nor could we deny the 
possibility of some Kymrians having remained in Itaty with the Gael; and if we 
believe that the name of Brennus 15 was really borne by the leader of the attack 
on Rome, and that this word is no other than the Kymrian " Brenhin," 16 which 
signifies king or leader, then we must conclude that although the mass of the 
invaders were Gael, yet that not only were there Kymrians joined with them, 
but that a Kymrian chief commanded the whole expedition. This may have been 
so, but I can hardly think that there is sufficient evidence to require us to believe 
that it was so. 

Again, though I have called the Gauls of north Italy Gael, and have sup- 
„.„ , posed that those who passed on to Illvricum and Thrace may have 

Dlffloultv of identifying * T7 - _ r - - 1 T 1 ■ l l 

the language of * the been Kymry, yet 1 am tar from concluding that in the language 

Gauls who invaded - . X " * iiii • i i -n -i^-ii* 

itaiv with any existing ot the former we should have recognized the exact Lrse and Gaelic 
of Ireland and the Scotch Highlands, or in that of the latter the 

12 The Senones came from the neighborhood mentioned the attack on Rome, as we know, 
of Sens on the Yonne, the Lingones from that but not with its details; and it is not likely that 
ofLangres: the Insubres came from a district they should have given the name of the Gaulish 
in the country of the .1'Mui. between the Loire leader. In fact, Diodorus, whose narrative, as 
and Baone: and the Cenomani from the neigh- Niebuhr supposes, is copied from Fabius, doea 
borhood of Le Mans. not give it at all. ]t is very likely that the name 

13 The expression in Livyalreadj referred to, of Brennus was borrowed from the story of the 
"that the <huils came from the shores of the Gaulish attack on Delphi, as so many of the em- 
ocean," must not he alleged here, inasmuch as bellishments of the Etonian history have been 
tin- ocean is there used merely in opposition to taken from the famous stories of the history of 
the Mediterranean, and may quite as well be Greece. 

underst L of the Baj of Biscay as of the Ger- u Dr. Pritohard, whose authority in such 

man Ocean or the Baltic. questions is ai' the highest order, believes that 

11 l'.\ Thierry in his llistoire des (iaulois, \'ol. Brennus is not tbVwelsh "Brenhin," but ra- 

I. p. 41, Ac ther the proper name Bran, which occurs in 

15 It must be remembered always that Fabius, Welsh history. 1 know not whether this name 

the oldest Roman historian, wrote about two ever prevailed amongst the Irish or the Gael of 

hundred years after the Gaulish invasion, and Scotland, 
borrowed largely from the Greek writers. They 



Chap. XXIV.] 



THE KELTIC LANGUAGES. 



201 



exact form of the modern Welsh. The Keltic languages, which still exist in these 
islands, are in all likelihood the solitary survivors out of the multitude of lan- 
guages or dialects, once spoken by the various branches of the great Keltic fam- 
ily, from the Atlantic to the sources of the Danube, from the Mediterranean to 
the northern extremity of the British isles. Length of time and remoteness of 
place introduce wonderful changes in a language ; so that no one could expect to 
find an exact resemblance between the Keltic spoken in the fourth century before 
the Christian aera, by the Gauls of France and Italy, and the actual language of 
the inhabitants of Ireland and the north of Scotland. We may, therefore, find 
names of places and persons 17 among the ancient Gauls, which no Keltic language 
in its present state will enable us to interpret. Much more may it be impossible 
to trace such words in the written Welsh, or Erse, or Gaelic ; although an exact 
acquaintance with the various spoken dialects in the several parts of Ireland or 
Wales might even now enable us to discover them. There are many German 
words 18 lost in our written English, which either exist in the names of places or 
in some of our provincial dialects ; and doubtless the converse of this might be 
observed by any one who was familiar with the spoken dialects of Germany. For 
the language of the civilized nation was once no more than the dialect of some 
particular tribe, till some intellectual or political superiority of those who spoke 
it, caused it to be adopted in writing in preference to its sister dialects, and thus 
made its peculiarities from henceforth the common rule. Now, it may well hap- 
pen in two nations speaking a common language, that the dialects 19 which shall 



17 Dr. Pritchard tells me that he cannot trace 
the terminations magus, briga, and briva, in 
any of the existing Keltic languages. Although 
I am myself ignorant of those languages, yet I 
can see that Thierry's pretended explanations 
of Keltic names of places are often quite extrav- 
agant. Bodencus, according to Polybius, was 
the name given by the people of the country to 
the river Po (Polyb. II. 16) ; and this word,' ac- 
cording to Pliny, Hist. Natur. III. 16, signifies 
bottomless, "fundo carens." Metrodorus of 
Scepsis, from whom Pliny borrowed this ac- 
count, said indeed that Bodencus, or Bodincus, 
as it is in our copies of Pliny, was a Ligurian 
word^ but there was a town, Bodincomagus, 
which has evidently a Keltic termination. Can 
Bodincus, or Bodencus, be reasonably explained 
by the present Welsh or Irish languages ? Again, 
the same Metrodorus derived Padus from the 
Gaulish Fades, which, he said, signified a pine- 
tree. Can this be traced in modern Keltic ? It 
should be observed, that in explaining the names 
of places, and especially of terminations, it is 
not enough to produce Welsh or Irish words of 
similar sound, and capable of forming some- 
thing of a significant word ; but their combina- 
tion must be agreeable to the usages of the 
language ; and with regard to terminations, it 
should be shown either that they are common 
in names of places in Keltic countries now, or 
that some word of similar signification is so 
nscd. Attempts have been made within these 
few years by Welsh and German antiquaries to 
explain the names of ancient towns iu Italy from 
the Keltic and Teutonic languages ; and in 
either ease it has not been difficult to find words 
of similar sound both in Welsh and German, 
which when combined give a possible significa- 
tion. But in all these cases we see at once that 
of two different derivations one must be wrong ; 
and it mostly happens, I think, that both are so. 

Von Humboldt notices the terminations of 
magus, briga, and briva, as undoubtedly Keltic. 
The first and last of them do not occur in Spain ; 
but Briga is frequently met within the hmits 



occupied by the Keltiberians. Humboldt refers 
to the termination bria, which is met with in 
the geography of Thrace, as in the town of Se- 
lymbria and Mesembria. He thinks that the 
Basque "hi" and "uri" are connected with 
both ; and that we can go no further than to 
say that there was an old root bri or bro, ex- 
pressing land, habitation, settlement, with 
which also the Teutonic burg and the Greek 
nvpyos may have been originally connected. In 
the Welsh and Breton languages " bro" is still, 
he says, not only a cultivated field, but gener- 
ally a country or district ; and the Scholiast on 
Juvenal, Sat. VIII. 234, explains the name of 
Allobrogee as signifying strangers, men from 
another land, "quoniam brogse Galli agrum 
dicunt, alia autem aliud." Briva is supposed 
to mean bridge ; but Von Humboldt agrees with 
Dr. Pritchard in saying, that there is no simi- 
lar word of a like signification, known to exist 
in any of the surviving Keltic languages. 

I find brog and brug in O'Brien's Irish Dic- 
tionary as signifying " a grand house or build- 
ing, fortified place, a palace or royal residence." 
O'Brien connects it with briga and the Thracian 
Bria. I also find the substantive " brugaide" 
in O'Brien's Dictionary, as signifying "a hus- 
bandmen, ploughman, or farmer." 

18 Dorf, '^ a village," is a well-known instance ; 
a word which now exists in English only in the 
form of " thorpe," a common termination of the 
names of places in several counties, and some- 
times a name by itself. Again, the German 
" bach," a stream or brook, is in common use 
in the north of England, where the brooks or 
streams are invariably called becks. 

19 Many curious instances of this might be 
given. Horse and pferd are the classical Eng- 
lish and German words for the same animal ; 
but horse exists in German under the form ros, 
and is to be met with in poetry, and also some- 
times on the signs of inns, as if it were now 
either an old or a merely provincial or familiar 
word. And, on the other hand, the English 
form of pferd, which is pad, has sunk still lower, 



202 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIV. 

ultimately prevail in each, shall not be those which most nearly resemble one 
another ; and thus, at an advanced period of their history, their languages shall 
present a far greater dissimilarity than existed between them in their infancy. 
Thus, as we follow the stream of time backwards towards its source, it is nat- 
ural that the differences, not of dialect only, but even of lano-uap-e, 

The differences be- o o ' 

tween language* were should become less and less ; so that what are now distinct main 

anciently less marked , , ,, , ■ • i i 

than th-y have become branches ol one great stock, may at a very remote period have 
formed the as yet undivided elements of one common trunk. There 
must have been a time when the Keltic 20 and Teutonic languages were parted far 
less widely than we find them now ; even within historical memory, when the 
Keltic and Teutonic tribes were intermixed with each other, within the limits of 
what is now Germany, and when they were so confounded together in the eyes 
of the Greeks and Romans, as to be regarded only as one great people, 21 the real 
differences of manners and language may have been much less than they became 
afterwards, when their limits were more distinctly marked. What was working 
in the wide extent of central Europe during so many centuries of which no memo- 
rial remains, we should vainly seek to discover. Accident, to use our common 
language, may have favored the growth of improvements in some remote tribe, 
while the bulk of the people, although nearer to the great centre of human civil- 
ization, may have remained in utter barbarism ; and thus Caesar's statement may 
be perfectly true, that druidism, of which we find no traces amongst the Cisalpine 
Gauls, was brought to its greatest perfection in Britain, and that the Gauls in his 
own time were in the habit of crossing over thither as to the best and purest 
source of instruction in its mysteries. 

There is one point, however, in which the difference between the Keltic race 
physical' character of m ancient and modern times has been unduly exaggerated. The 
the Gauis. Greek and Roman writers invariably describe the Gauls 22 as a tall 

and light-haired race in comparison with their own countrymen ; but it has been 
maintained that there must be some confusion in these descriptions between the 
Gauls and the Germans, inasmuch as the Keltic nations now existing are all dark- 
haired. This statement was sent to Niebuhr b} 7 some Englishman ; and Niebuhr, 
taking the fact for granted on his correspondent's authority, was naturally much 
perplexed by it. But had he travelled ever so rapidly through Wales or Ireland, 
or had he cast a glance on any of those groups of Irish laborers, who are con- 
stantly to be met with in summer on all the roads in England, he would have at 

and is merely a cant or ludicrous word in our and genuine specimens of the peculiarities of 

present language. the Gaulish race, and says that the Romans 

20 It is quite manifest from Dr. Pritchard's called them Germani, "true," "genuine," to 
excellent work on the origin of the Keltic na- intimate that they were genuine Gauls : <i; 3v 
tions, that the Keltic and Teutonic languages yvrjaiovi TaAaVas (ppd^tiv [So\i\6ncvoi. VII. 1, § 2, 
belong to one common family, which is com- p. 290. 

monly called the Indo-Gcrmanic. This appears - Diodorus calls them tiju/KEi s. \cvkoi and ra?c 

not only from their containing a multitude of xd/xatf %av9oi. V. 28. Ammianus Maivellinus 

common words, but from a surer evidence, the calls them " eandidi et rutili," XV. 12. Virgil 

j in their grammatical forms. speaks of their " aurea csesaries," and " 

In order to judge of the connection between colla," Ma. VIII. 658, 9. Strabo says that the 

one language and another, something more is " Germans differ a little from the Gauls in being 

necessary than the being merely able to write mere tall and more light haired." nj> xXcomopq 

and to speak those two languages. Sir W. Be- tov ^eyidov; *a< rrj; f«i'0<$r>7roc. VII. p. 290; and 

tham, in his work called ,y the Cymry and the again lie describes the Britons as "less light 

Gael, gives a list of "Welsh and Insh pronouns, haired than the Gauls," IV. p. 200. Polyoma 

to show that the Welsh language lias no eon- also speaks ot'their "great stature." II. 15; and 

nection with the Irish. Whereas that vorj list Livy mentions their '*procera corpora, promis- 

furnishes a proof of their affinity to any one sas et rutiiatffl coma," XXXVIII. 17. Now.after 

who lias hem aeeustomed to compare the vari- such multitudes of Gauls had been brought into 

oiis forms assumed by one and the same origi- the slave market by the conquests of the dio- 

nalword, in theseveral cognate languages of the tutor Ctesar, the writers of the Augustan age, 

same family. even though they might never have crossed the 

21 Dionysius divides the Country of the Kelts, Alps, must have' been as familiar with the ap- 
KcXrtKij, into two great divisions, which be ealls pearance oi' a Gaul as the West Indians are with 
Gaul and Germany. XTV. 2. Fragm. .Mai. Btra- that ofa negro. A mistake so general on a point 
bo describes the Germans as the most perfect so obvious is utterly impossible. 



Chap. XXIV.] ACCOUNTS OF THE GAULISH INVASION. 203 

once perceived that his perplexity had been needless. Compared with the Ital- 
ians, it would be certainly true that the Keltic nations were, generally speaking, 
both light-haired and tall. 23 If climate has any thing to do with the complexion, 
the inhabitants of the north of Europe, in remote times, may be supposed to have 
been fairer and more light-haired than at present ; while the roving life, the plen- 
tiful food, and the absence of all hard labor, must have given a greater develop- 
ment to the stature of the Gaulish warrior who first broke into Italy than can be 
looked for amongst the actual peasantry of Wales or Ireland. 

The Gauls then from beyond the Alps were in possession of the plain of the 
Po, and had driven out or exterminated the Etruscans, when in „^ „ , 

liA ^he Gauls cross the 

the year of Rome 364, they for the first time crossed the Apen- Apennines, and attack 
nines, and penetrated into central Italy. On the first alarm of 
this irruption 24 the Romans sent three of their citizens into Etruria to observe their 
movements ; and these deputies arrived at Clusium just at the time when the 
Gauls appeared before its walls, and began, after their usual manner, to lay waste 
the country. The citizens made a sally, and the Roman deputies went out with 
them ; they engaged with the Gauls, and one of the deputies encountered and 
slew a Gaulish chief. Roman patricians, said the Roman story, 25 could not be 
confounded with Etruscans ; the Gauls instantly perceived that there were some 
strangers of surpassing valor aiding the citizens of Clusium ; they learned that 
these strangers were Romans, and they forthwith sent deputies to Rome to de- 
mand that the man who had thus fought with them, and slain one of their chiefs, 
when there was no war between the Gauls and the Romans, should be given up 
into their hands, that they might have blood for blood. The senate thought that 
the demand of the strangers was reasonable, and voted that the deputy should be 
given over into their hands ; but his father, who was one of the military tribunes 
for the year, appealed to the people from the sentence of the senate, and being 
a man of much influence, persuaded them to annul it, Then the Gauls, finding 
their demand rejected, broke up in haste from Clusium, and marched directly 
against Rome. 26 

Thus the very outset of this Gaulish invasion, even as related by Diodorus, 
who eives the storv in its simplest form, is disguised by the na- 

P . ,.it-> t mi i f Uncertainty of the ac- 

tional vanitv of the Romans. It is impossible to relv on any ot counts of the Gaulish 

J u * •/ •/ war. 

the details of the narrative which has been handed down to us ; 
the Romans were no doubt defeated at the Alia ; Rome was taken and burnt ; 
and the Capitol ransomed ; but beyond this we know, properly speaking, nothing. 
We know that falsehood has been busy, to an almost unprecedented extent, Avith 
the common story ; exaggeration, carelessness, and honest ignorance, have joined 
more excusably in corrupting it. The history of great events can only be pre- 
served by contemporary historians ; and such were in this case utterly wanting. 
But as we have an outline of undoubted truth in the story, and as the particulars 
which are given are exceedingly striking and in many instances not improbable, I 
shall endeavor at once to present such a view of the events of the Gaulish war 
as may be clear from manifest error, and to preserve also some of its most re- 

23 1 should not have ventured to speak so con- points. According to Livy, the three deputies 
fidently merely from my own observation ; but were all demanded by the Gauls ; nothing is said 
Dr. Pritchard, who has for many years turned of their father being military tribune, but it is 
his attention to this question, assures me that said that they themselves were immediately 
he is . perfectly satisfied as to the truth of the elected military tribunes for the ensuing year, 
fact here stated. To me it is only surprising Diodorus does not name them ; according to 
that any one should have thought of disputing Livy they were three brothers, sons of M. Fa- 
it, bius Ambustus. Now no Fabius appears in the 

24 Diodorus, XIV. 113. list of military tribunes for the year 364, either 

26 Livy, V. 36. Nee id clam esse potuit, quam according to Diodorus or Livy ; and though the 

ante signa Etruscorum tres nobihssimi fortis- list for 865, as given by Diodorus, is very cor- 

simique Komanse juventutis pugnarent ; tantum rapt, yet there are no traces of its ever haying 

eminebat peregrina virtus. contained the names of more than two Fabii at 

26 Diodorus, IV. 113, 114. This story, it the most, 
will be observed, differs from Livy's in several 



204 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIV. 

markable details, which may be true, and are at any rate far too famous to be 
omitted. 

We know that the Gauls needed no especial provocation to attack Clusium, or 
The Gauu advance n P - to penetrate beyond Rome into the south of Italy. Wherever 
on Rome. there was a prospect of the richest plunder, there was to them a 

sufficient cause for hostility. But the cities of Etruria, surrounded by their mas- 
sive walls, were impregnable except by famine ; so that after the open country 
had been once wasted, the Gauls would naturally carry their arms elsewhere. 
From Clusium the valley of the Clanis would conduct them directly to the Tiber ; 
that river, so far from its mouth, would be easily fordable ; and then all the plain 
of Latium lay open to their attack. The season was now the middle of summer ; 
the new military tribunes, who at this period came into office on the first of July, 
had just been elected ; and expecting the Gauls to advance upon Rome, and 
supposing that they w T ould approach by the right bank 21 of the Tiber, they sum- 
moned to the field the whole force of the commonwealth, they called on their 
Latin and Hernican 28 allies to aid them, and having thus collected all their strength, 
they marched out of Rome on the road to Etruria, intending to receive the en- 
emy's attack in the neighborhood of Veii, which was now a sort of frontier for- 
tress of the Roman territory, and wdfich might serve as the base of their opera- 
tions. The -whole army thus assembled amounted, according to the statement 
of Plutarch, 29 to forty thousand men. 

But the Gauls meantime had crossed the Tiber into Umbria, and were moving 
along the left bank of the river, through the country of the Sa- 
and ImeiThe county- of bines, towards the plain of Latium. The Roman writers, who pre- 
tend that their only object was Rome, and that as soon as they 
heard that their demand for satisfaction was rejected the}^ hastened from Clusium 
to attack the Romans, forget that this is inconsistent with another part of their 
story, namely, that the deputies who had gone to Clusium were, as if in mockery 
of the Gauls, elected military tribunes immediately after the refusal to give 
them up. For as the tribunes did not enter on their office till the first of July, 
and the battle of the Alia was not fought till the sixteenth, the pretended hasty 
march of the Gauls from Clusium to Rome, a distance of about a hundred miles, 30 
must have taken up more than a fortnight. But in all likelihood the Gauls went 
on plundering the country before them, without aiming exclusively at Rome : 
according to Diodorus, they had waited in Etruria before they began their march 
southwards, long enough to receive Jarge reinforcements 31 from beyond the Ap- 
ennines ; and the provocation given them by the Romans w r as, we may suppose, 
gladly seized as a pretence for extending their attacks from the country of their 
old enemies, the Etruscans, to that of the other nations of central Italy. 

When it was discovered that the Gauls were already on the left bank of the 
Tiber, and advancing by the Salarian road, which was the old communication be- 

27 Diodorus states positively that the Roman and did not serve in war ; that is, of proletari- 
ans marched out across the 'Tiber. It is true ana and serarians. According to Diodorus. the 
that' he seems to have supposed the Alia to have left wing of the Roman army, consisting of the 
been on the right bank of the Tiber; but this bravest soldiers, amounted to 24,000: thai is.^ 
confusion arose probably from his finding no it contained the four regular legions spoken oi' 
notice of the Romans recrossing the river before by Dionysius, which amounted together to 
the battle. His first statement is probable, and li>,000 men, and of an equal number of the al- 
Beems to me to explain the extreme suddenness lies. This would leave about 16,000 men for 
with which the battle on the Alia took place. the raw and interior troops, tovs aodsveoTciTovs, 

•■» "TheGauls," saysPolybius, "defeated the who in the battle formed the right of the Ro- 

Bomans and those who were drown up in the man army. 

field along with them." 'P^alovs ical robs nerd x Poly'bius underrates the distance at a three 

tootojv jrupaTa|(i/i('rouf. ILLS. These could have, days' journey. 11. -J5. Strabo calls it eight 

1 n no other than the Latin and llerniean al- hundred stadia. V. )>. 226. The itineraries as 

U,.... corrected make it one hundred and two. and 

™ Camillus, 18. According to Dionysius. one hundred and three miles, and it cannot be 

XIII. 1'.', there were four Legions of picked and much Less, 
experienced soldiers, ami a still more numerous 31 XIII. 114. 

force of those who commonly staved at home 



Chap. XXIV.] BATTLE OF THE ALIA. 205 

tween the land of the Sabines and Rome, then the Romans were -n^ Roman8 take p^ 
naturally thrown into the greatest alarm. The Tiber, for many ontheAlia - 
miles above Rome, is not fordable ; as there were no towns on the river there 
were probably no bridges, and boats could not be procured at such short notice 
for the passage of so large an army. The Romans therefore were obliged to go 
round by Rome, and without an instant's delay march out by the Salarian road, 
in order to encounter the enemy at as great a distance from the city as possible. 
They found the Gauls already within twelve miles of Rome ; the little stream of 
the Alia, or rather the deep bed through which it runs, offered something like a 
line of defence ; 32 and accordingly the Romans here awaited the attack of their 
enemy. Their right was posted on some high ground, 33 covered in front by the 
deep bed of the Alia, and with a hilly and wooded country protecting its flank ; 
while the left, consisting of the regular legions, filled up the interval of level 
ground between the hills and the Tiber, and its extreme flank was covered by 
the river. 

There seems in all these dispositions nothing of overweening rashness or of 
folly ; it is doubtful what was really the disproportion of numbers 
between the two armies ; it the Gauls had but recently been rein- 
forced, the Roman generals may have supposed the enemy's numbers to have 
been no greater than they were at Clusium ; and to fight was unavoidable, if 
they wished to save their country from devastation. But the Gaulish leader 
showed more than a barbarian's ability. With the bravest of his warriors he as- 
sailed the right of the Roman position : the soldiers of the poorer classes, unused 
to war, and untrained in the management of their arms, were appalled by the 
yells, and borne down by the strength of their enemies ; and their wooden shields 
were but a poor defence against the fearful strokes of the Keltic broadsword. 
The right of the Romans was broken and chased from its ground ; the course of 
the river had obliged the left of the army to be thrown back behind the right, so 
that the fugitives in their flight disordered the ranks of the regular legions ; and 
the Gauls pursuing their advantage, the whole Roman army was totally routed. 
The vanquished fled in different directions ; those on the left 34 plunged into the 
Tiber, in the hope of swimming across it and escaping to Veii ; but the Gauls 
slaughtered them in heaps on the banks, and overwhelmed them with their jave- 
lins in the river, so that a large part of the flower of the Roman people was here 
destroyed. The fugitives on the right fled towards Rome ; some took refuge in 
a thick wood 35 near the road, and there lay hid till nightfall ; the rest ran with- 
out stopping to the city, and brought the tidings of the calamity. 

The Gauls did not pursue the fugitives far : we hear as yet nothing of that 
cavalry for which they were afterwards so famous ; probably be- 

The Gauls pass tli© 

cause they had not yet been long enough in Italy to have supplied nigbt on the seu of 

themselves with the horses of that country ; and the breed of 

Transalpine Gaul, like that of Britain, was too small to be used except for the 

32 It is well known that to identify the famous cigliana Vecchia is placed about two miles nearer 

Alia with any existing stream is one of the hard- to Borne. Both descriptions are given in such 

est problems of Boman topography. Virgil and detail that this diversity is rather perplexing. 
Livy agree in placing it on the left bank of the 33 Livy, V. 38. Diodorus, XIV. 114. 
Tiber ; and Livy's description seems as precise 34 Livy, V. 38. Diodorus, XIV. 114, 115. 
as possible, for he says that the armies met, "ad 35 Festus in " Lucaria." The wood, accord- 

unclecimum lapidem, qua ilumen Alia Crustu- ing to this statement, was between the Salarian 

minis montibus praalto defluens alveo baud road and the Tiber. This shows that Sir "W". 

multum infra viam Tiberino amni miscetur." Gell has rightly marked the old Salarian road 

V. 37. And Westphal accordingly says that on his map, where he makes it turn to the right 



see the village of Marcigliana Vecchia." p. 127. could scarcely have been a wood between it and 

But I cannot reconcile this with Sir W. Gell's the Tiber, for the ground must have been then 

map,_or with his description in his article on the as now, nothing but a great expanse of meadows. 
Aha in his topography of Borne ; for there Mar- 



206 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIV. 

drawing of their war-chariots. Besides, they were themselves wearied with their 
march, and with their exertions in the battle ; and it was of importance 36 to each 
man to collect and exhibit his trophies, the heads of the enemies whom he had 
slain ; for these were the proof that the warrior had done his duty in the battle, 
and was entitled to his share of the spoil : these were to be carried home, and 
preserved to after ages in his family, as a memorial of his valor. Thus, accord- 
ing to the account of Diodorus, the Gauls passed the night after their victory on 
the field of battle. 

But the Romans found it impossible to defend their city ; as the flower of the 
Tue Romans resolve to citizens of the military age, who had escaped from the battle, had 
defend the capitoi. retreated to Veii. It is probable that a large proportion of these 
were not sorry to have this opportunity of effecting what they had before at- 
tempted in vain, and wished to remain at Veii as their future country. Of the 
remaining inhabitants of Rome, the greater part dispersed, as the Athenians had 
done before the approach of Xerxes ; 37 they took refuge with their families, and 
such of their effects as they could remove, in many of the neighboring cities. 
But it was resolved, as at Athens, to maintain the citadel, 38 for this, as in all the 
cities of the ancient world, was in a manner the sanctuary of the nation : it was 
the spot in which the temples of the nation's peculiar gods were built ; and to 
this every feeling of patriotism, whether human merely or religious, was closely 
connected. This was the home of the true gods of Rome, and the citadel of the 
true Roman people, before the stranger commons, with their new gods, had pre- 
tended to claim the rights of "Roman citizens; and .many a patrician, indignant at 
the retreat of the legions to Veii, and regarding this desertion as another proof 
that the commons were no genuine sons of Rome, retired into the Capitol with a 
resolution never to abandon that country and those gods, which he felt and might 
justly claim to be indeed his own. 

But the citadel might be taken ; the genuine Romans who defended it might 
be massacred ; the temple of the three p-uardian powers of Rome, 

The Vestal Virgins T . T , ,,. ] #» i /-i • l • -i i r 1 1 

with the etf-rnai Are J upiter, J uno, and Minerva, ot the Capitol, might be profaned and 
destroyed. Still there had been a time when other gods had pos- 
sessed the Capitol, and yet even then there was Rome, and there were Romans. 
Other powers and other rites were the pledge of Rome's existence, and if they 
failed, she must be lost forever. The flamen of Quirinus, 39 the deified founder of 
the city, and the Vestal Virgins, who watched the eternal fire, the type and as- 
surance of its duration, must remove their holy things beyond the reach of the 
enemy, or if all could not be removed, what was left must be so hidden that no 
chance should ever betray it. Accordingly the Flamen and the Virgins of Vesta 
buried some of their holy things in the ground, in a spot preserved afterwards 
with the strictest care from every pollution ; and whatever they could remove, 
they carried with them to Agylla or Csere. They went on their way, said the 
story, 40 on foot ; and as they were ascending the hill Janiculum, after having 
crossed the river and left the city, there overtook them on the ascent, a man of 
the commons, L. Albinius by name, who was conveying his wife and children in 
a carriage to a place of safety. But when Lucius saw them, he bade his wife 
and children to alight, and he put into the carriage in their room the holy vir- 
gins and their eternal fire; "For it were a shame," said he, "that I and mine 
should be drawn in a carriage, while the Virgins of Vesta with their holy things 
were going on foot." So he conveyed them safe in the carriage to Caere. 

30 Diodorus, XIV. 115. V. 29. Strabo, IV. the heads of their enemies resemble what is re- 

p. 197. The practice of cutting off the beads of lated of the Gauls, I have ventured to transfer 

their enemies, and of preserving them in their to the latter people this custom also. 

houses, is ascribed directly to the Gauls. Tho " Diodorus, XIV. 115. Livy. V. 40. 

presenting them to the general, as a title to a 38 Diodorus, XIV. 115. Livy, V. 89. Florus 

share of the spoil, is mentioned by Herodotus says that the torec which jrarrisoned the Capitol 

as a Scythian custom (IV. 64); but as in other did not exceed a thousand men, 1. 13. 

respects the Scythian customs with regard to w Livy, V. 40. i0 Livy, V. 40. 



Chap. XXIV.] THE GAULS ENTER ROME. 207 

Meantime the Gauls, it is said, hesitated for one whole day 41 to attack the city, 
suspecting that the apparent absence of all preparations for de- 

J. o ij. xi The Gauls enter Rome. 

fence was but a snare to entice them to venture on an assault rashly. 
Thus the Romans gained a respite which was most needful to them ; and when, 
on the third day after the battle, according to the ancient mode of reckoning, the 
enemy did force the gates and enter the city, the mass of the population had al- 
ready escaped, and the Capitoline Hill was, as well as circumstances would alloV, 
provisioned and garrisoned. When the Gauls entered, their chiefs it appears 
established themselves on some of the houses on the Palatine Hill, 42 exactly oppo- 
site to the Capitol ; and in the rest of the city the work of plunder and destruc- 
tion raged freely. 

The mass of the commons had fled from Rome with their wives and children, 
or having escaped from the route of the Alia had taken refuge 
at Veii. The flower of the patricians, and of the citizens of the vote ° tiiemsli'v"" 8 to 

• -. i * . -, r -i-iA--i',ii/-N',i death for their country. 

richer classes of an age to bear arms, had retired into the (Japitol, 
to defend to the last that sanctuary of their country's gods. The fiamen of Qui- 
rinus and the Vestal Virgins had departed with the sacred things committed to 
their charge out of the reach of danger. But there were other ministers of the 
gods, 43 whom their duty did not compel to leave Rome, whom their age rendered 
unable to join in the defence of the Capitol, and who could not endure to be a 
burden upon those whose strength allowed them to defend it. They would not 
live the few remaining years of their lives in a foreign city, but as they could not 
serve th # eir country by their deeds, they wished at least to serve it by their deaths. 
So they, and others of the old patricians who had filled the highest offices 44 in 
the commonwealth, met together ; and M. Fabius, the chief pontifex, recited a 
solemn form of words, which they each repeated after him, devoting to the spirits 
of the dead and to the earth, the common grave of all living, themselves and the 
army of the Gauls together with themselves, for the welfare and deliverance of 
the people of the Romans and of the Quirites. 45 Then, as men devoted to death, 
they arrayed themselves in their most solemn dress ; they who had held curule 
offices, in their robes of white with the broad scarlet border ; 46 they who had won 

41 Diodorus makes tliem hesitate for two death for his country, intended to offer himself 
whole days, and thus to enter the city on the to the powers of death, as a willing victim on 
fourth day after the battle, according to the an- the part of his own countrymen, that the other 
cient manner of reckoning. The cause of the victims required by fate might be taken from 
delay may indeed be a little misrepresented ; the army of the enemy. To have prayed for 
after so great a victory, the conquerors indulged victory simply, without any sacrifice on the part 
themselves for one whole day, as we can readily of the conquerors, was a tempting of Nemesis ; 
suppose, in excess, and in plundering all the but if the sacrifice was first offered, then the 
surrounding country; and if their leader had wrath of Nemesis would be turned against the 
pushed on to Rome, yet the force which he enemy, that they too might have then- portion 
could induce to follow him might be so small, of evil. The devoted offered himself " diis 
as to make him afraid to commence an attack manibus tellnrique." Livy, VIII. 9. Strictly, 
upon so large a city. But it seems certain that the did manes were the spirits of a man's own 
the delay was of one day only, and not of two. ancestors, but they are addressed here as rep- 
Polybius says that the Gauls took Rome three resentatives of the powers of death generally, 
days after the battle ' that is, after the interval Tell us is of course the notion of the grave. 

of one whole day. l-_ 18. And the statement 46 The toga prsetexta, or bordered toga. The 

of Verrius Flaccus, preserved by Gellius, V. 17, toga, it is well known, was rather a shawl than 

and which has all the precision of a quotation a robe, but the word shawl would suit so ill 

from some official record, says, "post diemter- with our associations of ancient Rome, that it 

tium ejus diei urbem captam esse." would not be worth while to introduce it. The 

42 Diodorus, XIV. 115. _ triumphal toga, toga picta, was like a rich In- 

43 Oi rGiv a\\uv BeZv leptis, is Plutarch's ex- dian shawl worked with figures of various col- 
pression, after mentioning the departure of the ors ; it was thrown over the tunica palmata, the 
Vestal Virgins. Camillus, 21. coat or frock worked with figures of palm 

44 Qui curules gesserant magistrates. Livy, branches, probably in gold. The sella curulis 
V. 41. was, as its name imports, the seat or body of 

45 Plutarch, Camillus, 21. Livy mentions this the chariot, Stypos, and when used by the cu- 
account, though he does not expressly adopt it. rule magistrates at their tribunals, implied that 
V. 41. I have borrowed the " carmen devotio- they shared in the imperium or sovereign 
nis," the form in which the old men devoted power held of old by the kings, one mark of 
themselves, from the story of Decius in the which was the being borne in a chariot instead 
great Latin war. He who devoted himself to of walking on foot. 



208 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIV. 

triumphs, in their robes of triumph overlaid with embroidery of man} 7 colors 
and with palm branches of gold, and took their seats each on his ivory chair of 
magistracy in the gateway of his house. When the Gauls saw these aged men 
in this array of majesty, sitting motionless amidst the confusion of the sack of 
the city, they at first looked upon them as more than human, 47 and one of the 
soldiers drew near to M. Papirius, and began to stroke reverently his long white 
be*ard. Papirius, who was a minister of the gods, could not endure the touch of 
profane barbarian hands, and struck the Gaul over the head with his ivory scep- 
tre. Instantly the spell of reverence was broken, and rage and the thirst of 
blood succeeded to it. The Gaul cut down the old Papirius with his sword ; his 
comrades were kindled at the sight, and all the old men, according to their vow, 
were offered up as victims to the powers of death. 

The enemy now turned their attention to the Capitol. But the appearance of 
Blockade of the Capi- the Capitoline Hill in the fourth century of Rome can ill be judged 
,oU of by that view which travellers obtain of its present condition. 

The rock, which is now so concealed by the houses built up against it, or by 
artificial slopings of the ground, as to be only visible in a few places, formed at 
that time a natural defence of precipitous cliff all round the hill ; and there was 
one only access to the summit from below, the clivus or ascent to the Capitol. 
By this single approach the Gauls tried to storm the citadel, but they were re- 
pulsed with loss ; 48 - and after this attempt they contented themselves with block- 
ading the hill, and extending their devastations over the neighboring country of 
Latium. It is even said that they penetrated into the south of Italy ; and a 
Gaulish army is reported to have reached Apulia, 49 whilst a portion of their force 
was still engaged in blockading the Roman garrison in the Capitol. 

Meantime, the Romans who had taken refuge at Veii had recovered from their 
first panic, and were daily becoming more and more reorganized. 
capitof"!?imLd bV m. It was desirable that a communication should be opened between 
them and the garrison of the Capitol ; and a young man named 
Pontius Cominius 50 undertook the adventure. Accordingly, he set out from Veii, 
swam down the Tiber, climbed up the cliff into the Capitol, explained to the gar- 
rison the state of things at Veii, and returned by the same way unhurt. But 
when the morning came, the Gauls observed marks on the side of the cliff, which 
told them that some one had made his way there, either up or down ; and the 
soil had in places been freshly trodden away, and the bushes which grew here 
and there on the face of the ascent had been crushed or torn from their hold, as 
if by some one treading on them or clinging to them for support. So, being thus 
made aware that the cliff was not impracticable, they proceeded by night to scale 
it. The spot being supposed to be inaccessible, was not guarded ; the top of the 
rock was not even defended by a wall. In silence and in darkness the Gauls 
made their way up the cliff; no sentinel perceived them; even the watch-dogs, 
said the story, 61 heard them not, and gave no alarm. But on the part of the hill 
bv which the enemy were ascending, stood the temple of the three guardian gods 
of the Capitol and of Rome, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva ; and in this precinct 
there were certain geese kept, which were sacred to Juno; and even amidst their 
distress for food, the Romans, said the old story, had spared the birds which were 
protected by the goddess. So now in the hour of danger, the geese heard the 
sound i>\' the enemy, and began to cry in their fear, and to flap their wings; and 
M. Manlius, whose house was in the Capitol hard by the temple, was aroused by 
them ; and he sprang up and seized sword and shield, and called to his comrades, 

47 Primo at deoa venerati deinde q1 homines war with the Greeks of southern Italy. Heen- 

despicati interfecore. Auotor de vine illostr. listed Bome of them, ami those were perhaps 

inCaraUlo. the very Gauls whom ho afterwards Bent into 

ivy, v. 48. Greece toaid the Laoedsamonians against Epa- 

*' J Diodorus, XIV. 117. li was apparently minondas. Justin, XX. 5. 

this portion of the Gaols which offered its sow- w Diodorus, XIV. 116. 

Uses to Dionysius while he was engaged in his u Livy, v. -it. Diodorus, XIV. 116. 



Chap. XXIV.] RETREAT OF THE GAULS. 209 

and ran to the edge of the cliff. And behold a Gaul had just reached the sum- 
mit, when Marcus rushed upon him and dashed the rim of his shield into his 
face, and tumbled him down the rock. The Gaul, as he fell, bore down those 
who were mounting behind him ; and the rest were dismayed, and dropped their 
arms to cling more closely to the rock, and so the Romans, who had been roused 
by the call of Marcus, slaughtered them easily, and the Capitol was saved. Then 
all so honored the brave deed of Marcus Manlius, that each man gave him from 
his own scanty store one day's allowance of food, namely, half a pound of corn, 
and a measure containing five ounces in weight of wine. 52 Historically true in the 
substance, these stories are yet, in their details, so romantic, that I insensibly, in 
relating them, fall into the tone of the poetical legends. 

Six months, 63 according to some accounts, seven or even eight months, 54 accord- 
ing to others, did the Gauls continue to blockade the Capitol. The The GauIs receive a 8nm 
sickness of a Roman autumn did not, we are told, shake them from ma™ ^ ?*'™ 8 the 
their purpose ; the plunder which might be gained in other yet blockade - 
unvvasted districts of Italy, did not tempt them to abandon it. But is it possible 
to believe that barbarians could have shown such perseverance, or that in one 
day of preparation, provisions could have been carried into the Capitol in suffi- 
cient quantities to hold out even for a small garrison, during a siege of six or eight 
months ? 55 Thus much, however, may safely be believed, that the garrison of 
the Capitol was at last reduced to extremity ; 66 they offered to ransom themselves 
by the payment of a large sum of money, and the Gauls were disposed, it is said, 57 
to accept the offer, because they heard that the Venetians, that nation of Illyrian 
blood who dwelt around the northern extremity of the Adriatic, had made an 
inroad into their own country bej'ond the Apennines. They consented, therefore, 
to the terms offered by the Romans ; and a thousand pounds' weight of gold 
were to be collected from the offerings in the Capitoline temple, and from the 
treasures which had been carried into the Capitol before the siege from every 
part of Rome, that for this ransom the blockade might be raised. Even in ac- 
cepting these terms, the Gaulish leader felt that he was admitting to mercy ene- 
mies whom he had wholly in his power. His weights, said the Roman story, 58 
were unfair ; the Roman tribune of the soldiers, Q. Sulpicius, complained of the 
fraud, but the Gaul threw his heavy broadsword into the scale ; and when the 
tribune again asked what he meant, he replied in words which may be best repre- 
sented by an analogous English proverb, " It means that the weakest must go 
to the wall." 59 

Thus, according to the true version of this famous event, the Gauls returned 
from their inroad into Italy loaded with spoil and crowned with 

m , ^ , x , . , Corruptions of the true 

glory. I hat as soon as they were known to be retreating, the na- story of the retreat of 

o J J o ' the Gauls. 

tions whom they had overrun should have recovered their courage, 
and have taken every opportunity to assail them on their march home, is per- 
fectly probable ; nor need we doubt that these attacks were sometimes success- 
ful, that many stragglers were cut off, and much plunder retaken. These sto- 
ries were exaggerated, as was natural ; and by degrees the Romans claimed the 
glory of them for themselves. We can almost trace the gradual fabrication of 
that monstrous falsehood which in its perfected shape so long retained its hold 
on Roman history. After the retreat of the Gauls from Rome, their country- 

52 "Quartarios vim." Livy, V. 57. The 56 If the Gauls stayed in Kome for so long a 
quartarius, or the fourth part of the sextarius, time, they must have left it in the middle of win- 
was the twenty-fourth part of the congius ; and ter. Now it is said that they hastened on their 
as the congius contained ten pounds' weight of way homewards, "because their own country was 
water, the quartarius contained five ounces. It invaded by the Venetians ; but barbarians would 
was a little more than the half of the Greek co- scarcely choose the depth of winter for an enter- 
tyle. prise of this sort. 

63 Floras, I. 13. 5B Diodorus, XIV. 116. 

64 Polybius, II. 22, and Plutarch in Camill. 30, m Polybius, II. 18. 
say, "seven." Servius, JEn. VIII. 652, says M Livy, V. 48. 

" eight." M " Vse victis esse." 

14 



210 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXV 

men who had advanced into Apulia, returned from their expedition, and found 
the Romans in too weak a condition to do them any harm ; but as they were on 
their march through the Roman territory, the people of Csere, or Agylla, laid an 
ambush for them, and cut off, it is said, the whole party. 60 To enhance the merit 
of this success, the Gauls who were cut off were next made to be the same party 
who had besieged the Capitol ; 61 and it was added that the people of Caere recov- 
ered the very gold which had been paid for the ransom of Rome. But the 
glory of such a troph) 7 could not be left to strangers ; the victory was soon trans- 
ferred to the Romans ; and it was Camillus who found the Gauls, a long time 
after their retreat from Rome, employed in besieging a city 02 in alliance with the 
Romans, who defeated them utterly, and won from them all their spoil. Lastly, 
the story was to be more entirely satisfactory to the Roman pride ; Rome 63 was 
never ransomed at all ; Camillus appeared with the legions from Veii just as the 
gold was being weighed out ; as dictator he annulled the shameful bargain, drove 
the Gauls out of Rome at the sword's point, and the next day defeated them so 
totally on their way home, eight miles from Rome, on the road to Gabii, that he 
left not a single man alive to carry to their countrymen the tidings of their defeat. 
Such a falsification, scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of any other people, 
justifies the strongest suspicion of all those accounts of victories and triumphs 
which appear to rest in any degree on the authority of the family memorials of 
the Roman aristocracy. 

What was the real condition of Rome and the neighboring countries after this 
first Gaulish tempest had passed away ; how the second period of Roman history 
begins in a darkness almost as thick as that which overhangs the beginnings of 
the first, but a darkness peopled by few of those forms, so beautiful though so 
visionary, which gave so great a charm to the times of the kings ; how faintly we 
can trace the formation of that great fabric of dominion and policy which, when 
the light of day breaks, we find well-nigh in its complete proportions, it will be 
my endeavor to make appear in the succeeding portion of this history. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

HISTORY, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC, FROM THE YEAR 865 TO 878— ROME AFTER 
THE RETREAT OF THE GAULS— ITS WEAKNESS, AND THE GREAT MISERY OF 
THE COMMONS— POPULARITY AND DEATH OF M. MANLIUS— WARS WITH THE 
NEIGHBORING NATIONS. 



'AStjvattiiv be rd koivSv, lirci&t) auroic ol fldpftapot i* Ttjs X^P a S air>i\5ov } iitKOjii^ovro eiiSbf S9ev 
b-nc^iSevTO ■xa'tiai Kai yvvatKas <ai rfjv iripiovtrav KaTaaKCvtjv, Kui ti/v tto\iv avoiKobojitlv TtaptoKtva^ovTO. 

Thucydides, I. 89. 



Law begins his history of the period after the invasion of the Gauls by con- 
The Roman h.story'u trasting what he calls its greater clearness and certainty with the 
.tin mi of uncertainty. b scur j t y of the period which had preceded it. True it is, that 

80 Diodorua, XIV. 117. home till the first beginning of spring, Camillus 
41 Strabo, V. p. 220. may then have obtained some advantages over 
M Diodorus, XIV. 117. The name of the city these last in their retreat, and may have ob- 
is wholly corrupt, Ovtdoiciov. tained a triumph. In this case the exaggeration 
83 Livy, V. 49. If the Gauls who were be- or confusion was easy, that the Gauls, after a 
sieging the Capitol received their ransom, and stay of eight months in Rome, were at last driven 
withdrew from Rome before the end of the au- out by Camillus; the period of their stay in 
turn, while others of their countrymen remained Italy being mistaken for that of their occupation 
in Italy through the winter, and did not return of Rome. 



Chap. XXV.] RESTORATION OF THE CITY. 211 

there was no subsequent destruction of public records such as had been caused 
by the burning of the city ; and although many invaluable monuments perished 
in the great fire of the Capitol in the times of Sylla, yet these might have been, and 
in some instances we know that they had been, previously consulted by historians, 
so that all knowledge of their contents was not lost to the writers of the Au- 
gustan age. Yet still no period of Roman history since the first institution of 
the tribunes of the commons is really more obscure than the thirty years imme- 
diately following the retreat of the Gauls. And the reason of this is, that when 
there are no independent contemporary historians, the mere existence of public 
documents affords no security for the preservation of a real knowledge of men 
and actions. The documents may exist, indeed, but they give no evidence : they are 
neglected or corrupted at pleasure by poets and panegyrists ; and a fictitious story 
gains firm possession of the public mind, because there is no one to take the pains 
of promulgating the truth. And thus it has happened that the panegyrists of 
Camillus and of the other great patrician families, finding ready belief in many 
instances from national vanity, have so disguised the real course of events, that 
at no other period of Roman history is it more difficult to restore it. 

The Gauls were gone, and the ruins of Rome were possessed again by the Ro- 
mans. The Flamen of Quirinus and the Vestal Virgins returned Tha Roman3 prooe ed to 
from Caere ; and the eternal fire, unextinguished by the late ca- Z^FtorlemLngTo 
lamity, was restored to its accustomed place in the temple of Vesta. J^ ss t.^opie to p r£ 
But the fugitives who had fled to Veii from the rout at the Alia, maiuatR ° me - 
and who formed a large proportion of the Roman people, were most unwilling to 
leave the city which for several months had been their only country ; at Veii 
they had houses already built, and perhaps they were not sorry to escape from 
the ascendency of the patricians, and to settle themselves in a new city of which 
they would be the original citizens. 1 Thus Rome was threatened anew with the 
dangers of a secession, with such a division of the strength of the commonwealth 
as must have insured its ruin ; for some of the patricians would, no doubt, have 
removed to Veii, while others, with their clients, would as certainly have remained 
at Rome. At this period the name and ability of Camillus were most effectual 
in putting an end to the dissension, and in determining that the proposed seces- 
sion to Veii should be utterly abandoned : but by what means or at what time his 
exile was reversed we cannot discover. It may be true, 2 that while the Gauls 
were in possession of Rome he had encouraged the people of Ardea, where he 
had become a citizen, to take up arms against the Gaulish plundering parties ; 
he may also, in such a time of necessity, have been chosen commander by some 
of the Romans who had fled from the city, and with them he may have done good 
service, both in cutting off the enemy's stragglers, and, perhaps, in harassing their 
rear after they began to retreat. And if after these exploits he had led back his 
party to Rome rather than to Veii, and had thus proved that even in banishment 
his heart was true to his old country, there is no doubt that he would have been 
received as joyfully as the Athenians under similar circumstances received Alci- 
biades ; 3 his exile would have been speedily reversed, and his entrance into Rome, 
like Cicero's in after-times, would have been celebrated with general rejoicings. 
Still more would this have been the case, had he really during his exile repaired 
to Veii, and brought back to Rome after the retreat of the Gauls any consider- 

1 That is, they would he the hurghers or pa- received. But a sense of his great services, and 
tricians of Veii, and around them a new plebs of the necessities of the coinmonwealth, over- 
orcommonswould, in process of time, be formed, powered all other considerations, and the peo- 
jusj as they themselves had grown up beside pie did receive him with enthusiasm. — See Xen- 
the patricians of Eome. ophon, Hellenic. I. 4. How refreshing is it, 

2 See Livy, V. 43, 44. atter the vagueness and uncertainties of the Eo- 

3 When Alcibiades retarned to Athens in the man traditions to turn for a moment to the nar- 
25th year of the Peloponnesian war, after his sue- rative of a contemporary historian, even when, 
cesses in the Hellespont and in Thrace, he had like Xenophon, he is far below the highest 
never been formally recalled from exile, and standard of excellence 1 

doubted, at first, it is said, how he should be 



212 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXV. 

able portion of the soldiers who had made Veii their refuge. Then may have 
followed the discussion whether these soldiers should return to their countrymen 
at Veii, or whether all should unite once more at Rome. Then Camillus and the 
patricians opposed to the secession would naturally appeal both in the senate 4 
and the forum to all the local attachments and religious feelings of which Rome 
alone could be the object ; and when the excitement was great, and the smallest 
tiling would incline men's wavering minds either the one way or the other, it may 
be true 5 that they received as an omen from heaven the casual words of a centu- 
rion, who, passing through the comitium with his century, and having occasion 
to halt in front of the senate-house, called aloud to the standard-bearer, "Pitch 6 
thy standard here, for this is the best place to stop at." 

The secession, in whatever manner, having been prevented, and the mass of 
The remaining mom,- the commons having consented to remain at Rome, although many 
"he^beg^s'tob/re- still refused to quit Veii, the senate proceeded to reconstruct, as 
bullu well as they could, the shattered fabric of the commonwealth. 

The sites of the temples 1 were retraced as well as was possible amidst the ruins, 
their limits were again duly fixed by the augurs, and ceremonies were performed 
to expiate the pollution which they had undergone by having been profaned by 
the barbarians. Some relics which it was impossible to replace, were said to 
have been miraculously preserved ; the lituus 8 or augural crook of Romulus, 
with which he was supposed to have marked out the quarters of the heavens, 
when in answer to his augury the gods sent him the famous sign of the twelve 
vultures, was discovered unhurt, so ran the tradition, under a heap of ashes. Then 
the day 9 in which the route of the Alia had taken place, the day after the ides 
of July, or the 16th, according to our reckoning, was pronounced by the pon- 
tifices to be a day of ill-omen ; and no sacrifice could acceptably be offered, nor 
any business prosperously done, on that day forever. All 10 remaining records 
were sought for ; the laws of the twelve tables, some laws ascribed to the kings, 
and some treaties with foreign nations, such as those with Carthage and with the 
Latins, were found to be still in existence ; and parts of the laws were again 
fixed up in some place where they were accessible to the people at large ; but 
the sacred or religious law, it is said, was not made public ; the pontifices alone 
were to be acquainted with it. The city was to be rebuilt -with all diligence ; at 
present even the walls had been partially broken down, and the streets were a 
mere heap of ashes. There was no plan to show their old direction : men built 
wherever they found a spot clear of rubbish, and the first houses so erected, de- 
termined in great measure the position of the rest. Each citizen, no doubt, built 
upon his own hill, and, generally speaking, in his own quarter or parish, if I may 
use the expression, according to the division of the city marked by the sacraria 
or chapels of the Argei. But within these limits, the old distinctions of property 
were not duly observed, and there was a sort of scramble for the ground ; so that 
the city was built irregularly, and the direction 11 of the cloaca? did not correspond 
with that of the streets. Meanwhile the government offered to furnish 18 roofing 
materials for the new houses at the public expense : and Niebuhr conjectures 
that these were chiefly obtained by unroofing the houses of Veii, and thus ren- 
dering the proposed seat of the secession uninhabitable, while it was made to 

4 See the speech ascribed to Camillus in Livy, H Livy, V. 55, tegula publico prsebita est. We 

V. 51-54. know from Cornelius INepos, quoted by l'linv, 

6 The story is given by Livy, V. 55, and by Hist. ITataT. XVI. 10, § 86, that the houses in 
Plutarohj Camillus. :'.'.'. Koine were rooted with wood (shingles), down 

Sigmfer, statue signum hie manebimns op- to the time of the war with Pyrrhus. Kitkcr. 
time. then, tegula is a general word in this passage of 

7 livy, V. 60. 1 .ivy, s'lLrnit'yinLr rooting materials, whether of 

* Plutarch, Camillus, 82. Dionysius, XIV. 5. shingles or of tales : orifitmean dies strictly, 

Fragm. Mai. we most suppose that the people did not like 

• Gellius, V. 17. livy, VI. 1. the labor of fetching them from Veii, and pre- 
w Livy, VI. 1. l'erred to use wood, according to their former 
u Livy, V. 55. practice. 



Chap. XXV.] NEIGHBORING PEOPLE ATTACK THE ROMANS. 213 

contribute at the same time to the rebuilding of Rome. Stone and timber might 
also be quarried and felled by any man from any public lands, provided he gave 
security that he would complete his house within the year. But with all these 
aids the building fell heavily upon the mass of the people ; it was delayed also 
by the attacks of foreign enemies : the securities given for completing it within 
the year would in many instances be forfeited ; and hence began again the old , 
system of borrowing from the patricians, speedily to be followed, as before, by a 
train of intolerable distresses and oppressions. 

In the small states of Greece and ancient Italy, the loss of a great battle caused 
a sensible diminution of the population of free citizens. The defeat Four new tribe8 added 
at the Alia had been bloody: many lives must have been lost in tothe Roman pe0I>le - 
after skirmishes with the Gauls, and in their devastations of the surrounding 
country ; and many fugitives who had taken refuge in the neighboring cities may 
have preferred remaining in their new homes. On the other hand, there was a 
large subject 13 population, chiefly, it is probable, of Tyrrhenian, that is, of Pelas- 
gian origin, in the recently conquered territories of Veii, of Capena, and, as Livy 
adds, of Falerii. From these it was resolved to make up the losses occasioned 
by the Gauls, and to convert subjects, who would infallibly have soon revolted, 
into citizens, who would be a most seasonable accession of strength. Accord- 
ingly, they were admitted in a body to the full rights of Roman citizens : each 
head of a family had his portion of seven jugera of land duly granted to him in 
full property, and set with landmarks, according to the rules of the agrimensores, 
which constituted the legal freehold tenure of the Romans ; and to show the great 
number of new citizens thus admitted, four new tribes 14 were formed out of them, 
and they thus constituted nearly a sixth part of the whole people in political 
weight, and, probably, a larger proportion in point of actual numbers. The tribes 
were thus increased from twenty-one to twenty-five. 

I have noticed these measures without regard to the exact chronological order 
in which they are said to have occurred. They are all placed, T he neighboring people 
however, with the exception of the creation of the four new tribes, min*\ h epds m the S Vot 
in the first year after the retreat of the Gauls : in that year the scians 8nd Emiscans - 
new citizens were admitted, and received their grants of land : although the cre- 
ation of the new tribes, in which they might exercise their franchise politically by 
voting at the comitia, is said to have happened two years 15 later. The magistrates 
still, as before the Gaulish invasion, came into office on the first of July ; 16 thus 
the military tribunes who had commanded at the siege of the Capitol, were still 
in office for some months after the retreat of the Gauls ; but they were not 
allowed to hold the comitia 11 for the election of their successors, because of the sup- 
posed ill-luck of their magistracy ; they resigned therefore, and the comitia were 
held by an interrex, a fact which of itself confutes the story of Camillus' pretended 
dictatorship : for had he been dictator throughout the year, according to the 
tales of his exploits, 18 the comitia would naturally have been held by him, and 
there would have been no need of an interregnum. But immediately after the 
appointment of the new tribunes, that is, about the season of harvest, the favor- 
ite season for the plundering incursions of the Peloponnesians into Attica, the 

13 Livy, VI. 4, calls the new citizens, " qui mans themselves, and their language and reli- 

Veientium Capenatiumque ac Faliscorum per ea gion both bore a considerable affinity to those 

bella transfugerant ad Komanos.' 1 ' Individual of Rome, 

deserters could not be numerous enough to form 14 Livy, VI. 5. 

four tribes ; hut when the cities of Veii and Ca- 15 That is, it took place at the next census, 

pena were hard-pressed, their territory, inhab- which was taken in the year 368 ; the preceding 

ited chiefly by a subject population, -ncpioiKoi in censors having been appointed in the year 363. 

the political language of Greece, would be likely Livy, V. 31. 

to revolt or submit to the Romans. The new I6 They continued to do so, it is said, for at 

citizens eould scarcely have been Etruscans, as least sixty years after this period. See Livy, 

the difference of language would then have pre- VIII. 20. 

sented a serious barrier to their union with the 17 Livy, VI. 1. 

Romans ; but if they were Tyrrhenian Pelas- 1S See Livy, VI. 1, and Plutarch, Camillus, 31. 
gians, they were of the same stock as the Ro- 



2]4 HISTORY OF EOME. [Chap. XXV. 

Romans were alarmed by the reports of hostile attacks on every side ; their for- 
lorn condition, it is said, tempting even the smallest of the neighboring states to 
assail them. If we are to believe one tradition which has accidentally been pre- 
served to us, 19 the people of Ficulea, Fidenae, and other places round about, ap- 
peared in arms under command of Livius Postumius, the dictator, as he is called, 
of the Fidenatians, and caused such a panic that the Romans fled before them; 
and the anniversary of this flight, the nones or 7th of July, was celebrated ever 
afterwards under the name of the day of the people's flight. 20 This, however, is 
an uncertain story, 21 in some respects improbable, and connected at any rate with 
circumstances which are clearly fabulous. It is more credible that the late de- 
structive inroad of the Gauls should have shaken all old political relations, and 
that the Romans could no longer rely on the aid of the Latins and Hernicans. 
Emboldened by their knowledge of this, the Volscians took up arms, and advanced 
into Latium as far as the neighborhood of Lanuvium, 22 which stood on a sort of 
spur of high ground, running out from the very southern extremity of the Alban 
Hills. Here they encountered the Roman army commanded by the military trib- 
unes, and were so superior in numbers that they presently confined the Romans 
within their camp. The tidings of their danger were carried to Rome ; Camillus 
was named dictator, and he, taking the field with every man who could bear arms, 
hastened from Rome by a night-march, 23 and appeared at day-break on the rear 
of the Volscians. Then the Roman army under the military tribunes made a 
sally, and the Volscians, attacked both in front and rear, were totally routed. 
Scarcely was this danger repelled, when the dictator learned that an Etruscan 
army, probably from Tarquinii, had attacked the Roman frontier on the opposite 
side, on the right bank of the Tiber, and was besieging Sutrium. Camillus has- 
tened to its aid, but on his way, 24 said the story of his exploits, he met the citizens 
of Sutrium in forlorn plight, they having been obliged to surrender their city, and 
having saved nothing but their lives. They fell on their knees before him, told 
him their sad case, and craved his assistance. He bade them be of good cheer, 
saying that it was now the turn of the Etruscans to wail and weep. Then he ad- 
vanced upon Sutrium, and found, as he had expected, that the enemy kept no watch, 
and were thinking of nothing but plunder : he instantly forced his way into the 
place, and made a great slaughter, and a still greater number of prisoners ; and 
Sutrium was thus, according to the story, " lost and recovered in a day again." 25 
It is impossible to tell how much of exaggeration is mixed up with these details ; 
but there is no reason to doubt that Camillus by his genius in this memorable 
year did truly save his country from destruction. The enemies of Rome were 
checked, and time was gained for the state to recover from its disorder and dis- 
tress, and to meet its rivals on more equal terms. The very existence of the Ro- 
man people in after-ages proves how well they must have defended themselves 

10 By Yarro, Ling. Lat. VI. 18, ed. Miiller, of Tutula and the female slaves, which is evi- 

and pitrtlv bv Maembius, Saturnul. I. 11. dentlv fabulous. 

20 Poplifugia. M Diodorus, XIV. 117. Livy, VI. 2. 

81 It is uncertain, because a different account " The resemblance of this story to that of 

of the origin of the Poplifugia is given by Mae- Cincinnatus is obvious, and is very suspicious, 

robius, Saturnal. III. 2, ami by Dionysius, 11. Livy merely describes the victory of Camillus, 

56, and because we know bow little reliance is without saying anj thing ofthe previous danger. 

to be placed on Btoriea pretending to account Plutarch makes the Latins to have joined the 

for the origin of old traditional usages or festi- Volscians, but he expressly says thai Camillus 

vals. It ib improbable, because Fidense had been marched to relieve the army of the military trib 

taken an.l colonized bj the Romans forta years unes, which was besieged by the enemy. — Ca 

earlier, and from that time forward plays uo millus, 84. 

part in history, and because Ficulea is never -"' Livy, VI. 3. Plutarch, Camillus, 85. 

mentioned at all after the tunes of the Roman M The very passage from which this line is 

kings. Nor canwe conceive how Fidenfe Bhould taken, in Shakspeare's Henry VI. Part I. shows 

have had a dictator, which was a title peculiar bow little reliance can be placed on a poetical 

to the Latin .towns ; unless, indeed, we suppose version of events in themselves historical. The 

that it had joined some Latin confederacy since line refers to the capture of Rouen bj the Maid 

the tail of the Roman power, and was no* be- of Orleans, and its recoverj bj Talbot on the 

come Latin. Further, the story ofthe Fjdena- same day; both the capture and recapture being, 

tian dictator is mixed np with the famous legend as every one knows, alike purely imaginary. 



Chap. XXV.] EXTENT OF THE ROMAN" FRONTIER. 215 

when attacked by two 'enemies at once in the hour of their most extreme help- 
lessness and depression. 

It were a mere wearying of the reader's patience to follow Livy through the 
details of the petty wars of this period — details which cannot be regarded as his- 
torical, and which, even though true, would be of little value. It will be enough 
to trace generally Rome's foreign relations down to the time of her great internal 
regeneration. 

On the right bank of the Tiber, the Roman frontier neither advanced nor re- 
ceded. Nepete and Sutrium, which had submitted to Rome three 
or four years before the Gaulish invasion, 26 and were the border frontier, its limit to- 
towns of the Roman dominion, were twice, according to the story 
of Camillus, attacked by the Etruscans ; once, as we have seen, in 366, and again 
in 369. They were both, according to the same authority, taken in 369, and 
immediately recovered. 27 It appears that the Etruscans, who were engaged in 
this affair, were the people of Tarquinii ; and finding the strength of Rome greater 
than they had expected, they were probably glad to conclude a truce for a cer- 
tain number of years ; which was no less welcome to the Romans, as they saw 
that they should have enemies enough on their hands on their opposite frontier. 

On the left bank of the Tiber we hear of wars with the Volscians generally, 
almost every year, and particularly with the people of Antium. It3 limU3 on tha left 
The scene of action was commonly the neighborhood of Satricum, bank o£ the Tiber - 
a town which lay between Velitrse and Antium. 28 Satricum had originally been 
one of the thirty cities of the Latins ; it had then been conquered by the JEqui- 
ans and Volscians, had afterwards been taken by the Romans, and had lastly, a 
little while before the Gaulish invasion, revolted from them, 29 and was now again 
become Volscian. It is said to have been retaken by Camillus in 369, 30 and a 
Roman colony was sent to occupy it in the following year. Again, however, it 
was lost in 373, 3I and held for five years by the Volscians ; after which time, 
when the people of Antium made peace with the Romans, and Satricum was to 
have been restored, it was burned, out of indignation by the Latins, 32 who had 
been allied with the Antiatians against Rome, and now found themselves deserted. 
Thus, on this side, the Roman frontier had considerably receded from the point 
which it had reached thirty years earlier. Then Anxur had been conquered, but 
now even Satricum could not be maintained, a place less than thirty miles distant 
from Rome. The loss of Anxur is nowhere expressly acknowledged ; but it must 
have fallen either in the year 358, when we read of its being besieged by the 
Volscians ; 33 or else it must have been lost, as well as Bola, 34 amidst the calamity 
of the Gaulish invasion ; for it is not possible that it could have been retained by 
the Romans wlrlst the Volscians were fighting year after year at Satricum, nearly 
five-and-tweni} miles nearer to Rome. 

But the peculiar feature of Rome's foreign relations, after the retreat of the 
Gauls, consisted in her altered position with respect to the Latins. A^^d rations of. 
Hitherto, during all the wars with the JEquians and Volscians, the Rome with Latium - 
alliance of the Latins and the Hernicans with the Romans had remained unbroken. 
It is true that some of the thirty Latin cities which had concluded the original 
treaty with Sp. Cassius in 261, had since been conquered by the JEquians and 
Volscians : 35 and thus as Niebuhr supposes, that treaty had long since been vir- 

26 See chap, xviii. 31 Livy, VI. 22. 

27 Livy, VI. 9, 10. 32 Livy, VI. 33. 

28 Its position is unknown : the Italian anti- S3 Livy, V. 16. 

quaries fix it at a little place called Conca, on the 34 Camillus is made to recover Bola from the 

edge of the Selva di Nettuno, in the supposed iEquians, in the year 366. Livy, VI. 2. It 

line of the old road from Velitrse to Astura and must therefore have been previously lost. 

Antium. But nothing exists beyond a few 35 Of the thirty Latin cities enumerated by 

shapeless ruins, which can determine nothing. Dionysius, eight are mentioned by Livy or Di- 

Westphal, p. 40. onysius as having been conquered by the Vol- 

29 Diodorus, XIV. 102. scians under the command of Coriolanus ; Vel- 
80 Livy, VI. 8, 16. itrse also became Volscian in the course of the 



216 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXV. 

tually at an end : and while some of the Latin states were become JEquian or 
Volscian, or had drawn around themselves a distinct confederacy of the small 
towns in their immediate neighborhood ; others, like Tusculum, were, from the 
equal, become no more than the dependent allies of Rome : for instance, Prae- 
neste, as Niebuhr thinks, must from its position have become JEquian, and Tibur 
stood aloof, and formed the centre of a small confederacy of its own. It does 
not, however, appear to me that we are compelled to adopt this supposition by 
the reason of the case ; and external testimony, 36 such as it is, seems to be against 
it. The ^Equians may have poured out upon the Campagna through that breach 
in the Apennine wall which lies open close below Praeneste, and may have occu- 
pied Pedum in the plain, and Lavici on the roots of the Alban Hills ; nay, they 
may have even taken Bola within the mou»tain-range itself, and yet the impreg- 
nable strength of Prasneste, which, at a later period, so long defied the whole 
power of Sylla, may have remained in perfect security ; and as the Hernicans 
were unconquered, and yet lay quite on the rear of the ^Equians when they estab- 
lished themselves on Algidus, so Tibur and Prasneste, safe in their mountain- 
holds, may have continued to belong to Latium, though almost isolated from the 
mass of the Latin people by the conquests of the Opican nations. On the other 
hand, it is very likely that amid the ruin of the Latin cities around them, many 
small Latin communities may have gathered under their protection ; and that 
thus the disproportion in strength between them and the other remaining states 
of the Latin confederacy would have become greater than it had been before. 
This of itself, when Rome had been so crushed by the Gauls, would lead to an 
altered relation between them and the Romans. By the treaty concluded with 
Sp. Cassius, Rome stood as one contracting party, and the whole Latin confeder- 
acy as another : of the plunder or conquest made by the allied nations, the share 
of Rome alone was to be equal to that of all the Latin cities together ; the allied 
armies were to be commanded alternately by a Roman and a Latin ; but each 
particular Latin state would enjoy the command many times less often than Rome. 
Thus when Rome had sunk in power, and Preeneste had risen, it would seem fair 
that they should stand towards each other on a different footing ; that Prasneste 
should be no longer a mere single member of the state of Latium, but should 
itself treat as state to state with Rome. 

Be this as it may, we find that after the Gaulish invasion, the treaty of Sp. 
w a r S win, the Latin Cassius, both with the Latins and Hernicans, was either imperfectly 
Btates.-Pnen.-ste. observed, or altogether violated for a period of nearly thirty years. 
Latin and Hernican volunteers in great numbers are said to have joined the 
armies of the Volscians ; s7 then the Latins, generally, without any mention of par- 
ticular states, are described as at open war with Rome, 33 in alliance with the Vol- 
scians ; and Lanuvium, 89 and above all, Prasneste, 40 are especially noticed as tak- 
ing a prominent part in these hostilities. On the other hand, Tusculum, 41 though 
. on one occasion suspected, remained generally true to Rome : and so also did 

wars with the Opican nations ; and others of the as their share of the spoil in 342. (Livy IV. 51.) 

thirty which an- not noticed again in history, The Latin and Hernican lands are ravaged by 

were, in all probability, destroyed. the ^'Equians or Volscians in 846 (livy, IV. 

80 Livy Bays dial "the Latins and Hernicans, 55), in 845 (id. IV. 58), and the Efernican lands 

since the battle at the lake Begillns, had re- in 342. (Id. IV. 51.) The Latins and Herni- 

mained faithful to Bome for nearly a century cans announce the intended invasion of the 

without interruption." VI. 2. This, as a gen- Opican nations in 332 and 324 (Livy, IV. 86, 87), 

oral statement, and one dearly in some respects and in 292 it is expressly mentioned that the 

inaccurate, maj nol be entitled to much weight; lands ravaged by the Volscians were I 

but a variety of incidental notices in the ac- the Prsenestines, Qabians, and Tusoulans (Livy, 

counts of the several years, Beem to inlbly that 111. 8): the three people belonging all alike at 

tin- alliance between the three nations, Romans, that period to the Latin confederacy, 

Latins, and Hernicans, lasted without any ma- K Livy, VI. 7. 18. 

terial change down to the Gaulish war. Latins w Livy, VI. 80, 82, 38. 

and Hernicans joined Camillus against Veii in ^ Livy, VI. 21. 

859. I Livy, 7.19.) Ferentinum, when token M Livy, V. 21, 22, 27, ct seq. 30. 

from the Volscians, was given to the Hernicans 41 Livy, VI. 21, 25, 26. 



Chap. XXV.] INTERNAL DISTRESS. 217 

Gabii and Lavici. 42 It may be well conceived how greatly this altered disposition 
of the Latins added to the distress of the Roman commons. For some years past 
Latium had borne the brunt of the ravaging incursions of the JEquians and Vol- 
scians ; its aid had enabled the Romans to carry the war at times into the ene- 
mies' country, while their own territory had rested in security. But now we read 
of the Roman territory being ravaged in all directions by the Volscians ; 43 and on 
one occasion 44 the Praenestines, having laid waste the country between the Tiber 
and the Anio, a quarter most likely to have escaped the attacks of other enemies, 
at last even crossed the Anio, and advanced as far as the very walls of Rome. 
Under such circumstances any gleam of victory would be doubly welcomed ; and 
an inscription in the Capitol 45 long recorded the successful campaign of T. Quinc- 
tius Cincinnatus, who having been appointed dictator to repel this invasion of the 
Prsenestines, marched out against them, defeated them in a battle on the very 
banks of the ill-omened Alia, chased them into their own country, and stormed 
nine of their townships in as many days. But such successes, like those with 
which the Saxon kings of England sometimes relieved the disasters of the Danish 
invasions, were attended by no permanent fruits. The Prsenestines were in the 
field again the very next year ; 46 and the aspect of the Roman foreign affairs con- 
tinued to be overclouded down to the very end of that period with which we are 
concerned in the present chapter. 

But the prospect at home was not overclouded merely ; it was the very deep- 
est darkness of misery. It has been well said that long periods of Internal di t e Suf 
general suffering make far less impression on our minds, than the ferings of the koman 
short sharp struggle in which a few distinguished individuals per- 
ish ; not that we over-estimate the horror and the guilt of times of open blood- 
shedding, but we are much too patient to the greater misery and greater sin 
of periods of quiet legalized oppression ; of that most deadly of all evils, when 
law, and even religion herself, are false to their divine origin and purpose, and 
their voice is no longer the voice of God, but of his enemy. In such cases the 
evil derives advantage, in a manner, from the very amount of its own enormity. 
No pen can record, no volume can contaiu, the details of the daily and hourly 
sufferings of a whole people, endured without intermission, through the whole life 
of man, from the cradle to the grave. The mind itself can scarcely comprehend 
the wide range of the mischief : how constant poverty and insult, long endured 
as the natural portion of a degraded caste, bear with them to the sufferers some- 
thing yet worse than pain, whether of the body or the feelings ; how they dull 
the understanding and poison the morals ; how ignorance and ill-treatment com- 
bined are the parents of universal suspicion ; how from oppression is produced 
habitual cowardice, breaking out when occasion offers into merciless cruelty ; how 
slaves become naturally liars ; how they whose condition denies them all noble 
enjoyments, and to whom looking forward is only despair, plunge themselves, 
witli a brute's recklessness, into the lowest sensual pleasures ; how the domestic 
circle itself, the last sanctuary of human virtue, becomes a^ length corrupted, and 
in the place of natural affection and parental care, there is io be seen only self- 
ishness and unkindness, and no other anxiety on the part of the parents for their 
children, than that they may, by fraud or by violence, prey in their turn upon 
that society which they have found their bitterest enemy. Evils like these, long 
working in the heart of a nation, render their own cure impossible : a revolution 
may execute judgment on one generation, and that, perhaps, the very one which 

42 Livy, VI. 21, 25, 26. 4S Livy, VI. 31. From Jove and all the gods this favor did be- 

44 Livy, VI. 28. fall,* 

46 Livy, VI. 29, and Festus in " Triens." The That Titus Quinctus, sometime Rome's captain- 
inscription, as Niebuhr has restored it, ran general, 
thus : • Nine towns did in nine days assault and take 

Juppiter, atque Divi omnes hoc dederunt, withal. 

Ut Titus Quinctius dictator Romanus 48 Livy, VI. 30. 

Oppida novem diebus novem caperet. 



218 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXV. 

was beginning to see and to repent of its inherited sins ; but it cannot restore life 
to the morally dead ; and its ill success, as if in this line of evils no curse should 
be wanting, is pleaded by other oppressors as a defence of their own iniquity, and 
a reason for perpetuating it forever. 

But it was the blessing of Rome, that this course of evils was, in her case, 
causes or the distress; checked in time, when it had brought suffering only on one genera- 
mentofi^oiTCntdSt ti° n > before it had entailed moral corruption on the remotest pos- 
ors- terity. Twenty years 41 of poverty and oppression, could we pre- 

sent to ourselves each individual case of misery, would seem a fearful amount of 
evil ; but, happily, twenty years' suffering in the life of a nation are but like an 
attack of fever, severe indeed while it lasts, but too short to weaken the consti- 
tution permanently. Mere poverty, moreover, is an evil, the ,sense of which varies 
greatly according to differences of time and place ; its actual privations depend 
much on climate ; their intolerableness arises from contrast ; where none are ex- 
travagant or luxurious, poverty must almost sink to beggary before its sting is 
felt acutely. The actual distress endured by the Roman commons in the loss of 
their houses, and the destruction of their cattle and fruit-trees, few of which could 
have escaped the hands of the Gauls during their long occupation of the city and 
territory of Rome, al though severe for the time, would, nevertheless, have been 
diminished by the sense of its being the common portion, and would in time have 
been altogether relieved. But the attacks of foreign enemies rendered the trib- 
utum, as a war-tax, constant and heavy ; and other taxes were imposed to defray 
the expense of building up the rock of the Capitol with large blocks of stone, 48 
and probably of rebuilding the temples generally ; whilst the obligation of com- 
pleting the houses in the city within twelve months, was a pressure on the means 
of the less wealthy, coming at the very time when they were least able to meet 
it. Thus, as we have seen, debts were unavoidably contracted ; and when there 
was a general demand for money, it was not possible that any positive law could 
keep the rate of interest low. Whether the enactment of the twelve tables, which 
fixed its yearly rate at one-twelfth of the principal, was actually repealed, or only 
disregarded by common consent, we cannot tell, but the re-enacting that rate 49 a 
few years later is a proof that at this period it was not observed ; and it is ex- 
pressly mentioned that the principal 50 of debts was sometimes paid many times 
over in interest before they were of five years' standing. It is not necessary to 
repeat the details of the extreme severity of the law towards insolvent debtors ; 
they have been already noticed ; but as the distress was far greater now than at 
any former time, this severity must have been more extensively felt than ever : 
every patrician house was become a private jail ; but a jail in which the pris- 
oners were kept to hard labor for the jailer's benefit, or w r ere, at his caprice, 
loaded with irons and subjected to the lash. 

Imprisonment for debt in its mildest form, and amidst the manifold money 
transactions of a crreat commercial country, in which the debtor 

Agfrrnviitions of their ri • i i. r 1 • " . i 

muery from particular must ottcn be paying the penalty ot his own imprudence, is yet 

beginning to shock the feelings of modern times, as being liable to 

the evil of confounding together misfortune and crime. How T then should we 

regard the treatment of the Roman commons, whose debts were incurred by no 

47 The period, according to Niebuhr's ehro- of the hill towards the Forum, where the re- 

nology, was one of eighteen years, from 865 to mains of the Tabularium still exist. 

383: according to the common chronology, it The "saxum quadratum" ofthe Boman wri- 

Iasted twenty-three years, from 865 to 888. ters, is the "Steintuf" of the German geolo- 

** Livy, VI. 4. " Capitolium Baxo qnadrato fists; the ''Tutu litoide" of Brocchi : it is a 

Bubstructum est." This most mean tint where volcanic conglomerate, found in Kome itself, 

the cliff bad been proved to be accessible, and and is the stum' employed in the Cloaca. 

thus have been more or less of an inclined plane, ''•' Livy, VII. 10. 

it was so huih tt|i with large blocks of stone as '"' Livy, VI. 14. "MuMplicijam Borte exso- 

to enlarge the upper surface ofthe bill, and luta, mergentibus semper sortem usuris." This 

make it perpendioular with the bottom of it. is said of the year 870, only five years after the 

Similar substructions have enlarged the surface Gaulish invasion. 



Chap. XXV.] CONDUCT OF M. MANLIUS. 219 

fault of their own, but were the consequence of an overwhelming national calam- 
ity, and of the want of consideration shown by the government for their state of 
distress ? Yet it is remarkable that the severity of the law in itself seems even 
now to have excited no complaint ; nor do we find that the tribunes extended 
their protection to the multitude of innocent debtors who were daily dragged off 
to labor amongst slaves in their creditor's workhouse ; what excited general dis- 
content was, in the first place, the high rate of interest exacted by the patricians, 
who thus seemed to make their profit out of the general misery ; and next the 
harshness of obliging the commons to pay heavy taxes for the public service, 
while the state's domain land, the natural resource in extraordinary national emer- 
gencies, was appropriated to the benefit of individuals, and whilst the taxation 
itself was highly arbitrary, being regulated according to an old valuation of the 
property of the citizens, 51 and making no allowance for the enormous losses which 
had since so greatly reduced its amount. Above all, there was the intolerable 
suspicion that the taxes thus hardly wrung from the people were corruptly em- 
bezzled : a jtax had been imposed to replace twofold the treasures borrowed from 
the temples to purchase the retreat of the Gauls ; and it was whispered 52 that 
this money, instead of being restored to the gods, was secretly kept back by the 
patricians for their own use. 

Thus the evils of the times and the public irritation were great ; but before 
they found their true and wholesome remedy, they gave occasion M _ ManI!u8 comes f 0r - 
to one of those false shows of relief, which only aggravate the dis- %te%Z?l£& oi t-hTi£ 
ease. M. Manlius, the preserver of the Capitol from the Gauls, solvent debtor8 - 
was jealous of the high reputation of Camillus, 53 and alienated from the patricians 
generally, because his share of the high offices of the commonwealth was not 
such as his merits claimed. Thus he was ready to feel indignant at the sever- 
ities practised against the debtors ; and his better feelings also, the loftiness of 
his nature, and his sympathy with brave men, were all shocked by the scenes 
which he daily witnessed. One day 54 he saw a centurion, who had served with 
him, and whom he knew to be a distinguished soldier, now dragged through the 
Forum on his way to his creditor's workhouse. He hastened up, protested against 
the indignity, and himself paid the debt on the spot, and redeemed the debtor. 
The gratitude and the popularity which this act won for him, excited him to go 
on in the same course : he sold by public auction the most valuable 55 part of his 
landed property, and declared that he would never see a fellow- citizen made a 
bondsman for debt, so long as he had the means of relieving him. So well did 
he fulfil this promise that he was said to have advanced money to no fewer than 
four hundred debtors, without requiring any interest to be paid to him ; and thus 
to have discharged their debts, and saved them from bondage. Such generosity ob- 
tained for him the unbounded affection of the people ; he was called the " Father 
of the Commons ;" and his house in the Capitol was always beset by a multitude 
of citizens, to whom he spoke of the cruelty of their creditors, and of their fraud 
and sacrilege in appropriating to themselves the money paid by the people to re- 
place the treasures borrowed from the gods for the ransom of the Capitol. 

A dictator had been 56 already appointed early in the year, with the double 
purpose of employing him against the Volscians abroad, and, if need should be, 
against the attempts of Manlius at home. The office had been conferred on A. 

61 See Niebuhr, Vol. II. p. 675. conquered only eleven years before. But the 

62 Livy, VI. 14. Ager Veiens came down to tbe Tiber, and por- 

63 Livy, VI. 11. Plutarch, Camillus, 36. tions of it may have been conquered in earlier 

64 Livy, VI, 14. One is rather too much re- wars, or even in the earlier years, of the final 
minded here of the story of the brave old cen- war. The fundus in question was, probably, a 
turion, whose hard usage from his creditors ex- " possessio," or a portion of the domain land 
cited such a tumult in the year of Eome 259. — held by occupation; but such estates were 
See Livy, II. 23. bought and sold amongst individuals as if they 

65 " Fundum in Veienti," says Livy, " caput were property, subject always to the chance ot 
patrimonii." It could hardly, then, have been their being reclaimed by the state. 

a part of the Veientian territory which had been b0 Livy, VI. 11. 



220 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXV. 

His ambitious practices. Cornelius Cossus, perhaps the same person who, in his consulship, 
Setri3t a s ': lin H°s t trS eight-and-twenty years before, had taken cognizance of the mur- 
*nd death. ^ er £ jyj p os tumius by his soldiers ; and he was now recalled 

from the field to check the apprehended sedition. He summoned Manlius 57 
before him, called upon him to prove his charge of the embezzlement of the 
sacred money, and on his failing to do so threw him into prison. This seems to 
have been merely the exercise of that power of arresting dangerous individuals, 
and so stopping their plans for a season, which is granted to, or assumed by, all 
governments in perilous times ; it is remarkable, however, that the imprisonment 
of Manlius did not expire with the term of the dictator's office, but continued till 
the senate, fearing, it is said, that he would be released by force, passed a vote 
to restore him to his liberty. This might seem to have been an act of weakness, yet 
the event allows us to attribute it to a wise policy ; for Manlius, when released, 
indulged in language more violent than ever, and at last, if we can rightly inter- 
pret 58 the doubtful language of the annalists, the assemblages at his house 
assumed a more threatening character ; and the Capitol was occupied by him and 
his followers as a stronghold in defiance of the government, as it was many years 
afterwards by the tribune L. Saturninus. That his motives were not pure, and 
that his purposes were treasonable, seems evident from several circumstances. 
He did not unite with the tribunes, the natural leaders of the commons, nor con- 
cert with them any definite measure for the redress of the existing evils. This 
makes a wide distinction between him and the several honest popular leaders who, 
on other occasions, had opposed the aristocracy. Volero, Terentilius, Duillius, 
Icilius, Canuleius, and Trebonius, had each come forward with some distinct 
measure for the attainment of a particular end ; but of Manlius we hear nothing 
but that he exercised great liberality towards distressed individuals, and so ac- 
quired an immense popularity ; that he excited the passions of the people by 
vague charges and invectives against the aristocracy ; and that he occupied the 
Capitol with a multitude of his partisans. It marks also the character of his 
proceedings, that the tribunes, forgetting the just grievances of their order, joined 
the patricians' against him ; and that Q. Publilius, 59 whose family was surpassed 
by none in its hereditary zeal for the true liberties of the commons, came forward 
to impeach him of high treason. What follows is told with some variations, and 
the real details cannot be recovered. According to the common account, Man- 
lius submitted to take his trial before the centuries in the Campus Martius. I 
have ahead) 7 shown how much even the greatest criminals had to hope from the 
uncertainty of such a tribunal ; how much weight was given to matters foreign to 
the question at issue ; how a strong and eloquent appeal to the feelings of the 
judges might overpower the clearest evidence of the prisoner's guilt. If even 
the decemvir Appius had thought his acquittal by the centuries not impossible, 
how much more might Manlius expect from them a favorable sentence ? Nor 
was his hope deceived. When he appeared in the Field of Mars, he brought 
forward four hundred debtors 60 whom he had relieved from bondage ; he exhib- 
ited the spoils of thirty enemies whom he had slain in personal combat ; he showed 
forty honorary rewards which he had at various times received from his generals 
in war ; and amongst these, eight of those wreaths of oak, the famous civic crowns, 
which were given for saving the life of a fellow-citizen in battle. He produced, 
besides, some of the very men whom he had thus saved, living witnesses of his 
services, whose tears and entreaties in behalf of their preserver might strike to 
the hearts of all who saw them. Finally, he bared his own breast, covered with 

67 Livy, VI. 16. M Iivy, VI. 19. This Publilius was of the 

68 " Senatus de secessione in doimim priva- same family with Publilius Volero, and was the 
tamplebis, . . . agitat." — livy, VL 19. The diotator Publilius Philo who passed the famous 
word "seeessio" is either an exaggeration or popular laws which bear his name some years 
denotes a positive act of insurrection, or, to afterwards. — Livy, VIII. 12. 

speak more strictly, of a withdrawal of allegiance 80 Livy, VI. 20. 
from the existing government. 



Chap. XXV.] INCREASED DISTRESS. 221 

honorable scars ; and, looking up to the Capitol, which rose immediately above 
the Field of Mars, he implored the aid of those gods whose temples he had 
saved from barbarian pollution, and bade the people to look at the Capitol, and 
then give their judgment. The tribunes saw that the centuries, thus excited, 
would never find him guilty ; and the trial was adjourned," not to be brought 
forward again before the same tribunal. Yet how he was prevented from ap- 
pealing to the centuries from the sentence of any other court that might have 
condemned him, does not appear. Nothing more is known with certainty than 
that Manlius was put to death as a traitor ; the very manner 62 of his execution, 
as well as the authority by which he was condemned, are variously reported. 
All agree, however, 63 that his house was levelled with the ground ; that a law 
was passed forbidding any one from henceforth to reside within the precincts of 
the Capitol ; and that the members of the Manlian gens shared so deeply in the 
general sense of his guilt, as to make it a rule of their house, that no Manlius 
should ever hereafter receive the praenomen of Marcus. 

After this ill-omened opposition to the aristocracy, their power was, as usual, 
only the more confirmed. For four years tire distress went on increased distress: the 
increasing, till the tribunes of the year 375 (we do not know their £&£ KSSrSf 
names) ventured to make a stand 64 in behalf of their constituents. tbe commonB - 
Censors had been appointed in this year, to take a new valuation of the property 
of the citizens ; but one of them having died, and it being accounted unlucky to 
fill up the place of a deceased censor, his colleague went out of office. Two cen- 
sors were then elected, but the augurs pronounced their election invalid, and they 
also resigned without doing any business ; after which a religious objection was 
made to any third election, as if the gods had manifested it to be their will that 
there should be no censors that year. This so provoked the tribunes, that when 
it was proposed to call the legions into the field against the people of Praeneste, 
they had recourse to the old method of opposition practised by the tribunes in 
the preceding century, and protected every citizen in refusing to enlist ; nay, they 
went still further, and declared that they would once for all redress the existing 
grievances, by forbidding any debtor to be given over to his creditor's power by 
the sentence of the magistrate. And though they did not persevere in their pur- 
pose, for the Praenes tines, 65 by a sudden inroad up to the very gates of Rome, 
furnished an excuse for the appointment of a dictator, and made the war seem a 
matter of paramount necessity, yet the tribunes withdrew their opposition only 
on some compromise ; and at the ensuing election of military tribunes, three out 
of six were, for the first time since the Gaulish invasion, chosen from among the 
plebeians. 

This apparently brought some relief for the following year ; but at the end of 
it only one 66 plebeian was elected amongst the military tribunes ; Their interference 
and the year 377 was only marked by disappointment of all the 8cems ^'"^s- 
hopes of the commons, and an actual increase of their burdens. Censors were 

61 Any objection of a religious kind on the lie enemy. Further, what was the " concilium 
part of the augurs, or a notice "that it thun- populi," and where was the "Lucus Peteli- 
dered," was sufficient to break up the comitia. mis?" for the present reading of "Porta No- 
C. Kabirius was saved from condemnation by a mentana" in the editions of Livy, is a mere cor- 
sudden adjournment produced by the act of L. rection of Nardini, and not to be admitted ; in- 
Metellus, who tore down the standard hoisted asmuch as there was no Porta Nomentana before 
on the Janiculum, and thus, according to an old the enlargement of the walls by Aurelian. Then 
custom, obliged the comitia to separate. there is the curious story recorded by Dion Cas- 

62 Livy, and most other writers, say that he sius, and which Niebuhr prefers as the most 
was thrown from the Tarpeian rock. Cornelius authentic of all the accounts. The question is 
Nepos related that he was scourged to death. — too long to be discussed here : I have thrown 
See Gellius, XVII. 21, § 24. Again, some said, it therefore into a note at the end of the volume, 
that he was condemned by a " concilium popu- 63 Livy, VI. 20. Plutarch, Camillus, 36. Auc- 
li," held in the Peteline grove without the Porta tor. de Viris illustr. in Manlio. Dion Cassias, 
Flumentana; others said that he was condemned Fra<nn. Peiresc. xxxi. 

by the duumviri, or two judges created, accord- M Livy, VI. 27. 
ing to the old law ascribed to the times of the C5 Livy, VI. 28. 
kings, for the purpose of trying him as a pub- m Livy, VI. 31. 



222 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVI. 

again elected, but a war with the Volscians was made a pretence for postponing 
the census ; while, on the other hand, although the censors could not find oppor- 
tunity for relieving the distress of the commons, they thought it necessary to con- 
tract for the building of a part of the city wall ; 61 and to defray the expense of 
this work, additional taxes were imposed. Accordingly, in this and the following 
year, the amount of debt in the state continued to increase, and 
the number of insolvent debtors condemned to bondage was 
greatly multiplied ; while a sudden dissolution of the alliance between the Latins 
and Volscians, and the conclusion of a separate peace between the latter and 
Rome, 68 relieved the patricians from any immediate pressure of foreign warfare, 
and thus deprived the opposition of the tribunes of its most effectual weapon. 

From this apparently hopeless condition there sprung up suddenly a prospect 
But deliverance is, not. of deliverance. Again we have conflicting traditions, idle stones, 
withstanding, at hind. and part y exaggerations in the place of history. But the result 
of the great struggle is certain, whatever obscurity hangs over the details. And 
L. Sextius and C. Licinius, though we cannot gain a distinct knowledge of them 
as individuals, yet deserve to be recorded amongst the greatest benefactors to 
the cause of good government and equal law, inasmuch as they brought forward 
and carried the Licinian laws. 



CHAPTER XXVI, 

THE LICINIAN LAWS.— 378-384. 



"Les mouvemens qui agitent les peuples peuvent 6tre de deux sortes. Les uns sont produits 
par une cause directe, d'ou resulte uu effet immediat. Une circonstance qwsleonque amene une 
nation, ou meme une partie de la nation, a desirer un but determine ; 1 enterprise eehoue ou 

reussit Ce sont la les heureuses revolutions ; on sait ee qu'on veut. on marehe vers 

tin point precis, on se repose quand il est atteint." — Baeante, Tableau de la Litterature Franchise 
pendant le Dixbuitieme Siecle. 

Six patrician military tribunes 1 had been elected at the comitia for the year 
378, and had entered on their office on the first of July. The coalition between 
the Latins and Volscians, which had been so dangerous to Rome, was dissolved 
in this s-Mne summer, and the Volscians of Antium made a separate peace. 2 Dur- 
ing the autumn the commons seemed to have utterly lost heart ; the patricians 
were all powerful at home, and fortune seemed disposed to favor them equally 
abroad : the cause, in short, appeared so hopeless that the more eminent men 3 
amongst the commons were discouraged from coming forward as candidates, 
even for the office of tribune of the commons ; the tribune's power, they thought, 
would merely expose themselves to odium, while it would be unable to effect any 
good. Thus the elderly men, who generally held the tribuneship, now abandoned 
the helm in despair, and younger men, who would have given way to their higher 
claims under other circumstances, now found themselves called upon to come 

87 Livy, VI. 32. on that very spot, Satricum, which they liad con- 

88 Livy, VI. 83. quered in 'the war now before us, and which 
1 Livy, VI. 82. they must have retained, therefore, at the peace 
,J Livy, VI. 33. But they could scarcely have of 378. Sec Livy, VII. 27. But a state which 

made an absolute surrender, " deditio," of their retains even its conquests at the end of a war is 

city and territory ; for we hear of them again in not likely to make at that same time an absolute 

little more than twenty years, as an indepen- surrender of its own city and territory, 
dent and sovereign people ; planting a colony 3 livy, VI. 34. 



Chap. XXVI.] THE THREE LICIKIAN LAWS. 223 

forward, and brought with them strength and spirits better fitted for times so 
perilous. At the election in December, C. Licinius Stolo, a member of one of 
the richest 4 and most distinguished families amongst the commons, and a man in 
the full vigor of life, obtained a place amongst the ten tribunes, and L. Sextius, a 
young man of an active and aspiring spirit, and a personal friend of Licinius, was 
elected one of his colleagues. 

Could we look into the private history of these times, we should find, no doubt, 
amongst the Roman patricians, as amongst the members of all aris- n 

o r o . , Some of the patricians 

tocracies, a certain number of persons, who, from various motives, are favorable to the 

.. „ *, . , t, j.,-1 cause of the commons. 

are opposed to the majority ot their own order. Joy some 01 these, 
Licinius and Sextius were, we may be sure, encouraged and supported ; the 
Licinian family had repeatedly intermarried with patricians : 5 the tribune himself 
was married to a Fabia, and others of his name had been similarly connected 
with the Manlii and the Cornelii. With all the advantages then of wealth and 
connection that could be enjoyed by a commoner, Licinius came forward to re- 
dress the grievances of his order, and to secure their rights for the time to come. 
He proposed in the assembly of the tribes, in conjunction with L. Sextius, 
three separate laws. 6 The first provided a strong remedy for the The tribune? pr . opo3e 
great actual evil, the overwhelming pressure of debt. It enacted, the tl,ree LicLniaa luw9- 
that whatever had been already paid in interest should be deducted from the 
amount of the principal ; 7 and that the debt thus reduced should be discharged 
in three years, in three equal instalments. The second bill was intended to save 
the commons, when their debts were once relieved, from the necessity of running 
into, debt again. It proposed therefore to provide for the poorer citizens by giv- 
ing them grants of land, out of the domain, or ager publicus ; and in order to 
have land enough available for this purpose, it restrained the right of the occu- 
pation, by enacting that no man should occupy more than five hundred jugera 
of the public land in tillage, 8 nor feed more than a hundred oxen and five hun- 
dred sheep on those portions of it which were left in pasture. The third bill 
was dictated by the consciousness that the enjoyment of property is neither se- 
cure in itself, nor can satisfy the wants of a noble mind, without being united 
with a certain portion of political power. The commons, as an order, must be 
raised to a level with the patricians ; the honors of their country must be laid 
open to them ; they must have an opportunity of bequeathing nobility to their 
children. The institution of the military tribuneship was, in itself, an affront to 
the commons : it was only because it was so inferior in dignity to the consulship, 
that it had been made nominally accessible to them. The bill of Licinius, accord- 
ingly, did away with the military tribuneship, and restored the consulship. 9 That 
very image of the ancient royalty, with all its sacredness and display of sovereign 
state, was to be open to the commons no less than to the patricians. But expe- 

4 This appears from what is related of him 6 Livy, VI. 35. 
afterwards, that the amount of public land in 7 " Ut deducto eo de capite quod usuris per- 

his occupation exceeded the measure of 500 numeratum esset, id quod superesset triennio 

jugera, which had been fixed by his own law. asquis portionibus persolveretur." — Livy, VI. 

Niebuhr observes also that this wealth of the 35. 

Licinian family continued to the latest period of 8 "Ne quis plus quingenta jugera agri pos- 

the republic, as is shown by the immense riches sideret." If we remember the legal definition 

of M. Licinius Crassus. of possessio, quicquid apprehendimus cujus 

6 The Licinius who was a military tribune in proprietas ad nos non pertinet, ant nee potest 
the year 355 was a brother of Cn. Cornelius ; pertinere, hoc possessionem apellamus," De 
and the Licinius who was master of the horse- Verbor. Significat. 115 (Digest. Lib. L. tit. xvi.), 
men in 382-3 was related to the dictator of that we shall see that it was needless to add " pub- 
year, P. Manlius. Livy, V. 12, VI. 39. If in lici" to "agri," because the only land which 
the first of these two cases we suppose with men ordinarily occupied without its being their 
Borghesi (Nnovi Frammenti, Parte 2, p. 89), own, was the "ager publicus." 
that P. Licinius was a Cornelius by birth, and For the clause limiting the number of cattle 
adopted into the family of the Licinii, it shows which might be fed on the public pasture land, 
no less the high eminence of the Licinii and see Appian, de Bell. Civil. I. 8. 
their intimacy with the noblest patrician houses, 9 "Ne tribunorum militum comitia fierent, 
when even a Cornelius would not scruple to be- consulumque utique alter ex plebe crearetur." — 
come their adopted son. Livy, VI. 35. 



224 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVI 

nence had shown that it was not enough to throw it open merely ; one place 
must be secured to the commons by law, or the influence of the patricians at the 
comitia would forever exclude them from it. It was proposed, therefore, that 
one, at least, of the two consuls should of necessity be elected from the commons. 
This last law requires no explanation ; and the second, since Niebuhr has 
operation or the system cleared up the wdiole subject of the agrarian laws, is equally intel- 
f debtor and creditor, jiguble. The first, however, involves in it some difficulty; for if 
the rate of interest had been high, and a debt had been of long standing, the 
sum paid in interest would not only have equalled, but must, in some instances, 
have actually exceeded the amount of the principal ; so that the creditor, far 
from having any thing more to receive, would rather have had something to re- 
fund. To explain this, Niebuhr observes, that debts were ordinarily settled at 
the end of one year ; and that if a debtor could not then pay, he was in the 
habit of borrowing money of a new creditor to discharge the principal and inter- 
est of his first account ; a proceeding which, from its frequency, had a particu- 
lar name, "Versura." 10 That a speedy settlement of debts was the ordinary 
practice, may indeed be collected from the clause in this very Licinian law itself, 
which required the whole debt remaining after the deduction of the already paid 
interest to be discharged within three years ; and if the practice of versura was 
often repeated, it will be obvious that a debtor would have paid his original 
debt many times over in interest, although not under that name : a part of the 
principal of every new debt being, in fact, the interest of the preceding one. 
Still, as the distress had now lasted for thirteen years, there must have been many 
who could not have gone on so long upon this system ; the amount of their debt 
must have so exceeded all their possible means of payment, that no new creditor 
could have been found to advance them the money to discharge it. Under these 
circumstances, what could the debtor do but enter into a nexum, and at the end 
of a certain term, on failing to redeem himself, submit to be given over as a bond- 
man to his creditor ; or else try to procure a further respite by offering an exor- 
bitant rate of interest ? In this latter case the interest so paid would, undoubtedly, 
be deducted from the amount of the principal, and thus it would happen that 
there would be a very small balance left for the creditor still to receive. But 
such cases would be very few : in most instances, when a man's cre'dit was so 
exhausted that he could no longer practice the system of borrowing from a new 
creditor to pay his old one, he would be obliged to enter into a nexum, and being 
still insolvent, would, in the common course of things, become his creditor's bond- 
man. Then whilst the debtor was giving his creditor all the benefit of his labor, 
we cannot suppose that the interest of the debt went on accumulating also ; and 
thus, after he had remained some years in bondage, he might be redeemed by 
the mere payment of his original debt, from which there would be deducted only 
that interest which he had paid before he had been consigned to his creditor's 
power. But what we should most desire would be, to learn the fate of the great 
mass of debtors, who, in the course of the last thirteen years, had thus been re- 
duced to slavery. Was there any limit of time beyond which they could not be 
redeemed ? or, if the debt were never paid, did they or their posterity ever 
recover their freedom?" Are we, in short, to believe that many families of the 

10 Festus, or rather Pftulua, in " Versura." gem habet ;" that is, he could not be killed by 

11 There is a well-known passage in Quine- Ens master, nor treated by him absolutely at his 
tilian, VII. ::, S 'J7, which enters into tin' dif- discretion, but might claim the protection of 
ferences between the condition of a slave and the law like a freeman ; again, he conld inherit 
that of one who was " addictus," or given over property and acquire property, which a slave 
to bis creditor into bondage. But it does nut could not do. " Tri I mm habet'' is remarkable, 
specially touch the questions which I have Bug- because it implies thai the addictus did not 
gested. Some parts <>f it, however, are re- undergo either the maxima or media capitis 
markable. "Ad servum nulla lex peftinet: deminutio; he conld not lose his rights of citi- 
addictua legem habet. Propria liberi que nemo zenship it' he retained his tribe. But were these 
habet nisi fiber, preenomen, nomeh, cognomen, ri'_rhts in abeyance, as the father's power over 
tribum; habet hseo addictus." " Addictus h- his children was suspended so long as he was 



Chap. XXVI.] ELECTION" OF CURTJLE MAGISTRATES STOPPED. 



225 



Roman commons, during this period, were finally lost to their country as free 
citizens ; or was there any mitigation of the extreme rigor of their fate, and did 
the slave-debtor ever recover his personal liberty by consenting to become the 
client of his master ?' These are questions to which, I believe, it is impossible 
to give satisfactory answers. 

To return, however, to our narrative ; the promulgation of the three Licinian 
bills provoked, as was natural, the most determined opposition on m , 

i . »-iit i /• i j. ■ ™" e *"bunes stop tne 

the part of the aristocracy. Again the battle was to be fought in election of curuio ma- 
the assembly of the tribes ; the great object of the patricians was 
to prevent the bills from being passed there. Some of the tribunes were attached 
to the aristocratical part}^ and these were persuaded to interpose their negative, 12 
to forbid the reading of the bills to the people, and thus to stop them from ever 
being put to the vote. Licinius and Sextius, thus baffled, anu being unable to 
proceed with their measures directly, determined to retaliate by obstructing, in 
like manner, the course of their opponents. When the month of July arrived, 
and the military tribunes for the last year went out of office, Licinius and Sex- 
tius forbade the election of any successors to them ; they would allow no curule 
magistrates to be appointed ; and they with the sediles of the commons remained 
for a time the only magistrates of the republic. 

But that this time continued for five years, according to the common report of 
the Roman Fasti and historians, is a thing- altogether incredible. 13 

. . j ° . . a But this time of anar- 

An anarchy or fave years ; so long a period ot the most extreme po- ch y mdnoi lastfornve 

litical excitement, nay, of the greatest extremities of revolutionary 

violence ; the water boiling, as it were, with such intensity, and yet never boiling 



a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, but re- 
turned to him as soon as he came home ? or can 
we suppose that they continued to exist, and 
that a creditor might drive his addicti into the 
Forum to give their votes as he should require, 
and that such votes were legal ? or would this 
be one of the many cases in which the officer 
who presided at the comitia exercised his dis- 
cretion in objecting to them whenever he 
thought proper, or receiving them if it suited 
the interests of his party ? 

12 Livy, VI. 35. 

13 It is utterly impossible to ascertain the real 
chronology of this period. The story of the five 
years' anarchy arose probably from an exagger- 
ated interpretation of some expressions in the 
annalists, " that for five years the tribunes went 
on obstructing the elections," meaning, that 
whilst the contest lasted., this was their weap- 
on, which they used from time to time, and 
never relinquished it without stipulating for 
some concession in turn. Afterwards, when 
the date of the Gaulish invasion had been fixed 
to the 2d year of the 98th Olympiad, and this 
was assumed as certain, the existence of the five 
years' anarchy was no longer questioned. The 
Fasti Capitolini acknowledge them as well as 
Livy ; so also does Dionysius, for he speaks of 
the ten years' tribuneship of Licinius. (XIV. 
22. Fragm. Mai.) And Polybius implies them, 
where he gives the dates of the several inva- 
sions of the Gauls, II. 18. The later writers, 
such as Eutropius, Oassidorus, and Rufus Fes- 
tus, make the anarchy to have lasted for four 
years. So also does Zonaras ; but then these 
four years are with him the whole period of the 
struggle, for he makes them to be followed im- 
mediately by the dictatorship of Camillus, and 
the pretended Gaulish invasion. They are then 
the years which, in the common Fasti, follow 
the five pretended years of anarchy ; and which 
are marked by four colleges of military tribunes. 

15 



It is to be observed, that about forty years af- 
terwards we still find the consular year spoken 
of as beginning on the 1st of July (Livy, VIII. 
20), which requires us to suppose either that 
one whole year passed without military trib- 
unes, and that the elections were not again 
delayed ; or that in the course of the five years' 
struggle, the elections were each year delayed 
for a time, so that at the end of the period the 
time lost in the several years, when added to- 
gether, amounted to just a year in all, or, final- 
ly, we must believe that there was no period of 
anarchy at all; that the tribunes every year 
threatened to stop the elections, but allowed 
them, from consideration for the public service, 
to be held as usual, stipulating, perhaps, for 
the election of certain individuals known to be 
either favorable to their claims, or, at least, not 
violently adverse to them. Borghesi thinks 
that one college of military tribunes has been 
omitted by Livy in the year preceding the be- 
ginning of the anarchy, and he has restored it, 
partly from Diodorus, and partly from conjec- 
ture. Thus he places the election of L. Sex- 
tius as the first plebeian consul, exactly four- 
and-twenty years after the invasion of the 
Gauls. Striking out the five years of pretended 
anarchy, the consulship of L. Sextius falls nine- 
teen years after the invasion of the Gauls, 
which agrees exactly with the chronology of 
Diodorus, when his confusions have been cor- 
rected, and the Gaulish invasion brought to its 
true date, according to his system, that is, to 
the third year of the 99th Olympiad. It agrees 
also with the statement of Orosius, III. 1, 4; 
and this is the nearest approximation to the 
truth at which I think it is possible to arrive ; 
namely, to fix the consulship of L. Sextius in 
the 2d year of the 104th Olympiad, which is. the 
date of the battle of Mantinea, and of the death 
of Epaminondas, 363-2, b. o. 



226 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVL 

over ; a knot so perplexing, which none untied, and yet none were tempted to 
cut ; a livelong strife, neither pacified by any compromise, nor exasperated into 
open violence, requires far better testimony than that of the Roman annalist 
removed two hundred years from the period of the struggle, to induce us to 
admit it as historical. What would have become of the ordinary course of busi- 
ness, if for five years the supreme courts of law had been closed, and the praetor's 
or prastorian tribune's judgment-seat so long left empty ? Where was the rest- 
less enmity of the Latins, who, down to the beginning of this pretended anarchy, 
are described as so relentless in their hostilities, and who again appear in arms 
as soon as it is over ? Unless the circumstances of the struggle were very differ- 
ent from all the representations of them which have reached our times, we can 
scarcely doubt that the Fasti, followed by Diodorus and Orosius, have preserved 
the truer account of these disputes ; that one year at the most, perhaps even 
that not continuously, but at different intervals, was passed without curule ma- 
gistrates ; that the consulship of the first plebeian consul is to be placed not 
twenty-four but nineteen years only after the invasion of the Gauls. 

The length of the struggle, even when reduced in all from ten years to five, is 
Military tribunes again sufficiently memorable. The tribunes had prevented the election 
elected - of any curule magistrates ; whether this state of things really 

lasted for a whole year, or only for a few weeks, it is not possible to determine ; 
but it was ended by a fresh attack of the Latins on the old allies of Rome, the people 
of Tusculum ; 14 the call for aid on the part of the Tusculans could not be resisted ; 
the tribunes withdrew their veto, and the comitia for the election of military trib- 
unes were duly held ; but care was taken that only moderate men, or men 
friendly to the popular cause, should be chosen ; there were two Valerii, the 
very name of whose house was an assurance to the commons, and a third tribune 
was Ser. Sulpicius, connected by marriage with C. Licinius, and with his patrician 
supporter, M. Fabius. After all, they were not allowed to enlist the soldiers for 
the legions without much opposition, nor probably without some stipulation on 
the part of the senate, that the military tribunes should not, like M. Postumius, 
abuse their power by visiting on their soldiers in the field the political offences 
of the commons at Rome. When the army did at last march, Tusculum was 
relieved, and Velitrse, which had been foremost in the attack upon it, was besieged 
in its turn ; but the siege was not speedily ended, and the year came to a close 
before the place was reduced. 

Meanwhile the popular cause was gaining ground : amongst the new military 
tribunes was M. Fabius Ambustus, 15 the father-in-law of Licinius, 

''Toners of the and the zealous supporter of his bills, an advantage which more 



than counterbalanced the danger threatened by the appointment of 
two zealous members of the aristocratical party. These were A. Cornelius Cossus, 
who had been named dictator some years before to oppose the designs of M. Man- 
lius, and Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus, of the house of that Cincinnatus, who, in his con- 
sulship, had proposed to repeal the laws passed in favor of the commons at Rome, 
by the votes of his soldiers, in an assembly to be held in the field beyond the 
protection of the tribunes, and who in his dictatorship had defended the murder 
of Sp. Mselius. Besides, the patrician interest in the college of the tribunes of 
the commons was becoming weaker and weaker ; not only were Licinius and 
Sextius continually re-elected, but three others of their colleagues, it is said, now 
espoused their cause, and the remaining five, who had still pledged their veto to 
the patricians, so felt the difficulty of their position as to be obliged to lower 
their tone : their veto now professed only to suspend the discussion of the bills, 
and not to forbid it altogether : " A large proportion of the people," 16 they said, 
" were engaged in foreign service at Velitrae : so great a question must be decided 
in a full assembly ; till, therefore, the legions should return home, the bills must 

14 Livy, VI. 86. a Livy, VI. 36. M Livy, VI. 86. 



Chap. XXVI] GROWING STRENGTH OF THE POPULAR CAUSE. 227 

not be brought forward." In such contests as these, delay is an advantage to 
the resisting party when the assailants are not keen in their attack, so that it may 
be possible to divert them from it by exhausting their patience ; but when they 
are thoroughly in earnest, the flood gathers into a stronger head the longer it is 
opposed, and breaks in at last more overwhelmingly. So Licinius finding his 
three bills thus pertinaciously resisted, now proceeded to add to them a fourth, 17 
enacting that the two keepers of the Sibylline books should be superseded for 
the future by a commission of ten, and that these ten should be chosen alike 
from the patricians and from the commons. The notion of a plebeian consul was 
most objected to on religious grounds ; a plebeian, it was said, could not take the 
auspices, because his order could exercise no office connected with the service of 
the gods. Licinius resolved to destroy this objection most effectually, by attack- 
ing the religious exclusion itself. So far was he from allowing that a plebeian 
could not be consul because he could not be a priest, that he claimed for his 
order a share in the priestly offices as such ; he required a distinct acknowledg- 
ment that the service of the gods might be directed, and their pleasure made 
known, by plebeian ministers as rightfully as by patricians. Perhaps, too, he 
had another and more immediate object ; in seasons of extreme public danger, it 
was usual to consult the Sibylline books, and the keepers of them reported the 
answer which they found applicable to the emergency. Licinius might fear that 
this oracle, if left solely in the keeping of his adversaries, might be unfairly tam- 
pered with ; and its answers shaped according to their interests. It was thus 
especially desirable that some of the commons should be made acquainted with 
their contents, to prevent the possibility of any forgery. 

New military tribunes, 18 it is said, came into office before the army came home 
from Velitrse. This would be equally true whether we suppose M . camiiius and p. 
that the soldiers came home to the harvest in July and August, Manlius dictatore - 
or remained in the field till the close of the autumn. Amongst the new military 
tribunes we again find Ser. Sulpicius, and also Ser. Cornelius Maluginensis, a 
man so distinguished that he had already filled the same office six times before. 19 
When the Licinian bills were again brought forward, the popular feeling in their 
favor was so strong as to make it appa-'-ent that the tribunes opposed to them 
would find it impossible to persist in interposing tbiir negative ; the patricians 
accordingly had recourse to their test expedient ; it was pretended that the war 
with Velitra required a dictator, and then Camillus, the bitterest enemy of the 
commons, was appointed to 511 that office. It appears that he issued a proclama- 
tion 20 summoning the cit^ens within the military age to enlist and follow him to 
the field ; whether his object was any thing more than delay must remain doubt- 
ful ; but his edict was utterly disregarded, and the senate, to allay the storm, 
called upon him to resign his dictatorship. The Fasti recorded, that P. Manlius 
Capitolinus was named dictator shortly after, for the avowed purpose of putting 
an end to the domestic disturbances ; 21 no record, however, remains to us of any 
thing that he did in his office ; but it is evident that he was disposed to take no 
violent steps against the commons, for one branch of the Licinian family were 
his relations, and from them he chose C. Licinius Calvus, though a plebeian, to 
be his master of the horsemen. As if to show still further that the contest was 
drawing to a close, the bill 22 relating to the keepers of the Sibylline books was 
passed before the end of this year ; but the other three were still delayed a little 
longer. Every nerve was, doubtless, strained by the patricians to preserve the 
exclusive possession of the consulship, and this was naturally the point to which 

" Livy, VI. 37. KaTd\oyov.— Camillus, 39. And so the Fasti 

18 Livy, VI. 38. Capitolini ; for the beginning of the line may 

19 This appears from the fragments of the be safely restored as Sigonius has supplied it. 
Fasti Capitolini. " Ob Edictwm in milites ex S. C. abdicarunt." 

20 Livy says, that he only threatened to issue sl " Seditionisse dandse et rei gerendse cau- 
such a proclamation, VI. 38. But Plutarch sa." 

speaks of it as actually issued, Trpoiypa^e crpanas M Livy, VI. 42. 



228 HISTORY OF ROME. :[Chap. XXVI 

the mass of the commons attached the least importance, while they eagerly 
desired to pass the other two bills, relating to the public land, and to the debts. 
But the tribunes, being well aware of this feeling, and being anxious, on personal 
as well as public grounds, to secure the great point of an equal share of the 
highest magistracies, had resolved only to bring forward the three bills together, 
to be altogether either accepted or rejected. The more violent 23 of the aristo- 
cratical party remonstrated with hypocritical indignation against the arrogance 
of the tribunes, in thus dictating to the commons ; and against their selfishness, 
in refusing to bring forward bills for the good of their whole order without stipu- 
lating at the same time for the gratification of their own ambition. But Licinius, 
trusting that the people would have the sense to reject the pretended sympathy 
of their worst enemies, persevered in his purpose ; and told the commons in 
homely language, 24 " that they must be content to eat if they wished to drink." 
. There is nothing viler than the spirit which actuates the vulgar of an aristoc- 
on what grounds the rac y ! we cannot sympathize with mere pride and selfishness, with 
toc™cy P ?reo s f ed h the S Li- the mere desire of keeping the good things of life to themselves, 
with the grasping monopoly of honors and power without noble- 
ness of mind to appreciate the true value of either. All can conceive from what 
motive, with what temper, and in what language, the coarser spirits of the aris- 
tocratical party opposed the Licinian bills. But in all the uncorrupted aristoc- 
racies of the ancient world, there was another and a very different element also ; 
there were men who opposed the advance of the popular party on the highest 
and purest principles ; who regarded it as leading, in the end, to a general law- 
lessness, to a contempt for the institutions and moral feelings of men, and to a 
disbelief in the providence of the gods. Such men must have existed amongst 
the Roman patricians -, and their views are well deserving of the notice of pos- 
terity. When Ser. Cornelius Maluginensis in his seventh military tribuneship 
opposed Licinius and Sexti&s in the assembly of the tribes, he might have ex- 
pressed his feelings in something like the following language, and the soberest 
and wisest of the commons themselves would have been touched with a fore- 
boding fear, while they could not help acknowledging that it was partly just : — 25 
"I know, Quiretes, that ve account, as an enemy to your order whoever will 
speech of ser. Come- not agree to*the passing of these three ordinances proposed by 
I™ MaiugiDensis. vour tribunes, Caius Licinius an& Lucius Sextius. And it may be 
that some who have spoken against them, are, in truth, not greatly your well- 
wishers ; so that it is no marvel if your ill opinion ol these should reach also to 
others who may appear to be treading in their steps. But I stand here before 
vou as one who has been now, for the seventh time, chosen by you one of the 
tribunes of the soldiers ; — six times have ye tried me before, in peace and in war, 
and if ye had ever found me to be your enemy, it had been ill done in you to 
have tried me yet again this seventh time. But if ye have believed me to have 
sought your good in times past, even believe this same thing of me nov, though 

53 See the language which Livy has put into on the view of human atfairs which I have ns- 

tlic mouth of Appius Claudius, VI. 40, 41. cribed to Ser. Maluginensis. And this view i. 

24 Ei7r<li\ w( hLk nv irioiw cl fifi ipiiyotcv. Dion exceedingly deserving ot' notice, because it so 

Caserns, Fragm. Peiresc. 33, as corrected by strongly illustrates one of the great uses of the 

Reimar. Christian revelation; namely, that it provides 

26 I am far from wishing to introduce into a fixed moral standard independently of human 
history the practice ofwriting fictitious speeches, law. and therefore allows human law to be al- 
as a mere variety upon the narrative, or an oe- tercd as circumstances may require, without 
easion for displaying the eloquence of the Ids- the danger of destroying thereby the greatest 
torian. But when the peculiar views of any sanction of human condm-t. I have not, then, 
party or time require to be represented, it seems I'"' modem arguments into the mouth of a 
to me better to do this dramatically, bj making Roman of the fourth century of Kome; but I 
one of the characters of the storj express them have made him deliver arguments not only 
in the first person, than to state as a matter of which might have been, but which wore un- 
fact, that such and Buch views were entertained, doubtedlj used then, and which are so charac- 
I believe it to be perfectly true, that the better teristic of ancient times, that they could not be 
part of the opposition to the advance of popular repeated now without absurdity, 
principles in the ancient world was grounded 



Chap. XXVI] SPEECH OF SER. CORNELIUS MALUGINENSIS. 229 

I may Speak that which in the present disposition of vour minds ye may per- 
chance not willingly hear. 

"Now, as regarding the ordinances for the relief of poor debtors, and for 
restraining the occupation of the public land, I could be well content that they 
should pass. I know that ye have borne much, and not through any fault of 
yours ; and if any peaceable way can be found out whereby ye may have relief, 
it will be more welcome to no man than to me. I like not the taking of usury, 
and I think that ye may well be lightened of some part of the burden of your 
taxes by our turning the fruits of the public land to the service of the common- 
wealth. But if ye ask me, Why then dost thou oppose these ordinances ? I 
must truly bid you go to your tribunes, Caius and Lucius, and demand of them 
your answer. 26 They can tell you that they will not suffer me to give my vote 
for these ordinances, nor will they suffer you to have your will. For they have 
said that these ordinances shall not have our votes, neither yours nor mine, unless 
we will vote also for a third ordinance, which they have bound to them so closely, 
as that none, they say, shall tear them asunder. Now, as touching this third 
ordinance, Quirites, I will deal honestly with you : there is not the thing in all 
the world so precious or so terrible as shall move me, either for love or for fear, 
to give my vote in its behalf. 

" What is there, then, ye will say to me, in this third ordinance which thou so 
mislikest ? I will answer you in few words. I mislike the changing of the laws 
of our fathers, especially when these laws have respect to the worship of the 
gods. Many things, I know, are ordered wisely for one generation, which, not- 
withstanding, are by another generation no less wisely ordered otherwise. There 
is room in human affairs for change ; there is room also for unchangeableness. 
And where shall we seek for that which is unchangeable, but in those great laws 
which are the very foundation of the commonwealth ; most of all in those which, 
having to do with the immortal gods, should be also themselves immortal. Now 
it belongs to these laws that the office of consul, 27 which is as it were the shadow 
of the majesty of Jove himself, should be held only by men of the houses of the 
patricians. Ye know how that none but the patricians may take any office of 
priesthood for the worship of the gods of Rome, nor interpret the will of the 
gods by augury. For the gods being themselves many, have set also upon 
earth many races of men and many orders ; and one race may not take to itself 
the law of another race, nor one order the law of another order. Each has its 
own law, which was given to it from the beginning; and if we change these the 
whole world will be full of confusion. It is our boast 28 that we Romans have 
greater power over our children than the men of any other nation : with us the 
son is ever, so long as he lives, subject to his father's will, except his father be 
pleased to give him his freedom. Now, if a son were to ask why he should not, 
when he is come to full age, be free from his father's authority, what answer 
should we give than this, that the law of the Romans gave to fathers this power 
over their children, that to this law he had been born, as surely as to those other 
laws of his nature which appointed him to be neither a god nor a beast, but a 
man. These laws are not of to-day, nor of yesterday ; we know of no time when 

26 This attack on the tribunes for their re- ments used against the Canuleian bills, IV. 2-6, 
fusal to separate the three bills from each other and again in the speech of Appius against the 
is put by Livy into the mouth of Appius Clau- Licinian bills, VI. 41. The principle implied in 
dius, VII. 40. It would, of course, be pressed this argument is not to be found in Livy, but 
by all the opponents of the measures ; and it is is important to be stated, because it is as char- 
too much to expect that even the best of the acteristic of polytheism, as the opposite prin- 
aristocratical party would have scrupled to avail ciple, that all men are equal before God, except 
themselves of it, although they would have so far as their own conduct creates a differ- 
dwelt on this point in a very different manner ence between them, is characteristic of Chris- 
from their more violent associates. tianity. 

27 The religious argument, that a plebeian 2e " Fere enim nulli alii sunt homines, qui 
could not be created consul without profana- talem in filios suos habent potestatem qualerc 
tion, is to be found twice in Livy, in the argu- nos habemus."— Gaius, Institut. I. § 55. 



230 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVI. 

they have not been : may neither we nor our children ever see that time when 
they shall have ceased to be ! 

" But if the mere will of the men of this generation can set aside these laws : 
if, breaking through that order which the gods have given to us, we elect for 
consuls those whom the gods allow not ; see what will be the end. Within these 
fifteen years four tribes of strangers have been added to the commons of this 
city. Ye know, also, that man) 7- enfranchised slaves, men with no race, with no 
law, I had well-nigh said with no gods, are, from time to time, enrolled amongst 
our citizens. If all these are admitted into our commonwealth, to become Ro- 
mans, and to live according to the laws of the Romans, it is well. But if we may 
alter these laws ; if strangers come among us not to receive our custom, but to 
give us theirs, what thing is there so surely fixed in our state, that it shall not be 
torn up at our fancy ? what law will be left for us to follow, save the law of our 
own fancies? Truly, if the gods had sent down one from heaven to declare to us 
their will ; if, as our own laws were written by the decemvirs upon the twelve 
tables, so there were any tables to be found on which the gods had written their 
laws for all mankind, then we might change our own laws as we would, and the 
law of the gods would still be a guide for us. But as the gods speak to us, and 
will speak only through the laws 29 of our fathers, if we once dare to cast these 
aside, there is no stay or rest for us any more ; we must wander in confusion forever. 

" Nor is it a little thing that by breaking through the law of our fathers, and 
choosing men of the commons for consuls, we shall declare that riches 30 are to be 
honored above that rule of order which the gods have given to us. Riches, even 
now, can do much for their possessor, but they cannot raise him beyond the 
order in which he was born ; they cannot buy for him — shame were it if they 
could ! — the sovereign state of the consulship, nor the right to offer sacrifice to 
the gods of Rome. But once let a plebeian be consul, and riches will be the 
only god which we shall all worship. For then he who has money will need no 
other help to raise him from the lowest rank to the highest. And then we may 
suffer such an evil as that which is now pressing upon the cities of the Greeks 
in the great island of Sicily. There may arise a man from the lowest of the 
people with much craft and great riches, and make himself what the Greeks 
call a tyrant. 31 Ye scarcely know what the name means ; a vile person seizing 
upon the state and power of a king, trampling upon all law, confounding all 
order, persecuting the noble and good, encouraging the evil, robbing the rich, 
insulting the poor, living for himself alone 32 and for his own desires, neither 
fearing the gods, nor regarding men. This is the curse with which the gods 
have fitly punished other people for desiring freedom more than the law of their 
fathers gave them. May we never commit the like folly to bring upon ourselves 
such a punishment! 

" Therefore, Quirites, unless your tribunes can find for us another law of the 
gods to guide us in the place of that law which they are destroying, I cannot con- 
sent to that ordinance which they are so zealously calling upon us to pass. Not 
because I am proud, not because I love not the commons, but because, above all 
things else on earth, I love and honor law ; and if we pull down law and exalt 33 

Toij eptoTuat 7r(3f Set notch r) irtpl Ovaia; 1) ircpl the increasing honor paid to riches in compari- 

Trpoydviov Ocpa-rrdai r) ircpl h'AAou twos tSv toiovtihv, son with the declining estimation of noble 

... i) YlvQiu v6/ji,> irdXcuiiavaipu ttoiovvtus eii<7£/3cDj birth. 

av irotetv. — Xenophon, Memorab. I. 3, § 1. 31 Thucyd. I. 13. Avvarvripas <5t ytyvonivvs 

Compare the language of Arohidamus, and of t% ' EAAuioj xai tUv xpi^aruv n> ktTioiv in /I( ;A- 

Clcon in Thucydides. I. B4, III. 87, and thear- Aot> rj xpdrcpov iroiovufaris ra - AA<i rvpavwliti fa 

gument against any alteration in the lawsgiven mis rrdScai KaOiaravTo, t&v irpoai&w putyvmv y«- 

by Aristotle in Ins review of the theoretical yvopfatav. 

commonwealth of HippodamuB. o yi)p v6po; ■ Thucyd. 1. 17. To iy lavnov p6vov rzpoopti- 

lax*>v oiScptav ex cl np&S T <> irtWtoBni, jtA);i» itnpii t6 pcvoi,h re rb auipa Kai h rb rbv l&iov olxov aij^tiv ii' 
cOof. touto <V oil yiyvcTtu el p; &ta ^p6vov nXiiOos. — aaij>n\ti(ii '6aov iivvavro /iu'Aiora ra{ jrdAtij u>kovv. — 

Politic. II. G. Compare the description of a tyrant in Herodo- 

80 Compare the Bentimenta of Theognis and tus. III. 80, and V. 92. 

Pindar on this point, who constantly lament 3J This is what Arohidamus and Cleon, strik- 



Chap. XXVI] THE LAST COLLEGE OF MILITARY TRIBUNES. 231 

our own will in the place of it, truth, and modesty, and soberness, and all virtue 
will perish from amongst us ; and falsehood, and insolence, and licentiousness, 
and all other wickedness will possess us wholly. And instead of that greater 
freedom which ye long for, the end will be faction and civil bloodshed, 34 and, last 
of all, that which is worse than all the rest, a lawless tyranny." 

To such language as this the tribunes might have replied by denying that its 
principle was applicable to the particular point at issue: they what was to be said in 
might have urged that the admission of the commons to the con- SsVuie^peecITrf 
sulship was not against the original and unalterable laws of the Ser - Cornelu,a - 
Romans, inasmuch as strangers had been admitted even to be kings at Rome ; 
and the good king Servius, whose memory was so fondly cherished by the peo- 
ple, was, according to one tradition, not only a stranger by birth, but a slave. 
And further they might have answered, that the law of intermarriage between 
the patricians and commons was a breaking down of the distinction of orders, and 
implied that there was no such difference between them as to make it profane in 
either to exercise the functions of the other. But as to the principle itself, there 
is no doubt that it did contain much truth. The ancient heathen world craved, 
what all men must crave, an authoritative rule of conduct; and. not finding' it 
elsewhere, they imagined it to exist in the fundamental and original laws of each 
particular race or people. To destroy this sanction without having any thing to 
substitute in its place was deeply perilous ; and reason has been but too seldom 
possessed of power sufficient to recommend its truths to the mass of mankind 
by their own sole authority. On the other hand, good and wise men could not 
but see that national law was evidently, in many cases, directly opposed to divine 
law ; 35 and that obedience and respect for it were absolutely inj urious to men's 
moral nature ; they felt sure, moreover, that the very truth was discoverable by 
man, and trusted that it must at last force its way if the ground were but cleared 
for its reception. They hoped, besides, as was the case with Aristotle, that by 
gaining the ear of statesmen they might see a system of national education estab- 
lished, 36 which would give truth all the power of habit ; and knowing too that 
universal law, that if man does not grow better he must grow worse, and that to 
remain absolutely unchanged is impossible ; they ventured to advance towards a 
higher excellence, even amidst the known dangers of the attempt, in the faith 
that God would, sooner or later, point out the means of overcoming them. 

The events of the last year of this long struggle are even more obscure than 
those 'of the years preceding it. P. Manlius, 37 the late dictator P. Valerius, who 
had been five times tribune before, two Cornelii, Aulus and Marcus, the one of 

ing specimens of the noblest and vilest advo- tragedy of the "Seven Chiefs who warred on 

cates of an unchanged system, as opposed to one Thebes" with the expression of the opposite 

of continual progress, call " the wishing to be sentiment, which is evidently uttered from his 

wiser than the laws." Archidamus boasts that heart. Half of the chorus go with Antigone to 

the Spartans were trained anadia-rcpov rSv vijiuv bury Polynices in defiance of the king's decree ; 

ttjs LiT£po\pias. — Thucyd. I. 84. Cleon describes urging in their justification: — 

good citizens as men who anio-TovvTes rtj if iav- Kal yap yevea 

t&v %vv£g£l, aftaQioTtpoi rSv vdjioiv a^iovaiv sivat. — koivov t<$8' a'^of, Kal irdXtf a'AXuS 

Thucyd. 111. 37. d'AAor' k-Kaivu to. S'lKaia. 

u So Theognis, But the other half follow the body of Eteocles, 

Kiipve, kvei tt6\ls Sjfo • SiSotKa St jir\ tckyi avSpa whose funeral was sanctioned by the law, ex- 

EhOvvrTipa KaKrjs vffpios b^itrepr;;. claiming: — - 

°Ek tuv yap ardais carl, ical iji(pv\oi <j>6voi dvSptav ' I'lftcis 8' aua tZS' , Siairtp re irdXis 

Moiivapxus Si ici\u Honors rpSe aboi. 39-51. . Kal to SUaiov i-vveiraivei. 

86 Hence the distinction insisted on by the jitra yap pdKapas Kal Aids i<rx iv 

philosophers between universal and municipal SSc KufyciW ijpvfr tt6\w 

law, between natural and political justice. — See pri 'varpanrjvai, urjS' dWoSanZv 

Aristotle, Ethics, V. 7, Rhetoric, I. 14. Hence ' Kvpan (pwridv 

the interest of the story of Antigone, who is KaraKXvoOnvai ra jidXicra. 

represented as breaking the law of her country 36 Ethic. Nicomach. X. 9. 'E/c viov St ayoyrjs 

because it was at variance with the law of the dpdijs rvx^lv npbi dperfiv xa^ov, m bnb toiovtoi; 

gods : Sophocles invests her character with all -rpatyivra vSuoie . . . Sib vd/xms SeX TtrdxQai rfiv 

the sacredness of a martyr ; but ^Eschylus, who rpo^v'Kal ra hinoStvixara' ovk larai yap Xv-itjpa 

more entirely identified the laws of the land with o-wrjdri ytv6\it.va. 

the highest standard of human virtue, ends his 31 Livy, VI. 42. 



232 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XX VL 

Last college of military the family of Cossus, the other of that of the Maluginenses ; M. Ge- 
coS 8 ' irrs"uu?fon h o e f ganius Macerinus, and L. Veturius, formed the last college of milt 
the pretorship. taf y tribunes which was to be known in Rome. Manlius and Vale- 

rius were likely to favor the bills ; of Veturius we know little ; but the two Cor- 
nelii 3S and Geganius, if they were true to the political sentiments of their families, 
would be strongly opposed to them. But the story of this year is again per- 
plexed by an alleged dictatorship of M. Camillus, and a pretended inroad of the 
Gauls into Latium. It is said that an alarm of an approaching invasion from the 
Gauls led to the appointment of Camillus ; and this may be true ; for the senate 
would gladly avail themselves of the slightest rumor as an excuse for investing 
him with absolute power ; but that the Gauls really did invade Latium at this 
time, and were defeated by Camillus in a bloody battle 39 near Alba, seems to be 
merely a fabrication of the memorials of the house of the Furii, the last which 
occurs in the story of Camillus, and not the least scrupulous. Setting aside this 
pretended Gaulish war, the annalists merely related, that after most violent con- 
tests, the Licinian bills were carried ; 40 this must have taken place before the tribunes 
went out of office in December; and apparently they were not again re-elected, 
as if in the full confidence that the battle was won. But when the comitia for 
the election of consuls were held, according to the new law, and the centuries 
had chosen L. Sextius to be the first plebeian consul, the storm broke out again 
with more violence than, ever, owing to the refusal of the curiae to confirm the 
election and invest him with the imperium. No particulars are recorded of the 
following crisis ; matters, it is said, came almost to a secession of the commons, 
and " to other terrible threats of civil contentions ;" 41 words which seem to mean 
that the secession would not have been confined to mere passive resistance, but 
would have led to an actual civil war. But Camillus, who was still, it is said, 
dictator, acted on this occasion, if we may believe any story of which he is the 
subject, the part of mediator ; both sides made some concessions : the patricians 
were to confirm the election of the plebeian consul ; but the ordinary judicial 
power was to be separated from the consul's office, and conferred from hence- 

38 The two Cornelii Maluginenses were ment which clearly refers to it, IV. 7, and it is 
amongst the most zealous supporters of the sec- implied, I think, in the short summary of Flo- 
ond decernvirate, one of them being actually a rus, I. IS. On the other hand, there is the no- 
colleague of Appius Claudius, at a time when torious falsehood of the other stories of Gaulish 
even the patricians themselves were generally victories gained by Camillus ; there is the posi- 
disgusted with it ; and a Cornelius Cossus had tive statement of Polybius, that the Gauls did 
been appointed dictator to oppose the supposed not invade Latium again till thirty years after 
designs of Manlius. The consulship of M. Ge- their first irruption; and that when they did 
ganius Macerinus, two years after the end of come, and advanced to Alba, the scene ofGa- 
the decernvirate, is marked as the period at millus' pretended victory over them, the Ko- 
which the reaction in favor of the patricians be- mans did not dare to meet them in the field. — 
gan ; and the consuls of that year are contrasted Polyb. II. 18. There is also the statement of 
with those of the year preceding, who are de- Aristotle, quoted by Plutarch, Camillus, 22, and 
scribed as moderate men, not much inclined to agreeing so completely with Polybius, " that 
either party: AndM. Geganius was one of those Rome was delivered from the. Gauls by Lucius; 
censors who treated the dictator Mam. iEmilius that is, by Lucius Camillus, the son of Marcus, 
with such unjust severity, because he had who repelled the Gauls in the year 406 (or more 
abridged the duration of the censor's office. properly 401), the first time, according to Poly- 

39 The Fasti Capitolini Btatethal Camillus was bins, that the Romans ever did meet them with 
appointed dictator this year, "rei gerundsecau- advantage. Finally, the common stories of this 
ea, that is, "to command an army in the field," pretended war are at variance with one another, 
as distinguished from the other objects tor some placing the famous combat of T. Manlius 
which a dictator was sometimes appointed, with the Gaulish giant in this year, and making 
such as, "seditionis sedandSB causa," "comiti- the Gauls advance as far as the Anio ; while 
orum habendorum causa," or "clavi Bgendi others laid the scene of Camillus' victory on the 

causa.'' But as the fragments of the Kasli are Alhan Hills, and placed the eomhat of Manlius 

in this place ven much mutilated, we cannot ten years later. I believe, therefore, that the 

tell whether they contained am mention of his accounts of this last dictatorship of Camillus are 

victory and triumph over the Gauls or no. as little to be relied on as those of his pretended 

Probably, however, they did, for the story seems defeat ofBrennus, and freeing Rome from the 

to have established itself in the Boman history shame of paying a ransom. 

very generally: it is mentioned bj I-ivy, by '" Li vy, VI. 42. 

Plutarch, by Dionysius in the fragments ofhis ° " Terribilesque alias minus eivilium certa- 

14th book, "by Zoiiaras, by Appian, in a frag- minum." — Livy, VI. 42. 



Chap. XXVI.] 



THE LICLNIAN BILLS BECOME LAWS. 



233 



forth on a new magistrate, who was always to be a patrician, and who being ap- 
pointed without a colleague was not to be called consul but prsetor ; a title of 
high dignity, which had been anciently borne by the consuls, and expressed par- 
ticularly their supreme power, as the captains or leaders of the commonwealth. 
The first person who filled this new office 42 was Sp. Camillus, the son of the dic- 
tator ; a compliment which his old father well deserved, if the last public act of 
his life of more than fourscore years was the reconciling of the quarrels of his 
countrymen, and the bringing a struggle of five years to a peaceful and happy 
termination. 

This union of the two orders was acknowledged also in the religious ceremo- 
nies of the republic. A temple 43 was built on the Capitoline Hill ^tutum of the Cu- 
looking towards the Forum, and dedicated to " Concord ;" and a Iule ^ dilesii P- 
fourth day was added to the three hitherto devoted to the celebration of the great 
or Roman games ; as if to signify that the commons were from henceforth to 
take their place as a part of the Roman people, by the side of the three old pa- 
trician tribes, the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres. To preside at these gamos, 
two new magistrates were appointed under the name of Curule JEdiles ; and these 
were to be elected in alternate years from the patricians and from the commons.* 
Their other duties and powers it is very difficult to define ; but it appears that 
they exercised for a time 44 the jurisdiction which had formerly belonged to the 
Quaestores Parricidii, that they tried criminals for various offences, and if their 
sentence were appealed against, they appeared as prosecutors of the appellant 
before the comitia of the centuries. 

Thus, with no recorded instance of bloodshed committed by either party, the 
five years' conflict upon the Licinian bills was happily ended. ^ comp i e ti„n of the 
From this time forward the consulship continued without inter- f<>™ of the constitution. 
ruption to the end of the republic ; and, with the exception of a short period to 
be hereafter noticed, it was duly shared by the commons. The form of the con- 
stitution, such as we find it described in those times which began to have a con- 
temporary literature, was now in its leading points completed ; but many years 
must yet elapse before we can do more than trace the outline of institutions and 
of actions ; the spirit and character of the times, and still more of particular 
individuals, must yet, for another century, be discerned but dimly. 



42 Livy, VII. 1. 

43 Plutarch, Camillus, 42 



Livy, VI. 42. 



See Niebuhr, Vol. III. p. 42, and seqq. 
To what is there said, it may be added that the 
title iEdilis was common amongst the magis- 
trates of the municipia and colonies at a later 
period ; that we meet frequently, in inscriptions, 
with the title " JSdilis juri dicundo," that the 
asdiles in the municipia had a "tribunal," or 
judgment-seat, as a mark of their high dignity ; 
and as Savigny thinks, they in the earlier pe- 



riod of the empire possessed even the " impe- 
rium." Savigny, Geschichte des Eom. Eechts 
im Mittelalt. Vol. I. p. 36. The two Scipios 
of the fifth century, whose tombs and epitaphs 
have been preserved to us, have their aedile- 
ships as well as their censorships and consul- 
ships recorded. This seems to imply that the 
office then was held in higher estimation than 
when Cicero could call the curule iEdile " paullo 
amplius quam privatus." — Verr. Act. I. IS. 



CHAPTER XXVII, 

GENERAL HISTORY, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN, FROM THE ADMISSION OF THE 
COMMONS TO THE CONSULSHIP TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST SAMNITE 
WAR— EVASION OF THE LICINIAN LAWS— WARS WITH THE GAULS, TAR- 
QUINIENSIANS, AND VOLSCIANS.— A. U. C. 389-412, LIVY; 384-407, NIEBUHR. 



fivpias & pivpios 
Xpdyos TEKvovrai vvktos fjpiipas r io>v, 
iv an ra vvv Zv/xipwva Sc^cufiara 
66pti iiaoKtiCboiv Ik a/iiKpov \6yov. 

Sophocles, 03dip. Colon, v. 617. 



The first plebeian consulship coincides, as nearly as the chronology can be 
otology of the Li- ascertained, with the great battle of Mantinea and the death of 
cinian laws. Epaminondas. At this point Xenophon ended his Grecian history ; 

and as the writings of Theopompus and of the authors who followed him have 
not been preserved to us, we here lose the line of contemporary historians in 
Greece, after having enjoyed their guidance during a period of nearly one hun- 
dred and forty years. More than that length of time must still elapse before we 
can gain the assistance of a contemporary writer, even though a foreigner, for 
any part of the history of Rome. 

But as I have before observed that the Greek poets, long before the time of 
contrast between onr Herodotus, have done more than any mere annalists could have 
Greek8 d Jnd oflhe Eo! done to acquaint us with the most valuable part of history, that 
nrnns at thu period. -yvhich relates to a people's mental powers and habits of thinking, 
so, when we close the Hellenics of Xenophon, we find in the great orators and 
philosophers of the next half century more than enough to compensate for the 
want of regular historians. What contemporary record of mere battles and sieges, 
of wars and factions, could afford such fulness of knowledge as to the real state 
of Greece, in all points that are most instructive, as we derive from the pam- 
phlets, as they may be called, of Isocrates, from the dialogues of Plato, the moral 
and political treatises of Aristotle, and the various public and private orations of 
Isaeus, JEschines, and Demosthenes? It is when we think of the overflowing 
wealth of Greece, that we feel most keenly the absolute poverty of Rome. The 
fifth century from the foundation of the city produced neither historian, poet, 
orator, nor philosopher ; its whole surviving literature consists of three or four 
lines of a monumental inscription, and a short decree of the senate, the date of 
which is not, however, ascertained. I cannot too often remind the reader of the 
total want of all materials for a lively picture of the Roman character and man- 
ners under which we unavoidably labor. Still we are, as it were, working our 
way to light; the greatness of Rome is beginning to unfold itself; we are ap- 
proaching the Samnite and the Latin wars, of which the first trained the Romans 
to perfection in all military virtues, by opposing to them the bravest and most 
unwearied of enemies ; while the latter consolidated forever the mass of their 
power near home, by securing to them the aid of the most faithful of allies. And 
the great domestic struggles are almost ended ; what required direct interference 
has been, for the most part, remedied ; it must be left for time to complete the 
union of the two orders of the commonwealth, now that they have been freed 
from those positive causes of irritation which kept them so long not only distinct 
from each other, but at enmity. 



Chap. XXVIL] EFFECTS OF THE LICINIAN LAWS. 235 

We have seen the Licinian bills become laws of the land ; we have next to 
endeavor to trace their results ; to see how far they were fairly Effect3 of tte Lilian 
carried into effect, and what was their success in remedying the laws - 
evils which had made them appear to be necessary. 

I. The Licinian law, which opened the consulship to the commons, was regu- 
larly observed during a period of eleven years. 1 After that time ^ ofthe law respect 
the patricians ventured to disregard it, so that in the fifteen fol- iDg the con3ulshi P- 
lowing years, down to the great Latin war, it was violated six or seven several 
times. 2 But after the Latin war it was observed regularly, and we can only find 
one or two doubtful instances of a violation of it. In the twenty years of ple- 
beian consulship which occur before the Latin war, there appear, however, the 
names of only eight plebeian families ; the Sextii, the Genucii, the Licinii, the 
Pcetelii, the Popillii, the Plautii, the Marcii, and the Decii : two of these, the 
Marcii 3 and the Popillii, enjoyed the consulship four times each ; the Genucii 4 and 
Plautii obtained it three times each ; the Licinii and Pcetelii twice each ; and the 
Sextii and Decii once each. Of the individual consuls none were eminent, except 
M. Popillius Lsenas, C. Marcius Rutilus, and P. JDecius Mus ; the two former 
were each four times elected consul, and C. Marcius obtained besides the offices 
of dictator 5 and censor, being the first commoner who attained to either of them. 
The fame of P. Decius has been still greater, and more enduring ; his self-devo- 
tion in the Latin war placed him in the fond remembrance of his countrymen on 
a level with the greatest names of Roman history, and from that time forward 
it could not be denied that commoners were to be found as worthy of the con- 
sulship as the proudest and noblest of the Fabii or the Cornelii. 

Thus it appears that the Licinian law was not passed till the state of the com- 
monwealth was ripe for it. There were families amongst the com- it was a seasonable and 
mons fit to receive the highest nobility ; whilst, on the other hand, ^o^™ «"*»>*• 
so sound was the public feeling, that we read of no mere demagogue raised to 
the consulship as the reward of his turbulence and faction ; even the two tribunes 
who had conducted the long contest with the patricians were each only once 
elected consul, and none of the other plebeian consuls are known to have been 
tribunes at all. No constitutional reform could be more happy than this ; nothing 
could be more just or more salutary than to open the honors of the state to an 
order sufficiently advanced to be capable of wielding political power, but retaining 
so much simplicity and soberness of mind as to be in no danger of abusing it. 

II. It has ever been found that social evils are far more difficult to cure than 
such as are merely political. It was easier to adjust the political 2 0f the Agrarian 
relations of the patricians and commons, than the social relations Iaw - 

of the great and the humble, the creditor and the debtor. We are told that the 
agrarian law of Licinius was carried ; but what amount of public land was allotted 
under it to the poorer commons we have no means of discovering. Niebuhr con- 
cludes from a passage in Laurentius Lydus, 6 that now as in the time of Ti. Gracchus 

1 Livy, VII. 18. 6 He was dictator in 399 (Livy, VII. 17), and 

2 That is to say, in the year 400, when a Sul- censor in 404 (Livy, VII. 22). 

picius and Valerius were consuls, and in the 6 De Magistratibus, I. 35. Elra im iztvTatTiav 

two following years ; again in 404, when a Sul- avap%iav eSvarixsi to TroXiTevpa • koi to Xontdv rpets 

picius and a Quinctius were elected ; then in voiiodiras ko.1 Sucaoras Ttpo(l\r)d>ivai wpb; fipaxv avu- 

406, in 410, and lastly, in 412. This would 0i0rjK£ Sid Tag en^vXiovs oTdoeis. Niebuhr thinks 
amount to seven instances, but in the year 401 that this is taken from Junius Gracchanus, and 
some annals made a plebeian, M. Popillius, the that it relates to the period immediately follow- 
colleague of M. Fabius ; although most author- ing the anarchy. But Lydus, whose confusions 
ities give this as a year of two patrician con- and blunders make his authority very snspi- 
suls. See Livy, VII. 18. cious, intended, I believe, only to notice all the 

3 C. Marcius Eutilus was consul in 398, in extraordinary magistrates who had at any time 
403, in 411, and_ 413. _ And M. Popillius been appointed at Eome ; and thus after men- 
Laenas was consul in 396, in 399, in 405, and in tioning the famous decemvirs, he goes on to 

407. speak of the pontiflces, and sediles, as being in 

4 One of the Genucian family was consul in some sort magistrates ; and then lie names the 
390, 392, and 393, and a Plautius was consul in military tribunes, and the five years' anarchy, 
897, in 408, and in 414. as another anomalous period ; and lastly, the 



236 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVII 

a commission of three persons was appointed, with those large powers ordinarily 
granted to a Roman commission, for the purpose of carrying into effect the new 
agrarian law, and that Licinius himself was one of these commissioners, which 
would account for his not having been chosen rather than Sextius to be the first 
plebeian consul. It would be the business of this commission to take away all 
public land occupied by any individual above the prescribed amount of five hun- 
dred jugera, and from the land thus become disposable, to assign portions to the 
poorer citizens. But their task would not be easy ; for attempts of every sort 
would be made to defeat or to evade the law : land which had passed by pur- 
chase from one occupier to another, and which had been possessed without dis- 
pute for many years, would acquire, even in the eyes of unconcerned persons, 
something of the character of property ; while in the feeling of those who held 
it, to take it from them without offering them any compensation was no better 
than robbery. Besides, the occupation of the public land had been for some 
time past, probably since the period of the last war with Veii, permitted to the 
commons as well as to the patricians ; so that the occupiers were a larger and 
more influential body of men than they had ever been before, and the commis- 
sioners must have found it proportionably hard to compel them to observe the 
letter of the law. 

Thus, although we are told 7 that the patricians and commons, when the law 
Difficulties m carrying was passed, had solemnly sworn to observe it, and though a 
it into effect. penalty had been denounced against any violation of it, yet the 

commission, it seems, found it impossible to carry it into effect. The difficulties in 
the way of a speedy settlement were indeed manifold. In the first place, many 
of the occupiers emancipated their sons, 8 and then made over to them the land in 
their occupation beyond the legal amount of five hundred jugera; and in the 
same way probably their sheep and oxen, which were fed on the public pasture 
land, were also entered in the names of their emancipated sons, when they ex- 
ceeded the number fixed by the law. In this manner large portions of land 
must have been retained in private hands, which the law had expected to make 
available for allotments to the commons. But further, the occupiers urged that 
they had laid out money of their own on the land which they occupied ; they had 
erected buildings on it and planted trees ; were they to lose these without 
receiving any equivalent ? They were willing to resign what belonged to the 
state, but the improvements of the property had been made at their own expense, 
and on these the state could have no claim. Besides, it was not always easy to 
ascertain what was public land and what was private ; for portions of both being 
held by the same persons, the boundary stones which, according to Roman prac- 
tice, were to serve as so sure a mark of private property had been taken up, or 
suffered to be destroyed ; and in the want of any regular surveys of the ground, 
the uncertainty and occasions of litigation were endless. In short, we may sup- 
pose that, generally speaking, the occupiers retained their land, either in their 
sons' names or in their own, and that the agrarian law of Licinius did but little 
towards relieving the distress of the commons. 

We are told that nine years after the first plebeian consulship, in the year 
c. tioinin. Wmseu > 398, 9 C. Licinius was himself impeached by M. Popillius Lrenas, 

prosecuted for evmluijr - , . r . , •* . . r , 

"• one of the curule aediles, for having violated his own law by occu- 

pying a thousand jugera of the public land, half of which he held in his son's 

government of the triumvirs, by whom he effect. And the powers of such a commission, 

means, 1 believe, no oilier persons than the fa- as may lie seen front ( 'ieero's speeches against 

mous triumviri reipublieee constituendse, An- the agrarian law of Kullus, were very great and 

gustus, Antonius, an. I Lepidus. But although very important; and it is extremely probable 

1 do not think that Lydus spoke of any extra- that Licinius would be appointed 'one of its 

ordinary commissioners appointed after the members, almost as a matter of course, 

passing of the Licinian laws, yet an agrarian 7 Appian, Bell. Civil. I. 8. 

law on an extensive settle necessarily implied a 8 Appian, Bell. Civil. I. 8. Livy, VII. 16. 

Commission, whether of three, five, ten, or even • Livy, VII. 16. 
fifteen members, to carry its provisions into 



Chap. XXVII] THE LAW FOR THE RELIEF OF DEBTORS. 237 

name, having emancipated him in order to evade the law. Licinius was con- 
demned to pay a fine of ten thousand ases ; but in the meagerness of our knowl- 
edge of these times, Ave cannot tell in what spirit the prosecution was conducted ; 
whether it originated in personal feelings of enmity to Licinius, or whether it was 
merely one out of a number of other prosecutions carried on with the intention 
of trying once more to carry the agrarian law into full effect. We know nothing 
of the character of M. Popillius ; but from his having been chosen four times 
consul, and once curule eedile, it is scarcely possible to conceive that he could 
have been particularly obnoxious to the patricians ; whereas we know that they 
never forgave any man who was aru active supporter of an agrarian law. I am 
inclined to think therefore that the prosecution of Licinius 10 was rather instigated 
by a desire to lower his credit, and to punish him for his obnoxious laws, than by 
any wish to see those laws enforced more strictly. 

III. The failure of the agrarian law was of itself sufficient to prevent the suc- 
cess of the third of the Licinian bills, that for the relief of dis- , , , t „ 

i e 1 t> 3. Of tbe law for the 

tressed debtors. It was something, no doubt, to free them from relief of distressed debt 
the double burden of both interest and principal, by deducting 
from the principal of every debt what had been already paid in interest, and to 
allow a lengthened term of payment, during which they might be free from the 
extremest severity of the law. But to men who had nothing, and had no means 
of earning any thing, this lengthened term was but a respite, and their debts, even 
when reduced by the deduction of the interest already paid, were more than 
they were able to discharge. Grants of public land made at such a moment might 
have delivered them from their difficulties ; but as these were withheld, the evil 
after a short pause returned with all its former virulence. The Licinian law was 
not prospective, nor did it lay any restriction on the amount of interest Avhich 
might be legally demanded. Accordingly, to pay their reduced debt within the 
term fixed by the law, the debtors were obliged to incur fresh obligations, and to 
give such interest as their creditors might choose to demand. Things grew worse 
and worse, till in the year 398, nine years after the passing of the Licinian laws, 
a bill was brought forward by two" of the tribunes, M. Duilius and L. Msenius, 
to restore the limitation of interest formerly fixed by the twelve tables, namely, 
the rate of the twelfth part of the sum borrowed, fcenus unciarium. But still 
this did not reach the root of the evil ; the very principal itself could not be 
paid, and the number of nexi, or persons who were pledged to their creditors, 
and were to become their slaves if the debt was not discharged within a certain 
time, went on continually increasing. 

At length, in the year 403, fourteen years after the passing of the Licinian 
laws, the consuls, P. Valerius and C. Marcius Rutilus, the latter Con , mi8sion of five ap . 
himself a plebeian, the former a member of that family which had ^'Vto T n ™tLt 
always been eminent amongst the patricians for its constant zeal point - 

10 We should be glad, however, to be able to but it is too common ; and Licinius may well 

excuse the conduct of Licinius, which cannot have deceived himself by it. His enemies would 

be justified by any want of sincerity in the mo- naturally triumph in his violation of his own 

tives of his prosecutor. Ti. Gracchus made it law, and would care little though they them- 

a provision of his agrarian law that the commis- selves had set him the example of breaking it. 

sioners for enforcing it should be a permanent n Livy, VII. 16. It is pleasant to observe 

magistracy, to be filled up by new elections the traces of an hereditary political character in 

from year to year. And it was this very clause so many of the Roman families. The Msenii 

which deprived the opponents of his law of all and Duilii appear to have been remarkable for 

hope of evading it. (Appian, Bell. Civil. I. 10.) their moderation and integrity; the conduct of 

The commission in the present case was proba- the tribune M. Duilius, after the overthrow of 

bly not renewed after the first year, and then the decemvirs' tyranny, has already been no- 

the law became powerless. It is possible that ticed ; and another Duilius was appointed one 

the evasion of it practised by Licinius was very of the five commissioners in 403, for the relief 

uonerally adopted ; and he may have excused of the distressed commons, and distinguished 

himself by that common sophism, that as the himself in that office by his impartiality and 

evil could not be prevented, he might as well diligence. We have seen also a Majnius taking 

share in the benefits to be derived from it. part with the patricians against the dangerous 

This is not conscientious reasoning certainly, designs of M. Manlius ; and C. Maenius, the 



238 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVII. 

for the welfare of the commons, determined that the government should itself 
interfere to relieve a distress so great and so inveterate. Five commissioners were 
appointed, 12 three plebeians and two patricians, with the title of mensarii, or 
bankers. These established their banks or tables in the Forum, like ordinary- 
bankers, and offered in the name of the government to accommodate the debtors 
with ready money on the most liberal terms. It appears that one cause of the 
prevailing distress was the scarcity of the circulating medium. 13 A debtor, there- 
fore, even though he possessed property in land, might j^et be practically insol- 
vent, inasmuch as he could not, except at an enormous loss, convert his land into 
money. Here, therefore, the five commissioners interposed : they furnished the 
debtor with ready money, when he had any property to offer as a security, or 
any friend who would be security for him ; and they ordered that land and cattle 
should be received in payment at a certain valuation. In this manner much 
property, which had hitherto been unavailable, was brought into circulation ; land 
and cattle became legal tender at a certain fixed rate of value ; and thus a great 
amount of debt was liquidated, and, as Livy adds, ti. the satisfaction of the credit- 
or as well as of the debtor. If he had any authority for saying this, the fact is 
remarkable, for when the dictator Csesar remedied the evils arising from a scarci- 
ty of money, during the civil wars, by nearly a similar arrangement, he was ac- 
cused of making the creditors sustain a loss of 25 per cent. ; 14 and men are so 
apt to regard money as the only standard of value, that this feeling is still very 
general ; and he who should pay his creditor a less sum in actual money than he 
had borrowed, would be thought to have defrauded him of his due, although, 
from an increase in the value of money, what he paid might really be fully equal in 
its command over other commodities, to the sum which he had originally received. 
After all, however, although these proceedings of the five commissioners were 
well calculated to relieve the embarrassments of those debtors, 

Other measures at- , , ,, -. , , • -.. 

tempted, but with in- who, beino- really solvent, were yet unable, owing; to peculiar 

complete success. ° J , . , "i V ' t ,, 

causes, to convert their property into money, yet the case ot the 
insolvent debtors was not affected by them. Five years afterwards, in 408, the 
interest of money was still further reduced to the twenty-fourth part of the sum 
borrowed, or 4L per cent.; 15 and in 411, several persons were brought to trial 
for a breach of the law, 16 and condemned to pay fourfold, as in an action for 
furtum manifestum. 

Thus palliatives of the existing evil had been sufficiently tried ; but all were 
found to be inadequate. The mischief came to a head in the year 413, and 
could be stopped only by the most decisive remedies ; but the disturbances of 
that year so affected the whole state of the commonwealth, and were again so 
much mixed up with political grievances, that an account of them will be more 
fitly reserved for another place, when we shall have reached that period in the 
course of our general narrative. 

upright dictator in the second Samnite war, this period the Gauls had heen plundering the 

was a worthy representative of the family char- country round Rome during four consecutive 

acter. years ; and the terror of such an enemy could 

n Livy, VII. 21. Their names were C. Dui- not but depreciate the value of land exposed to 

lius, alluded to in the preceding note ; P. De- their ravages, while money could he kept safely 

cius Mus, who devoted himself in the Latin within the walls of citics t which the Gauls did 

war; Q. Publilius Philo, eminent both as a not attempt to besiege ; and at such seasons of 

general, and as the author of the famous laws alarm the practice of hoarding money is always 

which bear his name ; Ti. iEmilius, one of the more or less prevalent, so that the circulating 

most moderate of tin' patricians, the colleague medium becomes pereeptiblv scarcer, and, ae- 

of Q. Publilius in his consulship, and the man eordinglv, rises in value. If, added to these 

who named him dictator; and fit 1'apirius, of causes, the demands of commerce had already 

whom nothing. 1 believe, is known. begun to draw away the copper of Italy into 

13 Whether that great rise in the price of cop- Greece and Asia, the difficulty of selling land to 

per had yet begun, which led to the successive pay a debt contracted when money was more 

depreciations of the as, it is not possible to as- plentiful must have been proportionally greater, 

certain; but without taking this into the ac- " Suetonius, Julius Cicsar, c. 42. 

count, other and more temporary causes tended I6 Livy, VII. 27. 

to raise the value of money at this time at Koine, "Livy, VII. 28. Cato do ro rustica, ab 

as compared with that of land. A little before initio. 



Chap. XXVII.] THE T(ETELIAN LAW. 239 

I propose, then, first, to take a general view of the internal state of the com- 
monwealth, during the period which intervened between the pass- GenerB s internn , his . 
ing of the Licinian laws and the first. Samnite war, and then to tory from 389 10 m - 
trace its foreign relations within the same space of time. 

The first part of our task has been nearly completed already, in the view 
which has been given of the effects of the three Licinian laws. One or two 
points, however, may still require to be noticed. 

Between 389 and 412 we find the remarkable number of fourteen dictator- 
ships. Four of these dictators are expressly said to have been Frequent dictatorships 
named with a political object," that they might preside at the and their ° b '' ect - 
election of consuls, and prevent the observance of the Licinian law. Two more, 18 
those of 402 and 403, although nominally appointed to command against a for- 
eign enemy, were yet really named for political purposes ; and two, 19 those of 
392 and 411, were appointed to perform a religious ceremony. Of the remain- 
ing six, three were named during the alarm of the Gaulish invasion in 394, 395, 
and 397 ; 20 and the other three were chosen in 393, 399, and 410, to act against 
the Hernicans, the Tarquiniensians, and the Auruncans. 21 But even in these last 
appointments there was something of a political feeling : they prevented a ple- 
beian consul from obtaining the glory of defeating the enemy, and notwithstand 
ing the Licinian law, kept the executive government in the hands of a patrician ; 
and it is expressly mentioned, that App. Claudius was named dictator in 393, to 
conduct the Hernican war, because he had been so active in opposing the bills of 
Licinius. 

It is thus evident that a soreness of feeling continued to exist between the pa- 
tricians and commons ; and that the former could not yet recon- Pcetelian law I1 „. li . )S . 
cile themselves to the inevitable change which was in progress. SrSmf',"' 
The attack of the Tiburtians in 396, is. said to have stopped a *v^s^«»>^>K- 
rising quarrel between the two orders; 22 the inactivity of the dictator, C. Sr.l- 
picius, in the early part of the campaign of 397, was ascribed to the policy of the 
patricians, 23 who wished to keep the commons as long as possible in the field, to 
prevent them from passing any measures adverse to the patrician interest in the 
Forum. The Pcetelian law passed in that same year, and brought forward by C. 
Pcetelius, 24 one of the tribunes, with the sanction of the patricians, appears also 
to have been intended indirectly to undermine the Licinian law with respect to 
the consulship. Its professed object was to put down canvassing, "ambitus," 
and ambitus here seems to be taken in its literal sense, not as implying any 
bribery, but simply the practice of going round to the several markets and meet- 
ings, held, for whatever purpose, in the country, and thus acquiring an interest 
among the country tribes. It is expressly said, that this law was directed against 
plebeian candidates ; and this is natural ; for men whose names did not yet com- 
mand respect from their old nobility, were obliged to rely on their personal 
recommendations, and a simple plebeian, if unknown to the country voters, 
could ill compete with the influence of an old patrician family, strong not only in 
its ancient fame, but in the actual votes of its own clients, and of those of the 
other patricians, a body of men who would be mostly resident in Rome. Be- 

17 M. Fabius in 404 (Livy, VII. 22), L. Furius w T. Quinctius in 394 (Livy, VII. 9, Fasti 
Camillus in 405 (Livy, VII. 24), T. Manlius Capitol.), Q. Servilius Ahala in 395 (Livy, VII. 
Torquatus in 406 (Livy, VII. 26), and another, 11, Fasti Capitol.), and C. Sulpieius Peticus in 
whose name is unknown, in 407 ; the fragments 397 (Livy, VII. 12, Fasti Capitol. Appian de 
of the Fasti Capitolini only containing under rebus Gall. 1). 

this year the words, 21 App. Claudius in 393 (Livy, VIT. 6, Fasti 

"Diet. Capitol.), C. Marcius Eutilus in 399 (Livy, VII. 

Comit. Habend. Caus . . ." 17, Fasti Captol.), and L. Furius Camiilus in 

18 T. Manlius in 402 (Livy, VII. 19), and C. 410 (Livy, VII. 28). 
Julius in 403 (Livy, VII. 21). ™ Livy, VII. 12. 

19 L. Manlius in 392, " clavi flgendi causa" as Livy, VII. 13. 
(Livy, VII. 3, and Fasti Capitol.), and P. Va- M Livy, VII. 15. 
lerius, "feriarum constituendarum causa," in 

411 (Livy VII. 28). 



240 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVIL 

sides, if he had not an opportunity of canvassing the country tribes generally, his 
interest might not extend beyond his own immediate neighborhood, and thus the 
total number of his votes in any given tribe might not be sufficient to give him 
the legal vote of that tribe, and two patrician candidates might obtain a majority 
of suffrages, merely because no one plebeian candidate had any general interest 
in his favor. This seems to have been the way in which the Licinian law was 
set aside three years afterwards, in 400. The majority of votes was in favor of 
two patrician candidates ; one of these was a Valerius, and his name was sure to 
be popular amongst the commons ; whilst the plebeian candidates, debarred from 
general canvassing by the Poetelian law, had each of them probably so small a 
number of votes in his favor, that they would not have been duly elected accord- 
ing to the Roman law, even had there been no candidate standing against them. 
Thus the interrex, 25 M. Fabius, was enabled to say that the people had them- 
selves set aside the Licinian law ; inasmuch as there was a legal majority in favor 
of two patrician candidates, and only a small minority for any plebeian. 

An event occurred in the year 398, which very properly alarmed the tribunes, 
Law "de vicesimaeo- although it does not seem to have originated in any evil intention. 
3 q P t™f "neTf One of the consuls, Cn. Manlius/ 6 was in the field with a consular 
the armies in the field. armV) to carry on the war against the Tarquiniensians and Falis- 
cans ; his colleague, C. Marcius Rutilus, was engaged with the Privernatians, and 
enriching his army, it is said, with the plunder of the enemy's country, which 
had been for many years untouched by the ravages of war. It is probable that 
the soldiers on this occasion made prisoners of many Privernatian families, and 
released them again on the payment of a large ransom. But prisoners taken in 
war, becoming, according to ancient law, the slaves of the captor, his release of 
a prisoner upon ransom was, in fact, the manumission of a slave. Accordingly, 
Cn. Manlius called his soldiers together in the camp near Sutrium, according to 
their tribes, and, as if they Avere assembled in regular comitia, he proposed to 
them a law, that five per cent, on the value of any emancipated slave should be 
paid by his master into the public treasury. 27 It might be argued that the state 
ought not to lose all benefit from the plunder acquired by its soldiers ; and that, 
especially, if a soldier set an enemy at liberty for the sake of his ransom, some 
compensation should be made to his country, whom his act might be supposed 
to injure. There was some plausibility in this, and the army of Manlius might 
have felt also some jealousy at the better fortune of their comrades, and might 
have known that their own general would not, like C. Marcius, give up to them 
the full benefit of such plunder as they might acquire from the Etruscans. Ac- 
cordingly the law was passed in the camp, and received the ready sanction of the 
curiae and the senate at Rome. But the tribunes, dreading the precedent of a 
law passed at a distance from Rome, beyond the range of the tribunes' protec- 
tion, and where every citizen was subject to the absolute power of his general, 
declared it to be a capital offence, if any one should for the future summon the 
tribes in their comitia in any other than their accustomed place of meeting. 28 
Their bill to this effect was sure of the support of Marcius and his army ; and ;ts 
principle was so clearly just, that it was passed, so far as we hear, without meet- 
ing any opposition. 

The years 390, 391, and 392, were marked by a pestilence, 29 which is said to 

26 Livy, VII. 17. "Fabius aiebat, in duo- forward in sucb an irregular manner. Similar 

decim tabulis legem esse, ut quodcunque pos- laws were in force in some of our West Indian 

tremum populus jussisset, id jus ratumque Islands) at once to restrain emancipation, and to 

essel ; jussum populi el Bunragia esse." prevent the Blave from becoming ;i burden upon 

20 Livy. VII. 16. • the public, if the state received nothing as a 

•n " Legem de vicesima eorum qui manumit- compensation for the contingency of being 

terentur. The time and place at which the obliged to maintain him as a freeman. 

Law was passed justifj the explanation which I ** "Nequispostea populum ««»«»•«/. " Com- 

have given of its meaning ; for had the object pare the w ell-k nown sense of sseessio. 

been merely to check the increase of the class w Livy, VII. 1, 2. 
of frecdmcii it would scarcely have been brought 



Chap. XXVIL] DEATH OF CAMILLUS. 241 

have been very generally fatal; and in 391, the Tiber rose to an 

i i ■ i n -in'**' -» r • -tn 1 Natural phenomena. 

unusual heio'ht, overflowed the (Jircus Maximus, and put a stop story of c«nbs leaping 

O . . . . r . r into the gulf. 

to the games which were going on tnere at that very time, as a 
propitiation of the wrath of heaven. It is difficult to say whether it was a simi- 
lar flood two years afterwards, or the shock of an earthquake, which gave occa- 
sion to the famous legend of the filling up of the Curtian lake in the Forum. All 
know how the gulf, which had suddenly yawned wide and deep in the midst of 
the Forum, 31 could be filled up by no human power, till the gods at last declared, 
that the best and true strength of the Roman commonwealth must be devoted 
as an offering to the gulf; so should the state exist and flourish forever. While 
men were asking, what is the true strength of Rome ? a noble youth, named M. 
Curtius, whose valiant deeds had made him famous, said that it were a shame to 
think that the true strength of Rome could lie in aught else but in the arms and 
in the valor of her children ; and he put on his armor and mounted his horse, 
and plunged into the gulf. All the assembled multitude threw their offerings 
into ij after him, and the gulf was closed, but the place bore his name forever. 
It were vain to inquire at what period and upon what foundation this remark- 
able story was first originated. 32 

The first year of the pestilence was marked by the death of M. Camillus. 33 In 
him we seem to lose the last relic of early Rome, the last hero 

. it- it j. ^ Death of Camillus. - 

whose glory belongs rather to romance than to history, .out the 
fame of the stories connected with him proves the high estimation in which he 
was held when living ; and it was a beautiful conclusion to his long life, that his 
last public action was that of a peacemaker, his last interference in political con- 
tests was that of a patriot and not of a partisan. The glory of his name was 
supported for one generation by his son, L. Furius, and then sank forever. 

The same period of pestilence was also noted as the era at which the first and 
simplest form of dramatic entertainments 34 was introduced at Rome. 
Amongst the games ordered to be celebrated in the hope of pro- stage acting and danc- 
pitiating the gods, one, it is said, consisting of a dance in dumb 
show, as an accompaniment to the music of the flute, was, for the first time, 
introduced from Etruria. The dumb show Avas afterwards succeeded by a song 
in which the dance was suited to the words ; then came a dialogue, and, last of 
all, a regular acted story ; but here the Romans did but translate or imitate the 
dramatists of Greece, and nothing in literature is less original, and therefore less 
valuable than the tragic and comic drama of Rome. 

What power of imagination can complete these few isolated facts into the full 
picture of the life of a people during three and twenty years ? who can repre- 
sent to himself the Senate or the Forum, such as they Avere at this period, either 
"as to outward forms and scenes, or as to the men who frequented them ? Much 
less can we conceive what was passing in the interior of every family, and realize 
to ourselves the names of our scanty history — the Fabii, the Valerii, the Sulpi- 
cii, or the Marcii, as they were talking and acting in the ordinary relations of life, 
abroad or at home. A period, of which there remains no contemporary litera- 
ture, has virtually perished from the memory of after ages ; some scattered bones 
of the skeleton may be left, but the face, figure, and mind of the living man are 
lost to us beyond recall. 

In times so imperfectly known as those with Avhich we are now engaged, the 

30 Livy, VII. 3. the Forum, marked out by an altar, was known, 

31 Livy, VII. 6. Valerius Maximus, V. 6- § 2. even in the times of the emperors, by the name 

32 Another story derived the name of the of the Curtian lake : Galba was thrown out of 
Curtian lake in the Forum from one Curtius his litter and murdered close to it. (Tacitus, 
Mettius, a soldier of Tatius, the king of the Sa- Hist. I. 41.) But the real origin of the name 
bines ; who, in the battle between Tatius arid being unknown, various stories, as is usual, 
Eomulus, had been nearly lost in a piece of bog- .were invented to explain it. 

gy ground between the Capitoline and Palatine 33 Livy, VII. 1. 
hills. Livy, I. 12, 13. A spot in the centre of u Livy, VII. 2, 
16 



242 HISTORY OF ROME. - [Chap. XXVII. 

of geographical order of events is far more instructive than the chro- 
nological. I propose, therefore, to trace successively the relations 
of Rome with the several neighboring states, from 389 to 412, beginning with 
the wars with the Etruscans, who were divided by the Tiber from the Latins, 
Volscians, and Hernicans. 

I. The people of Tarquinii, sometimes aided by the Faliscans, were engaged 
wars with Tarquinii m wars w i tu Rome during a period of eight years, from 396 to 404. 
and the Faiiscans. "What may have been the cause of quarrel is unknown, if it were 
any thing more than the ordinary enmity between ■ two neighboring nations, and 
the disputes which are forever occurring on their common border. But the war 
is rendered remarkable by the specimens displayed in it of the character and in- 
fluence of the Etruscan religion. The Roman consul, C. Fabius, 35 having been 
defeated in a battle in the year 397, the Tarquinians sacrificed to their gods three 
hundred and seven Roman soldiers, who had been taken prisoners in the action ; 
and two years afterwards, when the Faliscans had joined them, the priests of 
both cities, with long snake-like ribbons of various colors twisted in their hair, 
and brandishing burning torches in their hands, 36 fought in the front of their 
army, and struck such terror into the Roman soldiers, that they drove them back 
in confusion to their camp. The Etruscan priests, it should be remembered, 
were also the chiefs or lucumones of the nation, and they acted on this occasion, 
and with equal success, the same part which the two Decii performed for Rome 
in the Latin and Etruscan wars of a later period. Full of confidence in the sup- 
port of the gods, the Etruscans followed up their victory ; they entered the Ro- 
man territory and spread their devastations over the whole country on the right 
bank of the Tiber as far as the sea. It was to meet this danger that C. Marcius 31 
was appointed dictator ; he was named, we must suppose, by the plebeian con- 
sul of that year, M. Popillius Lsenas, and was the first plebeian who ever ob- 
tained the dictatorship. His appointment gave great offence to the patricians, 
and was proportionally acceptable to his own order; all his commands were 
zealously obeyed ; he repelled the invaders, and, like the popular consuls of the 
year 305, he obtained a triumph by a vote of the people when the senate refused 
to grant it. 

In the year 401, the Roman annalists say that the butchery of the Roman 
peace concluded for prisoners by the Tarquinians four years before was signally 
&rty years. avenged ; the Tarquinians were defeated in a great battle, and 

three hundred and fifty-eight of the noblest of the. prisoners were sent to Rome, 
and there scourged and beheaded in the Forum. 38 The war lingered on, how- 
ever, for three years more ; and was then ended by a peace concluded for forty 
years. 39 No conquests of towns or territory are recorded, and thus the Roman 
frontier still remained on the side of Etruria in the same position as it had been 
for the last forty years, since the conquest of Veii, Nepete, and Sutrium. 

II. Far more complicated was the scene on the left bank of the Tiber. There 
great changes took place : the relations of the several people to one 

Wars in Lnlium. ° , ° . f. ., , , ,. , \ * . , 

another were materially altered ; some nations almost vanish out 
of history, whilst Rome saw her territory enlarged, her population of citizens in- 
creased, her power and influence strengthened and extended beyond all former 
example. But the causes and circumstances of these changes are partly dis- 
guised by the dishonesty, and partly omitted through the mere meagerness of the 
Roman historians. Out of the confusion of Livy's narrative we must endeavor, 
if possible, to obtain a clear and consistent outline of the events of a period which 
contributed, in no small degree, to determine the future destinies of Rome and 
the world. 

In the year 394, according to the common chronology, the Gauls again ap- 

» Livy, VII. 15. « Livy, VII. 19. 

88 Livy, VII. 17. *> Livy, VII. £2. 

" Livy, VU. 17. 



Chap. XXVIL] GAULISH INVASIONS. 243 

peared in Latium. This inroad lasted, according to the Roman „ ,. , . 

1 , ~ r , !-. iiiji^i Gaulish invasions. 

annals, tor tour years, and was ended, as they pretend, by the 
total destruction of the invaders in the year 397. Eight years afterwards, in 
405, we hear of another invasion ; but this new attack was completely defeated 
in the following year, and from that time forward we never again find the Gauls 
in Latium. 

The dates of these two invasions are, no doubt, correctly given. They are con- 
firmed by Polybius, 40 although in all other points his account dif- Account of them given 
fers widely from that of the Roman writers. The Gauls penetrated by Pol y bius - 
into the heart of Latium thirty years after their first attack on Rome ; they ap- 
peared at Alba, but the Romans, surprised by the suddenness of their inroad, 
and unable to collect their allies together, did not venture to meet them in the 
field. Twelve years afterwards, continues Polybius, they came again ; but the 
Romans had now timely notice of their coming ; their allies had joined them, and 
they marched out boldly to give the enemy battle. The Gauls were dismayed 
by this display of confidence ; their chiefs quarrelled, and their whole multitude 
•broke up under cover of night, and retreated like a beaten army to their own 
country. On this their last appearance in Latium, the Roman army opposed to 
them was commanded by Lucius Camillus ; and this is the Lucius 41 whom Aris- 
totle spoke of as the deliverer of his country from the Gauls. According to the 
Roman accounts, he defeated the Gauls in a general action; yet it is not pre- 
tended that he obtained a triumph. 

These last invasions of the Gauls were marked, according to the Roman an- 
nalists, not only by many signal victories won by the Roman armies storic3 0{ tbe Gftnliall 
in general battles, but in particular by two brilliant single combats 't^Xs, Ji ftTva! 
in which two of the noble youth of Rome gained for themselves lenus Corvus - 
an immortal memory. T. Manlius, the future conqueror of the Latins, fought 
with a gigantic Gaul 42 on the bridge over the Anio upon the Salarian road : he 
slew his enemy, and took from his neck his chain of gold (torques), which he 
wore on his neck in triumph, so that the soldiers called him Torquatus, and his 
descendants ever after bore that name. And again, before the last great victory 
won by Lucius Camillus, there was another single combat in the Pomptinian ter- 
ritory between a second giant Gaul and the young M. Valerius, 43 who afterwards 

40 II. 18. It is well known, that the Eoman that the triumphs, if not altogether false, were 
writers claim three ■• ictories in the course of the granted by the policy of the senate, wishing to 
invasion of 394-39~, in which, according to Po- make the most of any advantage gained over an 
lybius, the Eomans aid not venture to meet the enemy so formidable as the Gauls. 
Gauls in the field. The victory of the dictator 41 Tbv Si aoaavTa Aevxtov eivat <pnoiy. Plutarch, 
C. Sulpicius, in 397, is described very circum- Camill. 22. It should be remembered, that the 
stantially by Appian, who, probably, copied Eomans, in old times, were known and called 
Dionysius, as well as by Livy, and the Fasti by their prsenomina, or first names, as Poly- 
Capitolini give the day of his triumph, the nones bius calls Scipio, " Publius," and Eegulus, 
of May. On the other hand, the statement of "Marcus." The prasnomen was then much less 
Polybius is given simply and positively, and likely to be mistaken than in after ages, when 
we know how completely the Eomans corrupted the nomen and cognomen were generally used 
the memory of many events in the Samnite war, instead of it, and when it was possible for a 
and in other parts of their early history. We foreigner to be very familiar with the actions of 
should be glad to know from what sources Po- Caesar, without remembering whether his prae- 
lybius derived his knowledge of these events, nomen was Caius or Lucius. But Aristotle 
The chronological exactness of his account seems would have been no more likely to have mis- 
to show, that it could not have been taken from taken one prsenomen for another, than to have 
any Greek writer who may have mentioned the confounded two Greek brothers together, be- 
Gaulish invasions of central Italy, but from some cause together with their own peculiar names 
Eoman annalist, and it is probable that Fabius, they had" both the same patronymic, 
who, in spite of his national prejudices, had, in 4i There is a striking description of this corn- 
other instances, given a true report of transac- bat given by Q. Claudius Quadrigarius, an an- 
tions which later annalists utterly misrepre- nalist of the seventh century of Eome, and pre- 
sented, was the authority whom Polybius fol- served to us by A. Gellius, IX. 13. 
lowed. It is not likely, on the other hand, that 43 This combat is also given by Gellius from 
the pretended victories of the Eoman generals some of the old annalists, IX. 11. It is de- 
are mer# inventions, but that some trilling ad- scribed too by Dionysius, XV. 1, 2, and by 
vantages gained over detached parties of the Livy, VII. 26. 
Gauls were magnified into general battles, and 



244 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVII. 

defeated the Samnites at the great battle of Mount Gaurus. A -wonderful thing 
happened in this combat, said the story ; for as Marcus was going to begin the 
fight, all on a sudden a crow flew down and perched upon his helmet. When 
the two combatants closed with each other, the crow still sat on the Roman's 
helm, but ever and anon it soared up in the air, and then darted down upon the 
Gaul, and struck at his face and eyes with its beak and claws. So the Gaul, con- 
founded and dismayed, soon fell by the sword of Marcus ; and then the crow flew 
up again into the air, and vanished towards the east. For this wonderful aid 
thus afforded him M. Valerius was known ever afterwards by the name of Cor- 
vus, Crow, and the name remained to his posterity. These stories are the very 
counterpart of the combat between Sir Guy of Warwick and the Danish giant 
Colbrand before the walls of Winchester ; or, as Manlius and Valerius Corvus 
are certainly more real personages than Sir Guy, we may compare them with the 
ballad of Chevy Chase, and consider how far we could recognize the historical 
battle of Otterburne, and the real Hotspur, in the battle on the Cheviot hills, 
and in the Earl Percy of the poem. As in this instance, the time, 44 place, cir- 
cumstances, and issue of the poetical battle bear no resemblance to those of the 
real one, so also the poetical or romance accounts of these last Gaulish invasions 
retain scarcely a feature of that simple and real history of them which has been 
preserved to us by Polybius. That the triumphal Fasti have followed the ficti- 
tious rather than the true account, belongs to that peculiar blot on the Roman 
character which I have already noticed; that what with other people has been 
mere fanciful romance, has been by the Romans made to wear such an appear- 
ance of serious earnest as to be no longer romance but falsehood. 

What the Gauls did in Latium and against the Romans has been sufficiently 
Effect of the Gaulish in- disguised and perverted ; but what theydid in other parts of Italy 
oMhe'seve'JS state's "" i s altogether unknown to us. We hear of them in Latium, and 
Italy ' that they moved southwards from thence into Campania and Apu- 

lia ; 45 but they do not seem to have touched Etruria, and their attacks on Rome 
were all made on the left bank of the Tiber. Perhaps the Etruscans had early 
concluded a peace with them, so that in their invasions of Lalium and Campania 
they passed through Umbria and the country of the Sabines, descending upon 
Rome either by the Salarian road along the Tiber, or by the valley of the Anio. 
The Romans complained that two Latin cities, Tibur and Prasneste, 46 had not 
scrupled, in their hatred of Rome, to ally themselves with these barbarians; and 
this was remembered afterwards against them when the issue of the great Latin 
war had placed them at the mercy of their old enemies. But it is not to be 
wondered at if they were glad to divert the torrent of the Gaulish invasion from 
themselves to the territory of strangers or rivals ; perhaps they hired some of the 
Gaulish bands to enter into their service, and some advantages gained over these 
by the Roman generals may have been the origin of the pretended victories and 
triumphs recorded in the annals and in the Fasti. The main Gaulish army 
appears to have stationed itself principally on the Alban hills, 41 from whence, as 
from some island stronghold, they could attack and lay waste all the neighboring 
country. Twice they are said to have approached Rome, and once they advanced 
as far as the very Collme gate, 48 by which they had entered the city in their first 

** The battle of Otterburne was fought in the in the poetical battle, Percy is killed, but the 

f Richard the Second, of England, and English are victorious. And further, to show 

Robert the Second, of Scotland ; the poetical how slight actions may be magnified into great 

it of it places it in the reign of a King battles, the Scottish army at Otterburne wnich 

Henry '" England, and a King James in Scot- consisted really of 2800 men, is made in another 

land.' Otterburne is in Redesdale mar Elsdon, ballad ofthe battle to amount to 44,000, of whom 

the scene of battle in the poem is in the Cheviot there " went but eighteen away." 

hills; the historical battle did not arise out of M Livy, VII. 11. 26. 

any bunting excursion of Percy on the Scottish * a Livy. Yll. 11. YI11. 14. 

i>"'nlrr. hut from an inroad of* the Scotch into 41 Polybius, II. 18. Livy, VII. 25.* Diony- 

Northumberland. [n the real battle, Peroj "as sins, Xfv. is. 

takeu prisoner, and the English were defeated ; 4B Livy, VII. 11. 



Chap. XXVII] LATINS, ETC., AGAIN ALLIED WITH ROME. 245 

invasion. On one occasion we find them encamped at Pedum 49 m front of Prte- 
neste, an old Latin city which the ^Equians had formerly conquered, but which 
afterwards, perhaps at this very time, got rid of its foreign masters and became 
again united to the Latin nation. None can tell what cities were destroyed, what 
people weakened, and what confederacies or dominions were broken up in the 
course of these Gaulish invasions. The Volscians seemed to have suffered more 
especially ; for it was through their territory that the Gauls moved onwards from 
Latium to Campania, or returned from Campania to their quarters on the Alban 
hills ; and it appears that their nation was from this time forward broken into 
fragments, each of which had from henceforth a destiny of its own. In order to 
understand this change fully, we must recollect that in the year of Rome 378 
the Roman frontier had fallen back from Anxur to Satricum, that Satricum itself 
had been won by the Volscians, and afterwards burnt by the Latins 50 that it 
might not revert to Rome, and that the Roman territory in the maritime part of 
the Campagna scarcely reached to the distance of twenty-five miles from Rome. 
But in 397 we find that the Latins 51 renewed their alliance with the Romans ; 
that two new tribes of Roman citizens were created, 52 the Pomptine and the 
Publilian ; and that Velitrse and Privernum, 53 both of them Volscian towns, but 
the latter unmentioned hitherto in Roman history, were engaged alone in a war 
with Rome. This same year witnessed also the retreat of the Gauls from Latium, 
after they had been overrunning it at intervals during a period of three years ; 
and finally, it was marked by what the Romans call a conquest of the Herni- 
cans, 54 who for the last four years had been at open war with Rome. That there 
was a connection between all these events is manifest, although they appear in 
Livy as mere accidental coincidences. It should be remembered also that in this 
same year war was formally declared 55 between Rome and Tarquinii. 

The complicated negotiations and the ever-changing alliances of the Greek 
states, between the peace of Nicias and the Athenian expedition 

~. ... 1 A . .... _.- _ _ ill Renewal of the alliance 

to oicily, cannot be comprehended readily, even though related by between Rome and the 
such an historian as Thucydides. In the last ten years of the 
fourth century of Rome, Latium and its neighborhood must have presented a 
tissue of events equally perplexed in themselves, without any contemporary his- 
torian like Thucydides to explain them to posterity. But by considering the 
mere fragments of information which have been preserved to us, we may attempt 
to combine them into something like the following form. A war with Tarquinii, 
in addition to one with the Hernicans, and that at a time when Tibur and Prse- 
neste were hostile, and when the Gauls might be expected to appear again in 
Latium as they had done regularly for the last three years, was clearly more 
than the strength of Rome could bear. The old alliance with the Hernicans, 
and with some at any rate of the Latin cities, must, at whatever price, be renewed. 
We can easily conceive that there must have been a party amongst the Latins 
and Hernicans equally well disposed to such a reunion. It was accordingly 
effected : the plebeian consul C. Plautius appears to have had the honor of 
restoring at this critical moment the great work of Sp. Cassius. The whole peo- 
ple of the Hernicans renewed their old alliance with Rome ; but of the thirty 
Latin cities which had concluded the league with Sp. Cassius many had perished, 
and some had become separated from the Latin confederacy, and were now the 
heads of small confederacies of their own : we may safely conclude, however, 
that Aricia, Bovillae, Gabii, Lanuvium, Laurentum, Lavinium, Momentum, and 
Tusculum were among the cities which returned to their old connection, and be- 
came as heretofore the equal allies of the Romans. Thus a force was organized 

49 " Gallos . . . circa Pedum consedisse audi- M " Hernici devicti subactique sunt." — Livy, 
turn est." Livy, VII. 12. VII. 15. 

50 Livy, VI. 33. 65 Livy, VII. 12. " Eebus nequicquam re- 

61 Livy, VII. 12. petitis, novi consules iussu populi bellum in- 

62 Livy, VII. 15. dixere." 

63 Livy, VII. 15. 



246 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVII. 

which might be able at last to meet the Gauls in the field, should they again ven- 
ture to establish themselves on the Alban hills, or to overrun the plains of Latium. 

But while Rome was thus strengthened by this reconciliation with her old allies, 
two new Roman tribes she also made an addition to the number of her own citizens. Two 
created. new t, r ib es were created, making the whole number twenty-seven ; 

and the new citizens thus received into the state appear to have been in part the 
inhabitants of the Ager Pomptinus, or Volscian lowlands, the country between 
Antium and Tarracina on the coast, and running inland as far as the roots of the 
Apennines which form the eastern wall of the Campagna. In the times of the 
later kings, the Romans, according to their own stories, had made several con- 
quests over the Volscians in this region, which at any rate were all lost again 
during the subsequent advance of the iEquians and Volscians into Latium : but 
in the twenty years immediately preceding the Gaulish invasion, the Volscian 
frontier had again receded, and the Romans, as we have seen, extended their 
dominion for a time as far as Tarracina or Anxur. After the Gaulish invasion 
there followed another change of fortune ; when the Latins no longer aided the 
Romans, but were for some time in alliance with the Volscians, the Romans again 
lost ground ; Satricum became once more Volscian, and the intermediate coun- 
try between it and Tarracina, the much contested Ager Pomptinus, must also 
have returned to its old masters. But whether it was that the Volscians had 
suffered even more than their neighbors from the Gaulish invasions, or whether 
the Samnites had already begun their attacks upon them in the valley of the Liris 
and on the side of Campania, or whether it is to be ascribed to internal divisions, 
and to the destruction of their old allies the iEquians, it seems at any rate that 
the Volscian nation was now declining, and utterly unable to withstand, as it had 
once done, the united forces of Rome and Latium. It is probable that much of 
its territory became at this period either Roman or Latin ; exactly in the same 
manner as the Sabines of Regillus and Momentum had lost their independence 
soon after the expulsion of the Tarquins. And as the Claudian and Crustuminian 
tribes were then formed out of those Sabines who became Romans, while No- 
mentum and Regillus fell to the share of the Latins, so a similar division in all 
probability took place now, and the Pomptine and the Publilian tribes must have 
been formed out of the Volscians who were assigned to Rome, whilst other por- 
tions of the Volscian territory and population fell to the share of the Latins. 
Thus the Volscian nation having been so dismembered, those states which still 
survived became henceforth more individually distinguished, and also, as was 
natural, more resolute to defend their independence. Amongst this number 
were the people of Privernum ; and the ravages which they and the people of 
Velitras are said to have carried into the Roman territory 56 in this same year, 
were doubtless more especially directed against those whom they would consider 
as traitors, their own Volscian countrymen, the new Roman citizens of the Pomp- 
tine and Publilian tribes. 

This favorable aspect of the Roman affairs was still further improved four 
peace with Tibur and years afterwards, when in the year 401 both Tibur and Praoneste 57 
gave up their long-continued hostility, and obtained, perhaps at 
the price of some sacrifices of territory, a peace for a certain number of years 
with Rome. The peace with Tarquinii followed, as we have already seen, in the 
year 404. 

But in the year 402 wc again hear of an attack made by the Volscians upon 
The growth of u.e sam. the Latins in the direction of Tusculum. 58 No particulars are 
unnjr" '„„'!r ,,v iU n » mentioned, perhaps because the allied Romans and Latin forces 
m U re-jo»»b -toother. were m t j us yg^ comman( j e( i D y a Latin general ; but we may 

M Livy, VII. 15. " AocesBit . . . vastatio Ro- 19 ; and for the peace or rather truce with Pra>- 

mani agri, quam Privernates, Velitenu deinde, neste. Bee DiodoruB, XVI. 45. 

one repentina fecerunt." M Livy, VII. 19. 
67 For the peace with Tibur, see Livy, VII. 



Chap. XXVIIL] ORIGIN OF THE SAMNITES. 247 

suppose that Privernum and Velitrse, with some of the cities of the Volscian 
highlands, were the part of the Volscian nation engaged in these hostilities. From 
this time for the next five years all was quiet: but in the year 40*7, Satricum, 
which had been burnt some years ago by the Latins, and the territory of which 
the Latins had appropriated to themselves in their late partition of the Ager 
Pomptinus with Rome, was again occupied and rebuilt by the Volscians of An- 
tium. 69 Jealousies were arising about this time between Rome and Latium ; and 
it appears probable that there was a party amongst the Latins disposed to form 
a separate alliance with the remaining independent states of the Volscians, in 
order to be strengthened by them against Rome. Thus when the Auruncans, or 
Ausonians, one of the most southern people of the Volscian stock, began to plun- 
der the Ager Pomptinus in 410, the Romans, we are told, suspected that this 
im-oad was actually made with the concurrence of the Latins, and expected 60 a 
war with the whole Latin confederacy. Their fears, however, were groundless 
for the present, and indeed the progress of the Samnite arms in Campania and 
on the Liris was a strong inducement both to the Romans and Latins to defer 
their jealousies of each other to a more convenient season. Two years after- 
wards, in 412, the first Samnite war broke out, in which both the Latins and 
Volscians to all appearance took part with Rome. 

Thus in the course of three-and-twenty years Rome was finally delivered from 
the scourge of the Gaulish invasion ; she had secured her north- i ncre ased power of 
ern frontier by a peace with the neighboring states of Etruria ; her Rome- 
old alliance with the Latins and Hernicans, however doubtful might be its dura- 
tion, had been restored in time to enable her to repel the Gauls and to crush the 
Volscians : and it was now ready to aid her in her coming struggle with the 
Samnites. She had not merely extended her dominion, but by granting the full 
rights of citizens to the Volscians of the Ager Pomptinus, she had enlarged and 
strengthened her own commonwealth. She was thus prepared for the events 
of the next ten years, which assured to her beyond dispute the first place among 
the nations of Italy. 

We have seen that the date of the first plebeian consulship coincided with 
that of the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea. The first Sam- chronology. 
nite war broke out about two years before the establishment of the Macedonian 
suprpmarf in Greece by Philip's great victory at Chseronea. 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

THE FIEST SAMNITE WAE— SEDITION OP THE YEAE 408— GENUCIAN LAWS. 
A. U. C. 407-409 NIEBUHE: 410-412 FASTI CAPIT. : 412-414 LIVY. 



"Majora jam hinc bella et viribus hostium et longinquitate vel regionum vel temporum spatio 
quibus bellatum est dicentur ; namque eo anno adversus Samnites, gentem opibus armisque 
validam, mota arma." — Livt, VII. 29. 



The Sabines, who dwelt amidst the highest mountains of the Apennines, 
where the snow lies all the year long, and which send forth the ^nd conceding the 
streams to run into the two seas northward and southward, were 1 °»s i «° ftheSamiut68 - 

M Livy, VII. 27. 60 Livy, VII. 28. l Strabo, V. p. 250. Dionysius, H. 49. 



248 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXYIII. 

at war for many years together with their neighbors the Umbrians. At last they 
made a vow, that if they should conquer their enemies, all the living creatures 9 
born in their land in that year should be devoted to the gods as sacred. They 
did conquer, and they offered in sacrifice accordingly all the lambs and calves 
and kids and pigs of that year, and such animals as might not be sacrificed, they 3 
redeemed. But still their land would not yield its fruits, and when thev thought 
what was the cause of it, they considered that their vow had not been duly per- 
formed ; for all their own children 4 born within that year had been kept back 
from the gods, and had neither been sacrificed nor redeemed. So they devoted 
all their children to the god Mamers, and when they were grown up they sent 
them away to become a new people in a new land. When the young men set 
out on their way, it happened that a bull went before them ; and they thought 
that Mamers had sent him to be their guide, and they followed him. He laid 
himself down 6 to rest for the first time when he had come to the land of the 
Opicans ; and the Sabines thought that this was a sign to them, and they 
fell upon the Opicans, who dwelt in scattered villages 6 without walls to defend 
them, and they drove them out, and took possession of their land. Then they 
offered the bull in sacrifice to Mamers, who had sent him to be their guide ; 
and a bull was the device 1 which they bore in after ages ; and they them- 
selves were no more called Sabines, but they took a new name and were ealled 
Samnites. 

Such is the legendary account of the origin of that great people whose history 
what truth iacoDtomed i s now beginning to connect itself with that of Rome. In two 
points it has preserved the truth ; the Samnites were a people of 
Sabine extraction, and had established themselves as conquerors in the country 
of the Opicans. But the two races were, probably, not very remote from each 
other, and thus it is less surprising that the conquerors should have adopted the 
language of their subjects ; for the Samnites spoke Opican, or Oscan, and the 
legends of their coins, and their remaining inscriptions are in the Oscan character. 
Still the two people were distinct ; and the Samnites regarded neither their Opi- 
can subjects in Campania, nor their Opican neighbors, the iEquians and Volscians, 
as their own proper countrymen. 

One single contemporary notice of the Samnites 8 in the days of their greatness 
„ . „ ,_ „ has descended to our times ; and this is contained in two short lines 

Notice of the Samnites r .1 t> • l /■ n i i i -i i^ • t • 

m the Peripius of Scy- or the reriplus ot bcylax, who describes the Samnites as living on 

the coast of the Lower Sea between the Campanians and Luca- 

nians, and the length of their coast-line was no more, he tells us, than half a 

day's sail. The space which they occupied reached nearly from the Sarnus to 

4 The form of one o " these vows is given by which represents a bull, the emblem of the 

Livy. XXII. 10, "quo ver adtulerit ex suillo, Samnites, goring a wolf, the well-known type 

ovillo, caprino, bovillo grege, quacque profana of the Romans. Two or three specimens of this 

erunt, Jovi fieri." coin are to be seen in the British Museum. 

3 T« piv KuTiBvoav, ra if KaQtipuxrav. Strabo, 8 Kaiiattvwv St ex ovTa ' Sawwroi" k«i 7r/f>'i7r.\ov$ 

V. p. 250. What was not sacrificed, but yet fori SawirSy fiptpas Sjpivo, p. 3. Niebuhr reads 

was consecrated to the gods, must nave been Sawirat instead ofAawlrai in the following page 

redeemed before it could be employed for or- of Scylax, urging that the description is inappli- 

dinary purposes. cable' to the Daunians, as they neither extended 

* Strabo as before. Festus in "Mamertini." aoross all Italy from sea to sea, nor lived to the 

6 This reminds us of the stm-y of the white N. YV. of Mount Drium orGarganus. 1 think 

sow which guided ZBneas to the place where be thai this conjecture is highly probable, because 

was to build his city. A wolf was said to have Scylax had not mentioned the Daunians 

done the Bame service to the Hirpinians, who description of the coasts of the Lower Sea, but 

were also of Sarnnite extracti had mentioned the Samnites; and the only 

6 "'Ervyxavov it Kui^iiuv ty&vrts. Like the .Kin- ol her people who had Btretched from sea to sea. 
liana in the time of the Peloponneaian war, the Etruscans <>r Tyrrhenians, are mentioned 
Thucyd. III. 94; or like the Casali. which to separately in the description of both coasts. If 
this day contain the greatest part of the popular bo, Scylax includes within the limits of the Sana- 
tion in the valleys ot the central Apennines. nites, not only the country ot' the Frentanians, 

7 Micali gives an engraving of a coin, struck who were notoriouslj of Samnite origin, but 
by the Italian allies during their groat war with also that <.<t' their neighbors, the Marruciniana 
the Romans in the seventh century of Koine, and Vestinians. 



Chap. XXVIIL] GEOGRAPHY OF SAMNIUM. 249 

the Silarus ; Neapolis, according to Scylax, is in Campania ; Posidonia, or Pees- 
tum, is in Lucania. But the Samnite possessions on or near the coast, even though 
they once, included the famous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, 9 of Nola, Nu- 
ceria. and Abella, were a mere recent offshoot from the great body of the nation : 
the true Samnium lies wholly in the interior, and having been thus removed from 
the notice of the Greeks, from whom alone we derive our knowledge of the an- 
cient world before the dominion of the Romans, it has been fated to remain in 
perpetual obscurity. 

Nearly due north of Naples, there stands out from the central line of the 
Apennines, like one of the towers of an old castle from the lower Geography of samm- 
and more retiring line of the ordinary wall, a huge mass of mount- um -- The Mtttesfi - 
ains, known at present by the name of the Matese. On more than three-fourths 
of its circumference it is bounded by the Volturno and its tributary streams, the 
Calore 10 and the Tamaro, which send their waters into the Lower or Tyrrhenian Sea ; 
but on its northern side, its springs and torrents run down into the Biferno, and 
so make their way to the Adriatic. A very narrow isthmus or shoulder, high 
enough to form the watershed between the two seas, connects the Matese at its 
N. W. and N. E. extremities with the main Apennine line, and thus prevents it 
from beino- altos'ether insulated. 

The circumference of the Matese, as above described, is between seventy 11 and 
eighty miles. Its character bears some resemblance to that of the It3 extent and charac . 
district of Craven, in Yorkshire, or more closely to that of the ter- 
Jura. It is a vast mass of limestone, 12 rising from its base abruptly in the huge 
wall-like cliffs or scars, so characteristic of limestone mountains, to the height of 
about 3000 feet ; and within this gigantic inclosure presenting a great variety 
of surface, sloping inwards from the edge of the cliffs into deep valleys, and then 
rising again in the highest points of the centre of the range, and especially in 
the Monte Miletto, which is its loftiest summit, to an elevation computed at 6000 
feet. Its upland valleys offer, like those of the Jura, a wide extent of pasture, 
and endless forests of magnificent beech-wood ; it is rich in springs, gushing out 
of the ground with a full burst of water, and suddenly disappearing again into 
some of the numerous caverns in which such limestone rocks abound. In this 
manner the waters of a small lake in the heart of the mountain have no visible 
outlet ; 13 but the people of the country say that they break out at the foot of a 
deep cliff or cove, about two or three miles distant, and form the full stream of 
the Torano. 

On the highest points of the Matese the snow lies till late 14 in the summer ; and 
sucl is their elevation, that the view from them extends across the whole breadth 
of Italy from sea to sea. No heat of the summer scorches the perpetual fresh- 

9 Herculaneum and Pompeii both stood, it is zionario del Eegno di Napoli, Parte 2, in " Ma- 
true, to the northward of the Sarnus ; and Stra- tese." 

bo expressly says that they were wrested by the I2 This limestone is, in some parts, bitnmin- 

Samnites from the Etruscans,_ V. p. 247. This, ous, and contains some fossil remains offish, 

however, was the case also with Cum a and Ca- There are some volcanic or tufaceous rocks in 

pua; but as Scylax places these towns in Cam- the Matese, resembling probably the beds of 

pania, and distinguishes it from the country of tuff which are found on the slopes of the Apen- 

the Sanmites, a little to the south of it, itisprob- nines in other places, as, for instance, on the 

able that at the time of the first Samnite war, road from Naples to Avellino in the pass of 

which is nearly the date of Scylax's Periplus, Monteforte. 

most of this district had recovered its indepen- 13 See Keppel Craven, Excurs. in the Abruzzi, 

dence, and the Samnite possessions were reduced Vol. I. p. 18. The English reader will remem- 

to the limits mentioned in the text. ber Malham Tarn, and the full burst of water 

10 The Calore runs along the southern side of with which the Aire rushes out from under the 
the Matese: the Tamaro, which bounds its east- rocks of Malham Cove. Similar phenomena 
ern side, runs into the Calore from the north are frequent in the limestone mountains of Pelo- 
nearly at right angles. ponnesus. 

11 Mr. Keppel Craven says, that it is reckoned 14 See Giustiniani, Dizionario. Mr. Keppel 
to measure seventy miles. — Excursions in the Craven found the upper half of the Matese cov- 
Abruzzi, &c. Vol. II. p. 166. Giustiniani gives ered with snow in May : it would remain much 
it at sixty-two Neapolitan miles, which are later on the highest summits. 

more than seventy English ones. — See his Di- 



250 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXVIII. 



ness of these mountain pastures ; and during the hottest months 15 the cattle from 
the surrounding county are driven up thither to feed. 

This singular mountain, with its subject valleys, was the heart of the country 
principal divisions and of the Samnites. Of the two principal divisions of the Samnites, 
town* of samnium. one> t j ie Caudinians, occupied the southern side of the Matese, and 
the other, the Pentrians, dwelt on its northern side. To the former belonged the 
towns of Allifae 15 on the Vulturnus, of Telesia, the country of that Pontius Tele- 
sinus, 17 who struggled so valiantly against the fortune of Sylla in the great battle 
at the Colline gate, and of Beneventum. 18 To the Pentrians belonged yEsernia 19 
on one of the first feeders of the Vulturnus, Bovianum 20 on the Biferno or Tifernus, 
and Sepinum 21 on the E. of the Matese, not far from the sources of the Tamaro. 

Besides the Caudiniansand Pentrians, there were, doubtless, other tribes more or 
Tribes connected witu l ess closely connected with the Samnite name, who took part in the 
the samnites. great contest of their nation with Rome. The very names of some 

of these may have perished ; for it is by mere accident that we hear of the Cara- 
cenians, 22 a tribe to the north of the Pentrians, who dwelt in the upper valley of 
the Sanoro or Sao-rus, and to whom belonged the town of Aufidena. The Fren- 
tanians, who reached down to the very shores of the Adriatic, are called a Sam- 
nite people ; 23 yet in the accounts of the wars with Rome, they are spoken of as 
distinct ; and they seem to have taken no part in the first war. And the Hir- 
pinians, whose country is also included within the limits of Samnium, and who 
dwelt to the S. E. of the rest of their countrymen, occupying the upper valleys 
of the Calore and Sabbato on the south of the Apennines, and of the Ofanto or 
Aufidus on the northern side, are on some occasions 24 distinguished from the Sam- 



16 They are turned out about the end of June. 
See Keppel Craven, Vol. I. p. 20. 

16 AJife, which still retains its ancient name, 
ranks even now as a city, but the bishop resides 
at Piedimonte, a flourishing town about three 
miles distant, and Alife is at present almost de- 
populated from malaria. See Keppel Craven, 
Vol. I. p. 21. 

17 And according to the writer of the little 
work, "de viris iilustribus," it was the coun- 
try also of that still greater C. Pontius, who de- 
feated the Romans at the Caudine Forks. The 
remains of Telesia are to be seen at the distance 
of about a mile to the N. W. of the modern 
town of Telese, which, like Alife, has almost 
gone to ruin from the influence of the malaria. 
See Keppel Craven, Vol. II. p. 173, 174. 

18 This is still a well-built and flourishing 
town, containing a population of 18,000 souls. 
See Keppel Craven's Tour in the southern prov- 
inces of Naples, p. 22, 28. 

19 The present town, still called Isernia, stands 
on a narrow ridge between two torrents, run- 
ning down in wry deep ravines, which meet 
a little below, and then fall into the Vandra, 
about two miles above its junction with the Vol- 
turno. It is a flourishing place, with various 
manufactures, and a population ofaboul f000 
souls. Large remains of polygonal walls are 
still visible, which belong, probably, to the days 
of its independence as a Samnite city. The re- 
markable tunnel, hewn through the rock for 
aboul a mile, and still used, according to its 
original purpose, for supplying the town with 
water, is probably a wort of the Soman times. 
Sec Keppel Craven, Abruzzi, VoL 11. p. Bl B4. 

20 Bovianum, or Boiano, also contains re- 
mains of polygonal walls, built of very large 
stones, put as closely together as possible, and 
the smaller interstices tilled Dp with remarkable 
nicety. It is a cold place, being shaded by the 
Mato'se, which rises directly to the south of it ; 



and the Biferno so floods the valley", that it is a 
constant swamp, and the air is damp and foggy ; 
but there is no malaria, because it has no severe 
heats in summer. Its population, according to 
Giustiniani, writing in 1797, was then 3500 souls. 
Mr. Keppel Craven rates it at present as low as 
1500. Abruzzi, Vol. II. p. 164. 

21 The actual town of Sepino stands on a hill 
at some distance from the remains of the ancient 
city, which are to be seen in the valley below. 
These remains are very large and remarkably 
perfect, but they are of Roman, as I imagine, 
rather than of Samnite origin. One of the fa- 
mous cattle-tracks (ealles, tratturi, delle peco- 
re), which have existed unaltered from time 
immemorial for the yearly migrations of the 
cattle from and to the coast, runs straight 
through the ruins of the ancient town from E. 
to W. See Keppel Craven, Abruzzi, Vol. II. p. 
131, 135. 

22 The name is only noticed, I believe. by Zo- 
naras and Ptolemy: unless it be the same with 
the Carentini of Pliny. The Italian writers, 
Romanclli, for instance, and Micali, propose to 
read Sariceni, as if the name were derived from 
the neighboring river Sarns or Sangro. But 
this is exceedingly uncertain. Alfidena, or Au- 
fidena, contains at present aboul 1500 souls: it 
Btands on the Rio Torto, a torrent which just 
below the town plunges down into a very deep 
and narrow glen, about a mile above its junc- 
tion with the Sangro. There exists considerable 
remains of polygonal walls, and an Oscan in- 
scription on the bridge which crosses the Rio 
Torto. Keppel Craven, Abruzzi, Vol. II. p. 5S, 
59. 

23 Strabo calls them ZawiTiK&vcQios, V. p. 241 ; 
yel Livy represents them as Buing for and ob- 
taining peace as a distinct people, after a treaty 
had been concluded with the Samnites. IX. 45. 

24 As, for instance, "Hannibal ex Hirpinia in 
Samnium transit."' Livy, XXII. i3. 



Chap. XXVIIL] STATE AND HABITS OF .THE SAMNITES. 251 

nites ; and it is by no means certain that they took part in the beginning of the 
contest with Rome ; nor, on the other hand, that when they became involved in 
it, the other tribes which had been first engaged continued to maintain it without 
interruption. 

The country of the Samnites still retains its ancient features, and our own eyes 
can inform us sufficiently of its nature. But of the Samnite peo- ^ ^ ^^ o{ fte 
nle we can gain no distinct notions whatever. Unknown and state of the sammte 

X • ill! 11 * "L P e0 P* e . 

unnoticed by the early Greek .writers, they had been well-nigh 
exterminated before the time of those Roman writers whose works have come 
down to us ; and in the Augustan age, nothing survived of them but a miserable 
remnant, retaining no traceable image of the former state of the nation. Our 
knowledge of the Samnites is literally limited to the single fact that they were 
a brave people, who clung resolutely to their national independence. We neither 
know what was the connection of the several tribes of the nation with each other, 
nor what was the constitution of each tribe 26 within itself. We know nothing 
distinct of their military system and tactic, except that they did not use the or- 
der of the phalanx ; the sword and large shield 26 were their favorite arms, and 
not the small shield and pike. We do not know how they governed the coun- 
tries which they conquered, nor how far they adopted the Roman system of 
colonies. 27 Their wealth, manner of living, and general civilization we can but 
guess at ; and to add to all this, the very story of their wars with Rome having 
been recorded by no contemporary historian, has been corrupted, as usual, by the 
Roman vanity ; and neither the origin of the contest, nor its circumstances, nor 
the terms of the several treaties which were made before its final issue, have been 
related truly. 

Thus destitute of direct information, we may be pardoned for endeavoring to 
extract some further conclusions from the few facts known to us. Their principal articles 
The nature of their country makes it certain that Uhe principal of P roduce - 
wealth of the Samnites consisted in their cattle. Wool and hides must have 
been the chief articles which they had to sell to their neighbors. 

-n i i • t i • r 1 r i • • J Winter pasturage for 

But the high elevation ot much of their country, as it preserved their cattle ontnesea- 
the pasture unscorched by the summer heats, was, on the other 
hand, especially exposed to the rigor of the winter ; the snow lay so long on the 
ground that their cattle could not have found subsistence. And as, in like man- 
ner, the parched plains of Apulia yield no grass in the summer, the inhabitants 
of the centre of Italy, and of the coast of the Adriatic, must always have been 
dependent on each other ; and the Samnites, either by treaty or by conquest, 
must have obtained the right of pasturing their cattle in winter in the low grounds 
near the sea, either on one side of the peninsula or on the other. On the shores 
of the Adriatic this was probably secured by their close connection with the 
Frentanians, a people of their own race ; and by their constant friendly inter- 

85 Micali states that the Samnites were gov- Samnites. Sallust, Bell. Catilin, 52. Athe- 

erned by a priestly aristocracy, like the Etrus- nseus, VI. 106, p. 273. Diodorus, XXIII. 1, 

cans. He gives no authority for this, and cer- Fragm. Vatic. 

tainly it is not proved by their mere practice of " Micali says that "their society was founded 

enlisting their soldiers on great emergencies on a system of agrarian laws," and he quotes as 

with certain solemn religious ceremonies. his authority for this a fragment of Varro pre- 

26 Livy expressly speaks of them as scutati, served to us by Philargyrius, one of the scko- 
and describes the'form of their shield, IX. 40. liasts on Virgil, in his note on Georgic. II. 167. 
The use of the scutum in itself implies that the The fragment runs thus : " Terra culture causa 
sword, and not the spear, was the offensive attributa olim particulatim hominibus, ut Etru- 
weapon generally used ; we are told also that ria Tuscis, Samnium Sabellis." But I do not 
the Campanians called their gladiators Samnites, understand this as saying any thing of agrarian 
because they equipped them with arms taken laws, but merely that the earth became the pro- 
froin the Samnites (Livy, IX. 40) ; and in such perty of particular portions and races of man- 
combats, as the very name shows, the sword kind, instead of being all common to all ; and 
was the common weapon. Add to this the story, that thus Etruria was given (by the gods, I 
whether well or ill fonnded, as to the particular think, and not by an agrarian law) to the peo- 
fact, that the Eomans borrowed their arms, of- pie of the Etruscans, and Samnium to the Sa- 
fensive and defensive, " arma et tela," from the bellines. 



252 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVIII. 

course 58 with the Marrucinians and Vestinians ; while their arms, by winning pos- 
session of Campania, procured for them an access to the coast on that side, and 
gave them the full enjoyment of that soft and sunny plain which extends along 
the shore of the Gulf of Salerno. 

It is not certain, as I have said, that the Samnites governed their Campanian 
Their conquests in cam- conquests by means of colonies, but there is every probability that 
vaaia " they did so. The Samnite colonists would thus constitute the rul- 

ing body in every city : and, like the early Roman patricians, might be called 
indifferently either the burghers or the aristocracy. Niebuhr supposes that the 
sixteen hundred Campanian knights, who in the great Latin war are said to have 
stood aloof fiom the mass of the people, and to have remained faithful to Rome, 
were the colony of the Samnite conquerors. And the frequent revolts which we 
read of, from one alliance to another, may mark a corresponding domestic revo- 
lution, in which the colony either lost or re-established its ascendency. Yet it 
may have happened that the colony, in some cases, had really identified itself 
with the old inhabitants, and felt with them more than with the people from whom 
they were themselves descended. In this manner the Samnite colonies may 
have become in feeling thoroughly Campanian, and have wished to make them- 
selves independent of their own Samnite countrymen in Campanium ; and thus, 
although the highest of the Campanian nobility were of Samnite extraction, yet 
Campania may have become, as it is represented, wholly independent of the Sam- 
nite nation within no long period after its first conquest. 

Not the slightest notice remains of the effect produced on the Samnite domin- 
ion by the irruptions of the Gauls. Yet in the year 394-395 the 

How thev were affected _ - J . . . * i.io • /~i • i c, Ji ■ i 

by the invasions of the Gauls had wintered- 1 * in Campania; and alter their last appear- 
ance in Latiura in 406, they are said to have retreated into Apulia 30 
through the land of the Volscians and Falernians ; so that they must have passed 
as it seems through a pari of Samnium. The heart of the Samnite territory 
indeed they were not likely to assail ; they were not expert in besieging Availed 
cities, nor would they be tempted to invade the mountain fastnesses of the cen- 
tral Apennines. Thus if the Samnites did not choose to engage with them in the 
plains, their substantial power would be little impaired by their invasions ; and 
they received from them perhaps no greater mischief than the ravaging of their 
territory in Campania, and the loss of their cattle, which might have been sent 
down to the coast for their winter pasture. It is possible, however, that a dread 
of the Gauls may have been one of the causes which led to a treaty of alliance 
between Rome and the Samnites 31 in the year 401. 

The first Samnite war, which broke out eleven years afterwards, was no doubt 

128 The Vestinians join the Samnites in 424, towards their neighbor? But what if the inju- 

and the Marsians, Pelignians, and Marrucinians, rious treatment of the Samnites consisted in 

are represented as so closely connected with the compelling the Apulians to find pasture for their 

Vestinians. that an attack on these would neces- cattle in the winter; exactly as the Arragoneee 

sarily involve the Romans in a war with all the kings of Naples obliged all tenants holding of 

others. J. ivy. VIII. 29. 1 think it may he con- the crown in Apulia to let their lands during the 

elude. 1 thai the Marsiane and Palignians were winter to the cattle-owners of the Abruzzi; and 

on friendly terms with the Samnites, from the although the French took off these restrictions, 

fact that the Latins, then in alliance with Rome, yet the present government has, in a great mea- 

attacked the Pelignions in the first year of the sure, reimposea them: and the Apulian pro- 

Samnite war i Livy, VII. 88) : and tnat as soon prietors are still obliged to reserve two-thirds 

as peai e is made between Rome and Samnium, of their land in pasture, and have only the oul- 

the Roman armies march through the country tivation of one-third left to their own disposal, 

of the Marsians and Pelignions, in order to See Keppel Craven, Abruzzi, Vol. I. p. 267- 

reach Campania. Livy, VIII. 6. 269. 

According to Livy, ix. 18, the Apulians were -'•' Livy, VII. 11. 

hostile to tin' Samnites, because thej were op- ; " Livy, \"ll. 26. 

pressed by them, and their country frequently 31 Livy, VII. 19. Diodorus, XVI. -ir>. It 

laid waste. Had Livy any authority for this may be observed that Diodorus agrees with 

last expression, "oampeatna et mantima Iocs Livy in placing this treaty in the consulship of 

. . . rpsi montani atquo agrestea depopulaban- M. ETabius AinbustUB. and T. Quintius : buttho 

tur," or did lie put it in merely as a natural way consulship i^ according to him the 2a year of 

of accounting for the ill-will of the Apulians the 107th Olympiad. 



Chap. XXVIIL] CHARACTER OF THE WAR. 253 

occasioned in part by the advance of the Samnite arms in the val- 

_ / , 1T .. J - iii i t» 1J.1A Causes of the first waff 

ley of the Lins, and by the war between Kome and the Auruncans between the Romans 
in the year 410, which brought the Roman legions into the imme- 
diate neighborhood of Campania. 32 At this time Rome and Latium were in 
league together, and jointly pressing upon the Volscians ; their power held out 
hopes to the Campanians that, by their aid, they might be defended against the 
Samnites. This aid was in the year 412 become highly needful ; the Campa- 
nians, having ventured to defend the Sidicinians 33 against an attack of the Sam- 
nites, had drawn the hostilities of the Samnites upon themselves, and we find 
that a Samnite army occupied the ridge of Tifata immediately above Capua, and 
from thence descended like the -^Equians and Volscians from Algidus, to the 
plain before the walls of the city. In this state of distress, Capua implored the 
protection of Rome and Latium, and obtained it. 34 A war between Samnium on 
the one hand, and the connected Romans, Latins, and Campanians on the other, 
was the immediate consequence. 

The Roman consuls in this year were M. Valerius Corvus, and A. Cornelius 
Cossus. Valerius is the hero of that famous legend already re- character of the ac- 
lated, which told how he had vanquished in his early youth a counts of the war - 
gigantic Gaul by the aid of a heaven-sent crow. The acts of his consulship have 
been disguised by a far worse spirit ; they were preserved, not by any regular 
historian, but in the mere funeral orations and traditional stories of his own fam- 
ily ; and were at last still further corrupted by the flattery of a client of his 
house, the falsest of all the Roman writers, Valerius of Antium. Hence we have 
no real military history of the Samnite war in this first campaign, but accounts 
of the worthy deeds of two famous Romans, M. Valerius Corvus, and P. Decius 
Mus. They are the heroes of the two stories, and there is evidently no other 
object in either of them but to set off their glory. It seems to me to be a great 
mistake 35 to regard such mere panegyric as history. . 

All that history can relate is that the Romans, we know not with what allied 

32 Livy, VII. 28. Niebulir supposes that by tion of their falsifications. The case of Capua 
the name of Auruncans are meant the Volscians apjflying for aid to Eome against the Samnites 
on the Liris, and that Sora was an Auruncan was exactly that of Corcyra asking help from 
town. Vol. III. p. 101. Livy himself does not Athens against Corinth. The motives which 
seem to have had this notion ; for the Aurun- induced the Athenians to receive the CorcyrEe- 
can and Volscian wars are in his accounts care- ans into their alliance were the very same which 
fully distinguished, and Sora is said to have influenced the Romans : the justice of the mea- 
been taken from the Volscians. The Aurun- sure was in both cases equally questionable ; 
cans, on the other hand, are mentioned again but it may be doubted whether the Eoman le- 
in the 8th Book, c. 15, and Suessa Aurunca is gions sent into Campania were ordered only to 
named as their chief town. Now Suessa is fight in the event of an actual attack made upon 
Sessa, a town standing on the crater of an old their allies, which was the charge given by Per- 
volcano. just above the modern road from Na- icles' government to the ten ships sent to pro- 
pies to Rome, a few miles to the east of the tect Corcyra. So truly is real history a lesson 
Garigliano or Liris. Is there any reason for of universal application, that we should under- 
thinking that these Auruncans _ were more stand the war between Rome and Samnium far 
closely connected with the Volscians of Sora better from reading Thucydides' account of the 
and Arpinum than with those of Antium, or war between Corinth and Corcyra, than from 
that the name Auruncan was at this period ex- Livy's corrupted story of the very events them- 
tended to any other Opican people than to those selves. 

of the neighborhood of Sessa ? 3b Some of my readers may have seen a work 

33 Livy, VII. 29. The Sidicinians were close which formed a sort of Appendix to the " Vic- 
neighbors to the Auruncans, living on the same toires, Conquetes, &c. des Erangais," and was 
cluster of volcanic hills which form the bound- called "Tables du Temple de la Gloire." It 
ary of the plain of Naples on the road towards consisted of an alphabetical catalogue raisonne 
Rome. Teanum, now Teano, was their princi- of all Frenchmen, of whatever military rank, 
pal town. who had distinguished themselves, or thought 

M Livy, VII. 31. But it is impossible to be- that they had done so, in the course of the last 
lieve the statement in Livy that they applied to war ; and many of the articles were apparently 
the Romans only, or that they purchased the contributed by the very individuals themselves 
Roman protection by a literal surrender, dedi- who were the" heroes of them. Now these no- 
tip, of themselves and their city to the sovereign tices had nothing of the license of a poetical ac- 
disposal of Rome. Every step in the Samnite count of events; -they professed to be a real 
and Latin wars has been so disguised by the matter of fact narrative ; they were published 
Roman annalists, that a probable narrative of when the memory of the actions to which they 
these events can only be given by a free correc- relate was fresh, and in the face of the jealous 



254 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXVIII. 



force to aid them, took the field with two armies ; that one of 

First campaign, and . .-_ , ., , , i • i 

batu by Mount Gau- these was to protect (Jampania, while the other was destined to 
invade Samnium. The army in Campania was commanded by M. 
Valerius, and his panegyric, careless of historical details, brings him, without a 
word as to his previous march, to Mount Gaurus, 86 now Monte Barbaro, in a 
remote corner of Campania, close upon the sea above Pozzuoli. Here, says the 
story, he met the Samnites, and here, after a most bloody battle, he defeated 
them. 

The army which was to invade Samnium, 37 had scarcely entered the hills 
unsuccessful invasion of which bound the plain of Naples, apparently by the pass of Mad- 
samnium. daloni, when it became involved in a deep defile, and was nearly 

cut off by the enemy. It was saved by the conduct and courage of the famous 
P. Decius, then one of the military or legionary tribunes ; and thus his pane- 
gyrist gives the whole story in great detail, and ends with saying that the Roman 
army was not only saved from destruction, but gained a great victory over the 
enemy. As it is not pretended, however, that the Romans made any progress 
in Samnium beyond the scene of their victory, it is likely that their success was 
limited to their escaping from a very imminent danger, and being enabled to 
retreat with safety. 

The story of Valerius pretends that he won yet a second victory over the 
whole collected force of Samnium, which had been gathered to 
revenge their late defeat ; and yet we are told that as soon as the 
Roman armies had returned to Rome, the Campanians 38 were obliged to send 
embassies to the senate, requesting that a force might winter in Campania for 
their protection, to keep off the attacks of the Samnites. This is the beginning 
of a totally different story, that of the sedition of the year 413, and the author 
of it having no concern with the Samnite war, did not think of reconciling his 



criticism of all the nations of Europe, where 
there were thousands of witnesses both able 
and eager to expose any exaggeration. And yet, 
after all, what sort of history of any of the cam- 
paigns of the last war could he compiled from 
the" Tables du Temple de la Gloire ?" I cannot 
therefore, persuade myself that the details of 
the battle bv Mount Gaurus, or of the wise and 
valiant conduct of Decius in Samnium, deserve 
to be transcribed in a modern history of Rome. 
They have not obtained such celebrity as to be 
worth preserving as legends ; they have not in 
their style and substance those marks of origi- 
nality which would make them valuable as a 
picture of the times ; and least of all, have they 
that trustworthiness which would entitle them 
to be regarded as historically true. 

30 Livy, VII. 32. " Consules . . . ab urbe 
profecti, Valerius in Campaniain, Cornelius in 
Samnium, illc ad montcm Gaurum, hie ad Sa- 
ticnlam, oaetra ponunt." " What actions," says 
Niebuhr, " had forced the consul to fall back 
thither, and gave to the Samnites thai assurance 
of victory with which they hastened to attack 
him, — this knowledge, as almost all else where- 
by the Samnite wars might have hecome more 
intelligible, is buried in everlasting night." 
Vol. 111. p. 137. 

37 Livy, VII. 34-36. The account of the 
honors paid to Decius on this occasion by his 
fellow-soldiers, is oharaoteristio of the time and 
people, and is worth transcribing. "After the 
battle, the consul called all the soldiers togeth- 
er, and made a speech, in which he com- 
mended all the worthy deeds wliieh Decius had 
done." [Polybius especially mentions and 
praises this practice, VI. 39.] " He then, as 
was the custom, gave him divers gifts of honor, 



especially a crown of gold, and one hundred 
oxen, and one beautiful white ox over and 
above the number, with his horns bedecked 
with gold. To the soldiers wdio had been with 
him in his post of danger, the consul gave an 
ox to each man, and two coats; and told them 
that their dailv allowance of corn should for the 
time to come be doubled. Then, when the con- 
sul had ended, all the soldiers of the legions 
gave to Decius a wreath of twisted grass, which 
was accustomed to be given by a beseigcd or 
blockaded army to him who had delivered 
them ; and it was put upon his head amidst the 
cheers of all the army. Another wreath also, 
of the like sort, was given to Decius by the 
soldiers of his own band. So Decius stood, 
wearing his crown of gold and his wreath of 
grass, and he forthwith ottered in sacrifice to 
Mars the beautiful white ox with the gilded 
horns, and the other hundred oxen he gave to 
the soldiers who had followed him in his enter- 
prise. And the other soldiers too gave each 
man to the soldiers of Decius a pound of corn 
from their own allowances, and a measure ex- 
ceeding a pound in weight (sextarios) of wine. 
All the while that they were giving these hon- 
ors to Decius and his soldiers, the whole army 
were shouting and cheering, for they knew not 
what to do for joy." Livy, VII. 37. 

38 Livy VII. 38. Ho adds that the people of 
Suessa sent an embassy to the same effect. 
This shows, that immediately after the retreat 
of the Roman armies, the Samnites were begin- 
ning, not only to overrun Campania again, but 
even to carry their ravages beyond the Vultur- 
inis into the country of the Sidicinians and Au 
runeans. 



Chap. XXVIIL] DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES. 255 

account with the exaggerated representations given of the preceding campaign. 
That the Romans drove the Samnites from Campania is probable ; but, on the 
other hand, they failed in their attack upon Samnium, and the Samnites were 
clearly no way dispirited as to the general result of the war. 

It would seem from a short and obscure notice in Livy, 39 that the Samnites 
were assisted in this war by some of their neighbors ; whether as The Lntin3 ensa „ od 
equal or as dependent allies we know not. For it appears that agamst the Peli s ,,h,n3 - 
the Latins, instead of being engaged in Campania or in Samnium, moved into the 
heart of Italy and attacked the Pelignians ; so that we must suppose that the 
operations of this year were carried on on a most extensive scale, and we thus 
see how much greater was this contest with Samnium, than any other irt which 
Rome had been engaged before. 

The active campaign was short ; for the consuls, so far as appears, still en- 
tered on their office on the 1st of July, and their triumphs took A Ronmn army winterB 
place on the 22d and 24th of September. 40 They themselves inCam P ani »- 
did not return to Campania, but parties of Roman soldiers, according to the 
request of the Campanians, were sent back to garrison the several cities, and a 
large force was thus kept on service during the winter. This state of things 
lasted through the following spring; the Romans would not commence offensive 
operations till the new consuls should come into office : of the movements of the 
Samnites we hear nothing ; but it may be that their usual season of military ser- 
vice was the same as that of the Romans, and mere plundering parties would be 
deterred by the force left to keep them in check. But when the new consul, C. 
Marcius Rutilus, arrived after midsummer to take the command of the army, he 
found himself engaged in a very different duty from that of marching against the 
Samnites. 

Had we any history of these times, events so important and so notorious as 
the great disturbance of the year 413 must have been related in 

.-!• • ., -t i -\ j* ',i t> Ti -r»ii i Domestic disturbances 

their main points clearly and faithfully. But because we have 
merely a collection of stories recording the great acts of particular families and 
individuals, and in each of these the glory of its own hero, and not truth, was 
the object : even matters the most public and easy to be ascertained are so dis- 
guised, that nothing beyond the bare fact that there was a disturbance, and that 
it was at length appeased, is common to the various narratives. 41 The pane- 
gyrists of the Valerian family claimed the glory of putting an end to the contest 
for M. Valerius Corvus, who was, they said, specially appointed dictator ; while 
the stories of the Marcian and Servilian families said that every thing had been 
done by the two consuls, C. Marcius Rutilus, and Q. Servilius. One account 
represented the affair as a secession of the Roman commons, another described 
it as a mutiny of the army in Campania. The story which most of the annalists 
afterwards adopted, taking only the latter view of the case, and thinking that 
mutinous soldiers ought not to benefit by their mutiny, told only how they were 
pardoned for their crime, and how they obtained 42 no more than one or two insig- 
nificant concessions, which in no respect compromised the dignity of the gov- 
ernment. But other accounts 43 preserved the memory of a secession headed by 
a tribune of the commons, and winning some of the most important constitu- 

59 Livy, VII. 38. "Hujus certaminis fortu- must not suppose that the "ancient authors" 

na. . . Latinos, jam exercitibus comparatis, ab here spoken of were contemporary with these 

Eomano in Pelignum vertit bellum." This can times ; they were but the annalists of the sixth 

only mean that the Latins directed their main and seventh centuries of Rome, who followed 

force against the northern side of the Samnite each the traditions and memorials of a different 

confederacy, moving by the lake Fucinus upon family. Livy himself, in another place, VIII. 

Sulmo, and the country of the Pelignians, and 40, deplores the want of all contemporary wri- 

thus threatening Samnium on the rear. ters for the times of the Samnite wars, as one 

40 See the Fasti Capitolini. great cause of the hopeless confusion in which 

""Adeo nihil," says Livy, " praeterquam the story of those wars was involved, 

seditionem fuisse, eamque compositam, inter 42 Livy, VII. 41. 

antiquos rerum auctores constat." VII. 42. "We 43 Livy, VII. 42. 



256 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVIII. 

tional points which had ever ye# been agitated ; nay, they told how it forced 
from the patricians that which above all things they would be most loth to 
yield, both on public grounds and on private, — a general abolition of debts. 44 
The truth, however, in this instance, seems not difficult to disentangle. In 

spite of the successive lowerings of the rate of interest, there was 
nmtini™ y nmi nmrches a large amount of debt undischarged, because there had been no 

change for the better in the circumstances of the commons at 
large to enable them to pay off even the principal of what they owed. A mul- 
titude of men thus involved, many of them perhaps actually nexi, were kept on 
foreign service during the winter, a thing in itself extremely galling to them, and 
were quartered in the towns of Campania, where they witnessed a state of lux- 
ury such as they could never have conceived before. Nothing is more proba- 
ble 45 than that they should have longed to appropriate those wealthy cities to them- 
selves, to establish themselves at Capua, as their fathers, forty years before, 
would have fain done at Veii, and to make the Campanians their subjects, the 
commons of a state in which they themselves would be the burghers. Stories 
of their design were carried to Rome, and the commons there feeling that they 
too had their share of distress, proposed also to seek their remedy. Before the 
plans of the soldiers were yet ripe, attempts were made by their officers to break 
up their combinations, and detachments of those who were most suspected were 
ordered home, as if they were.no longer wanted in Campania. But these, when 
they came to Lautulae, a narrow pass between the sea and the mountains close 
t*o Tarracina, concerted their measures with the cohort which was there in gar- 
rison, and openly refused to obey their commanders. The example once set be- 
came contagious; the mass of the soldiers quartered in Campania joined the 
revolters, and all marched together 46 towards Rome, releasing on their way all 
the bondmen debtors whom they found working as slaves on their creditors' 
lands, till their number was swelled to 20,000 men. 

They halted on the slope of the Alban hills, near Bovillaa, fortified a regular 

camp, plundered the country as if it belonged to an enemv, 41 and 

The commons nse at . l , L . . m ,~. J . , . . ■, • n 1 

Rome. m. Valerius seized upon a patrician, T. Quinctms, at his tarm or country-house 
near Tusculum, and forced him to become their leader. The com- 
mons at Rome waited no longer ; they too rose ; they too laid hold on a patri- 
cian, C. Manlius, loving the name of their old champion and martyr M. Manlius : 
they marched out of the city, and established themselves in a spot four miles 
distant from the walls. Even now the patricians were not left helpless ; besides 
themselves and their clients, a numerous body, they would on this occasion be 

44 Auctor de Viris Illustrious, inValer.Corvo. the S'amians (Herodotus, VI. 23), as showing 

Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. I. § 2. that such acts were practised even by Greeks 

46 Perhaps I ought hardly to have expressed towards Greeks, at a period when manners had 
myself so strongly as to the probability of this been as little corrupted by luxury and skepti- 
part of the story, since Niebubr considers it cism as they were at this time at Rome ; whore- 
undeserving of credit. But Wachsmuth has as the Campanians were no countrymen of the 
well observed, that the eager desire of the com- Romans, and therefore, according to the too 
mons to settle at Veii, proves sufficiently that prevailing notions of the ancient world, were 
they had no invincible attachment to Rome as entitled to far less consideration. 
their native country: he adds, withno less truth. 40 Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. I. § 1. The per- 
"that a people whose innocence is the fruit of sons whom he speaks of as iitl tG»> epywv iv rots 
ignorance rather than of principle, is little able dypo7s SeSephovs, must have been debtors work- 
to resist the first Btrong temptation." How ing as slaves on the "possessiones" of their pa- 
great were the excesses of the Spartans after tncian creditors, on such portions of land lately 
the Peloponnesian war, when opportunities of conquered from the Volscions as had been oc- 
indulgence were first ottered to them! And cupied in the usual manner by individuals, 
why should we conceive that the Roman com- Foreign-purehased slaves must nave been too 
mons were men of greater simplicity of man- rare at Rome at this period, to have been em- 
ners than the Samnites-, who had formerly ployed in great numbere as agricultural labor- 
seized Capua in a similar manner, when they ers": and, in fact, the slaves who were con- 
were inhabiting it jointly with the Etruscans? lined to work in the workhouses of the patri- 
Compaiv also the stories* of the forcible occupa- cians in these early times, are always described 
tion of Smyrna by some Colophonies exiles as insolvent debtors. 

who hail been hospitably received there (Hero- 47 " A> prasdatoribus vagis quidam comper- 

dotus I. 150); an.l tjl' the seizure of Zanele by turn adtulerunt," &c. — Livy, Vil. 39. 



Chap. XXVIII] M. VALERIUS DICTATOR. 257 

joined by all the noblest and richest of the commons, and by many, perhaps, of 
the best men even among the less wealthy, who would view with horror the dis- 
obedience of the soldiers, and the breach of their military oath. They prepared 
to put down the revolt ; yet, not trusting to force alone, they named as dictator 
M. Valerius Corvus, the most popular man in Rome, born of a house whose 
members had ever befriended the commons, himself in the vigor of youth, 48 
scarcely thirty, yet already old in glory, and now in the full renown of his recent 
victories over the Samnites. The dictator proceeded to meet the soldiers from 
Campania ; the consuls were left to deal with the commons who had seceded 
from the city. 

But when the opposing parties 49 approached each other, and citizens were seen 
arrayed in order of battle against citizens, all shrunk alike from Reconciliation of tha 
bringing their contests to such an issue, and with a sudden revul- contendiD & P artiea - 
sion of feeling the soldiers, instead of joining battle, first welcomed each other 
with friendly greetings, then, as they drew nearer, they grasped each other's 
hands, till at last, amidst mutual tears and expressions of remorse, they rushed 
into each other's arms. It may well be believed that not Valerius only, but the 
majority of the patricians, were noble enough to rejoice sincerely at this termina- 
tion of the mutiny, although they foresaw that whatever were the demands of the 
soldiers and the commons, it would now be necessary to grant them. 

But the insurgents were also brought to a softer temper, and asked little but 
what might have been given them unasked, as being in itself 
just and reasonable. First, an act of amnesty 50 was passed for the the soldiers, and gram- 
mutiny and the secession, and the dictator entreated the patricians 
and those of the commons who had sided with them, that they would never, 
even in private life, in jest or in earnest, reproach any man with having been 
concerned in these unhappy dissensions. Then there was passed and sworn to, 
with all religious solemnities, 51 a law which the soldiers regarded as their great 
charter, that no man's name who had been once enlisted should be struck off the 
list of the legions without his own consent, and that no one who had once been 
chosen military tribune should be afterwards 52 obliged to serve as a centurion. 
They deprecated the power of striking their names off the list of soldiers, partly 
because it degraded them to an inferior rank, that of the capite censi, who were 

48 He was three and twenty in his first con- he says, insisted that no one who had been once 
sulship (Livy, VII. 40), and he was consul for tribune should afterwards be made centurion, 
the first time in the year 407. — -See Livy, out of dislike to one P. Salonius, who had been 
VII. 26. made almost every other year one or the other. 

49 Livy, VII. 42. Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. and who was obnoxious to them, because he 
I. § 2. This sudden burst of feeling is credible had especially opposed their meeting. Both 
enough ; for civil war seems shocking to men Niebuhr and Wachsmuth suppose, on the con- 
who are little scrupulous in shedding the blood trary, that P. Salonius was a popular man with 
of foreigners, however unjustly. In this re- the soldiers, and that the petition was made in 
spect, it needs the hardness and coldness of a his behalf, to save him from being obliged to 
later stage of society to overcome the natural go on serving in a lower rank, after having once 
shrinking from domestic warfare. The feudal served in a higher. Wachsmuth well compares 
times are, of course, an exception to this ; for the case of Volero Publilius, who complained 
to the isolation and lawlessness of the feudal of being required to serve as a common soldier, 
system the relations of countryman and feUow- after having been once centurion. (Livy, II. 
citizen were almost unknown. 55.) Many motives may have joined, however, 

60 Livy, VII. 41. in suggesting this demand of the soldiers. It 

61 " Lex sacrata militaris." A lex sacrata was a great thing for a deserving soldier, that 
partook of the character of a treaty, and was if once appointed military tribune (six of whom 
sworn to by the two parties between whom it were at this time chosen by the votes of the 
had been agreed to. Thus the term is applied people themselves, Livy, VII. 5), he should be 
only to such laws as settled points most deeply freed from the necessity of serving again, ex- 
affecting the interests of the two orders in the cept in the same or a higher rank. And it was 
state, and were therefore a sort of treaty of a great thing for the mass of the commons, that 
peace between them. Of this sort, besides the promotion should be kept as open as possible, 
famous laws respecting the tribunes of the com- and that it should be necessary every year to 
inons, was the law of Icilius, de Aventino pub- fill up the vacancies among the centurions with 
licando. new men, instead of confining them to a certain 

62 It should be observed, that Livy gives to number of individuals who might pass at plea- 
this petition a different object. The soldiers, sure from one command to another. 

17 



258 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXVIII. 

considered unfit to bear arms ; partly because, whilst they were on military serv- 
ice, they were protected from being personally attached for debts ; and partly, 
also, because service in Campania bore an agreeable aspect, and might furnish a 
poor man with the means of relieving himself from his embarrassments. The law 
about the military tribunes had, probably, various objects ; amongst the rest it 
may have been intended to advance the dignity of that office, which offered to the 
commons the readiest means of acquiring distinction, and thus was a natural step 
to the highest political magistracies. 

Another demand was made in a different spirit ; that the pay of the horsemen 
Terms demanded and or knights should be lowered, they receiving at that period three 
refus,id - times as much as the foot-soldiers. In requiring this the soldiers not 

only wished to reduce the public expenditure, and so to lighten their own taxation, 
but there was also a feeling of enmity towards the knights, who had taken a de- 
cided part against them. But on this point the senate would not yield ; and the 
soldiers, ashamed perhaps of the motives which had led them to ask for it, did 
not press their demand. 53 

While the mutiny of the legions was thus ended, the commons, who had with- 
drawn from the city, returned to their homes again ; and L. Ge- 

Demaods of the com- . K . « , ''. ., i j j i • j i t-i 

mons iu Rome. Tiie nucius, one ot their tribunes, proposed to them in the rorum, 
certain political measures to which, it was understood, the patri- 
cians would offer no opposition. These were, " that no man should be re-elected 
to the same magistracy within ten years, nor hold two magistracies in the same 
year ; and that both consuls might be plebeians, as the Licinian law had de- 
clared that one must be." The multiplication of various offices in the same 
hands is an evil of which we have no instance on record, because we have no lists 
of any of the magistrates of this period, except the consuls only. The frequent 
re-election of the same person to the consulship created an aristocracy within the 
aristocracy, and confined the highest offices to a number of great families ; and 
now that the Licinian law was again observed, it would raise a few plebeian 
houses to an undue distinction, whilst the mass of the commons would be alto- 
gether excluded. It may be observed that C. Marcius, the plebeian consul of 
this very year, was now consul for the fourth time within a period of fifteen years. 
But there was another law passed, which Livy could not endure to record, and 
General abolition of of which we know not who was the proposer : 55 a law whose very name 
debta- all settled societies regarded with horror ; a law which is, indeed, 

like war, an enormous evil, but which in this is most unlike war, that it has never 
been adopted, except when it was really necessary to prevent an evil still greater. 
In order to give the commons an opportunity of rising to a more healthful con- 
dition, they were to be freed once for all from the shackles thrown around them 
by a former period of unavoidable distress : the consequences of the burning of 
the city by the Gauls had never yet been shaken off, nor did it appear likely that 
in the ordinary state of things they ever would be. It was demanded, therefore, 
by the commons, and M. Valerius, it is said, advised compliance with their de- 
mand, that an act of grace should be extended to all debtors, and that their cred- 

63 As the commons were persuaded by Vale- /JovXi) — ras pev tu>v xpwv airoKOTras tyv<P>aaTo ira- 

rius and HoratiuB to abandon their demand for at 'Poiuufoij • rois ii t6tc ^SpoTs (namely, the re- 

tlie summary execution of the decemvirs. — See volteu soldiers), nai a&uav — Sarnnitic. Fragm. I. 

chap. xvi. § 2. There is no mistaking the well-known ex- 

M Niebuhr supposes, not unnaturally, that pression xpwv axoKo-f). — "Num honestnm igi- 

this Gcnucius IicIoiil'vcI t<> I lie family of the trib- tur," asks Cicero with respect tO< 'asm- when he 

un'e GenuciuB, who was murdered by the oris- had just heard of his crossing the Rubicon, 

tocracy in the year 281. — See p. <>">. He was " xpt&v airoKOTruj, fvydbuv Ka96iovs, Bexcenta alia 

also, in all probability, of the same family with Bceiera moliri, 

the plebeian consuls of the years 385, 387, and t>iv QtSiv ftcyicrtjii war' c\^v Tvpavi'liaV 1 

888. Ad Atticum, VII. 11. 

66 It is attested by Appian ; who, as Niebuhr The expression in the Soman writer is no less 

thinks, copied this part of his work from l)io- decisive. M. Valerius, he says, " sublato sere 

nysius; and by the little work De Viris lllus- alieno, scditionem compressit." 
tribus. Appiau's worda are plain enough : /} 



Chap. XXVIII] PEACE BETWEEN ROME AND SAMNIUM. 259 

itors should not be permitted to enforce payment. In other words, all those 
who had pledged their personal freedom for the payment of their debts (nexi) 
were released from their bond ; nor could the praetor give over to his creditor's 
power, addicere, any debtor who had refused, or might refuse, to enter into such 
an engagement. Thus the burden of actual debts was taken away ; and to pre- 
vent the pressure of an equal burden hereafter, even the lowest rate of interest 
was declared illegal, and any man who received more than the actual sum which 
he had lent was liable to restore it fourfold. 

This was a sort of national bankruptcy, yet surely it wore the mildest features 
of that evil, and in some respects did not deserve the name. The It8 noces9ity and j llst . 
nation itself broke no faith ; but it required one portion of its citi- lce- 
zens to sacrifice their strict legal rights in favor of another portion for the com- 
mon benefit of all. It was doing on a large scale and under the pressure of ur- 
gent necessity, what we see done every day on a smaller scale for an object, not 
of necessity, but of expediency ; when individuals are forced to sell their property 
at a price fixed by others, in order to facilitate the execution of a canal or a rail- 
way. The patricians were, in like manner, obliged to part with the money which 
had been advanced as a loan either by themselves or by their fathers ; and the 
compensation which they received was the continued existence of a state of so- 
ciety fraught to them above all their fellow-citizens with the highest means of 
happiness : they lost their money to preserve their country. Had such a sacri- 
fice been made to the indolence, or carelessness, or dishonesty of their debtors, 
it would have been mischievous as a precedent, however urgent the necessity 
which led to it ; but in the present case the debts of the commons had arisen 
out of a common calamity, not occasioned by their fault, nor to be remedied by 
their exertions : their distress, therefore, was fairly entitled to sympathy, and if 
there be any meaning in the term civil society, justice would require that its 
stronger members should bear the burdens of the weaker, and should submit to 
more than their share of the inconveniences of a common misfortune, rather than allow 
it to entail upon their fellow-citizens not inconvenience merely, but absolute ruin. 

The domestic disturbances of this year produced important consequences 
abroad. The whole brunt of the Samnite war devolved on the 
Latins, and they sustained it so ably that their consideration Latins, "peace between 
amongst their allies was greatly increased, and Latium, rather than 
Rome, began to be regarded as the most powerful member of the league. The 
remains of the Volscians, such as the brave people of Privernum, and the Anti- 
atians, together with those more distant tribes of the same stock who bordered 
on Campania, and were known to the Romans under the name of the Auruncans, 
began to gather themselves under the supremacy of Latium, and the Campanians, 
who had good reason to dislike the presence of Roman soldiers in their towns, 
may have hoped to find in a new confederacy, of which the Latins should be the 
head, protection at once against Rome and against the Samnites. Accordingly, 
the Romans felt that it was no time for them to continue their quarrel with Sam- 
nium ; and in the very next year they concluded with the Sam- A . n . c . 414 _ A . c _ 
nites 56 a separate peace. Thus the relations of all these nations 34 °- 
were entirely changed : Rome had connected herself with Samnium, and perhaps 

66 The Eoman story is (Livy, VIII. 1, 2), that ritory on different sides, the Eomans suddenly 

when L. J^milius, the consul, entered the Sam- and treacherously made a separate peace with 

nite territory he found no enemy to oppose him • the common enemy, and withdrew their army : 

that the Samnites humbly sued for peace, and and that, not content with this, they actually 

purchased an armistice to allow them to send entered into an alliance with the Samnites, and 

ambassadors to Eome, by giving the consul a were ready to join them against Latium." — 

year's pay for his army, and three months' al- Compare the extreme dissatisfaction of the for- 

lowance of corn. What would have been the mer allies of Lacedasmon, when she suddenly 

account of a Latin writer ? Would it not have formed her separate treaty with Athens soon 

been something of this sort? "That when the after the conclusion of the peace of Nicias. — 

confederate armies of Eome and Latium were Thucydides, V. 27. 
actually in the field, to invade the Samnite ter- 



260 HISTORY OF EOME. [Chap. XXIX. 

through the Samnites with their neighbors the Marsians and Pelignians ; while, 
on the other side, stood a new confederacy, consisting of the Latins and all the 
people of Opican extraction who lay between them and the Samnite frontier, 
whether known by the name of Volscians, Auruncans, Sidicinians, or Campa- 
nians. In the same manner, after the Peloponnesian war, we find Thebes and 
Corinth, so long the close allies of Lacedaemon, organizing a new confederacy 
against her ; and thus, at a later period, Athens was at one time supporting 
Thebes, and shortly after, having become jealous of her growing power and am- 
bition, joined Lacedsemon against her former ally ; so that in the last campaigns 
of Epaminondas, the free citizens of Athens and the barbarian mercenaries of 
Dionysius the tyrant were fighting in the same ranks in defence of the Spartan 
aristocracy. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE 6EEAT LATIN WAR— BATTLE UNDER MOUNT VESUVIUS— THE PUBLILIAN 

LAWS— FINAL SETTLEMENT OF LATIUM.— A. U. C. 415-117 (410-412 NIEBUHR). 



"Jeme refuse a croire que des peuples confederes puissent lutter long-temps, a egalit6 de 
force, contre une nation ou la puissance gouvernmentale serait centralisee." — De Tocquevelle, 
De la Democratic en Amerique ; Tome I. p. 290. 



Although Rome had concluded a separate peace with Samnium, yet the 
uncertain reintious be- old alliance with the Latins still subsisted in name unbroken. 
t\^ But it could not long remain so ; for the Latins continued the war 

against the Samnites, and might undoubtedly have called upon the Romans to 
aid them, according to the terms of the alliance ; while the Samnites 1 called upon 
the Romans to procure for them peace with Latium also. In fact, the existing 
state of things showed clearly that the relations between Rome and Latium must 
undergo some change ; either the two nations must become wholly separate, or 
more closely united ; if they were to act together at all, some scheme must be 
devised to insure that they should act unanimously. 

The general congress of the Latin cities took upon itself to propose such a scheme ; 
TheLatina mato pro- ar >d the two praetors for the year, L. Annius of Setia, and L. Nu- 
Fw^en Ro r me U and La- niisius of Circeii, magistrates corresponding to the Roman consuls, 
Uum - and retaining the name which the consuls had borne down to 

the time of the decemvirate, were dispatched with ten of the principal deputies 
of the congress, to communicate their proposal to Rome. 2 The substance of it 
was that the two nations should be completely united ; that they should both be 
governed by two consuls or prjetors, one to be chosen from each nation ; that 
there should be one senate, to consist of Romans and Latins in equal proportions ; 

1 Livy's whole narrative proceeds on the as- pleased : that is, in Greek language, they were 

sumptioD that the Latins were the dependent air6Sueoi t or able to give and receive satisfaction 

allies of Borne, and that the war was on their in their own name, without being obliged to 

part a revolt. Now, this is certainly falso, as refer their quarrels to any superior ; one of the 

we know from the terms of the original alliance characteristics of an equal as opposed to a de- 

preserveil h\ Dionysius, V. 61 (see p. 58 of pendent alliance. — See Thucyd. V. 18, 27. I 

this history),' and from the indisputable author- have, therefore, tacitly corrected all Livy's falso 

ity of Cinciua (p. 68, note -li. Livy himself coloring in this matter, and given his facts in 

supplies a refutation of his own story; for he their true light. 
allows expressly, Ylll. 2, that the Latins had a Livy, VIII. 5. 
the right of making war with whom they 



Chap. XXIX.] PROPOSALS OF THE LATINS. 261 

and a third similar provision must have been made for the popular branch of 
the government, so that a number of Latin tribes should be created, equal to 
that of the Roman, and the fifty-four tribes of the two nations should constitute one 
common sovereign assembly. In one point the Latins were willing to yield pre- 
cedence to Rome ; none of their cities was equal to Rome in size or greatness : 
Rome, therefore, was to be the capital of the nation and the seat of government ; 
there the senate should sit, and the assembly of the tribes be held ; the Roman 
Jupiter of the Capitol should be equal to the Latin Jupiter of the mountain of 
Alba; to both should the consuls of the united people offer their vows when 
they first came into office, and to the temples of both should they go up in tri- 
umph, when they returned home from war with victory. 3 

There were probably some in Rome who would have accepted this union 
gladly ; but the general feeling, both of the patricians and of the 

° ^ Pi . Y -i Ti • t • r- These proposals are re- 

commons, was strongly against it. It was viewed as a sacrifice j?oted mth indigna- 
of national independence and national pride. To the Latins, used 
already to a federal government, it was but taking another city into their union ; 
but to the Romans, whose whole political life was centred in Rome, it was ad- 
mitting strangers into the Forum and into the Senate, and allowing the majesty 
of the Roman Jupiter to be profaned by the entrance of a foreigner into his tem- 
ple. Accordingly when the Latin praetors announced their proposal to the sen- 
ate, which had assembled in the Capitol, it was rejected with indignation ; and 
T. Manlius Torquatus, 4 who was one of the newly elected consuls, declared that 
if the senate should be so lost to itself as to receive the law from a man of Setia, 
he would come armed into the senate-house, and would plunge his sword into 
the body of the first Latin whom he saw within its walls. Then he turned to 
the image of the Capitoline Jupiter, and exclaimed : " Hear, Jove, this wick- 
edness ! Wilt thou endure to behold a stranger consul and a stranger senate 
within the sacred precinct of thy temple, as though thou wert thyself vanquished 
and made captive ?" To this the Latin praetor, L. Annius of Setia, made a reply 
which the Romans called insulting to their god. " But Jove," said the Roman 
story, 5 " taught the stranger to repent him of his scorn : for as soon as he had 
spoken his proud words, the lightning flashed and the thunder pealed, and as the 
Latin left the temple in haste, to go down by the hundred steps towards the Forum, 
his foot slipped, and he fell from the top of the steps to the bottom, and his 
head was dashed against a stone, and he died." Some of the annalists, struck 
perhaps by its being a notorious fact that L. Annius commanded the Latin army 
in the war, scrupled to say that he had been killed before its commencement ; 
they said, therefore, that he had only been stunned by his fall : and they said 
nothing of the sudden burst of the lightning and thunder. No doubt, if the tra- 
ditions of the family of L. Annius had been preserved, they would have given a 
different picture of his mission. But whatever were the particulars of it, its result 
is certain ; the proposal for an equal union was rejected, and the sword was to decide 
whether Latium should from henceforth be subject to Rome, or Rome to Latium. 

3 If the Latins really consented, as is not im- festival on the mountain of Alba, as well as to 
probable, to acknowledge Eome as the capital sacrifice to the Eoman Jupiter in the Capitol, 
of the united nation, it accounts for their sub- Livy, XXI. 63, XXII. 1. And, although the 
sequent acquiescence in the settlement made instances are of more rare occurrence, yet we 
by the Eomans after the war, so far as this, that read of Eoman generals triumphing at the 
it shows their willingness to waive the mere Mons Albanus, and going iip in solemn proces- 
feeling as to the name of their country, and sion by the Via Triumphalis to the temple of 
their consciousness that Eome was so superior the Latin Jupiter, as they went up usually by 
to every other Latin city, as to be fairly entitled the Via Sacra to the Capitol. We cannot im- 
to be the head of the united nation. What I agine, therefore, that the Latins, when pro- 
have added in the text respecting the Jupiter posing a perfectly equal union, should have con- 
of the mountain of Alba, seems warranted by sented to assign less honors to their national 
the actual practice of later times, even after the god, than he enjoyed even when they were be- 
Latins were in a state of acknowledged inferi- come dependent, 
ority to Eome. It is well known, that one of 4 Livy, VIII. 5. 
the consul's first duties after entering upon B Livy, VIII. 6. 
his office, was to offer sacrifice at the great Latin 



262 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX. 

The Romans, however, had made up their minds to this issue before the} 7 heard 
The Romana prepare the proposals of the Latin ambassadors. They were anxious to 
ind p?DecL are n ap- engage in the war at a moment when they might be assisted by 
ported consul*. the w h ] e f orce f the Samnites : the Latins, on the other hand, 

would gladly have reduced Samnium to submission before they came to an open 
breach with Rome. Resolved, therefore, on the struggle, and well aware of its 
importance, the Romans wished to anticipate the election of the new consuls, 6 
that they might have more time for their preparations before the usual season for 
military operations arrived, which, as we have seen, was not till after the harvest. 
Accordingly, the consuls of the year 409 were required by a decree of the sen- 
ate to resign their office before the end of their year, the middle of the summer, 
and two men of the highest military reputation were appointed to succeed them. 
One of these was T. Manlius Torquatus, renowned in his youth, like Valerius 
Corvus, for having slain a gigantic Gaul in single combat, and no less remarkable 
for a force of character, such as is best fitted for the control of great emergen- 
cies, when what in ordinary life is savageness becomes often raised and sobered 
into heroism. He had been consul only four years before ; but a special act, we 
must suppose, dispensed in his case with the recent provisions of the Genucian 
law. His colleague was the deliverer of the Roman army from its imminent peril 
in Samnium in the first campaign of the late war, and a man no less distinguished 
nine years earlier for his moderation and equity as one of the five commissioners 
appointed to relieve the commons from the burden of their debts, 7 the famous P. 
Decius Mus. 

The Romans had good reason to prepare earnestly for the coming contest ; for 
importance of the con- never had they been engaged in one so perilous. With two or 
'"'• three exceptions all the Latin cities were united against them ; not 

all indeed with equal determination, but still all were their enemies. Tusculum, 8 
whose true friendship they had so long experienced ; Lavinium, the sacred city, 
which contained the holy things reported to have been brought by JEneas from 
Troy ; Setia, Cerceii, and Sigma, Roman colonies, were now joined with the mass 
of the Latin nation, Avith Tibur and Praeneste, with Pedum, Nomentum, and Ari- 
cia. The Latin nobles were personally known to those of Rome, and in many 
instances connected with them by mutual marriages ; the two nations speaking 
the same language, with the same manners, institutions, and religious rites, trained 
with the same discipline to the use of the same arms, were bound moreover to 
each other by the closeness of their long alliance ; their soldiers had constantly 
served in the same camp, and almost in the same tents ; the several parts of 
their armies 9 had constantly been blended together ; legions, cohorts, and mani- 
ples had been made up of Romans and Latins in equal proportions ; the sol- 
diers, centurions, and tribunes of both nations were thus familiar with each other's 
faces : and each man would encounter and recognize in his enemy an old and 
tried comrade. 

" The Romans and Latins," says Livy, 10 " were alike in every thing, except in 
their courage." This is an unworthy slander. Even nations of dif- 

The Latm military - IV i • i i J * 

character not inferior lerent race, and climate, and institutions, when long trained to- 
gether under a common system of military discipline, and accus- 
tomed to fight side by side in the same army, lose all traces of their original 
disparity. But what the Latins were, we know from the rank which they held 

6 Livy, VIII. 2. the Lavinians; and their disposition is evident 

7 " Qcunqueviri mcnsarii." See Livy, VII. from Livy's own story, VIII. 11. Theprsetors 
21. of the whole nation lor the first year of the war 

8 Geminus Metius, who was slain by the came from Setia and Circeii, ami they are es- 
young T. Manlius, commanded the horsemen pecially said to have induced Signia to join the 
of Tusoulum. — Livy, VIII, 7. Lavinium, ac- confederacy. 

cording to Livy, took no (.art in the first cam- ■ Livy, \"'III.7. 8. 

paign, but the Fasti Capitolini .-ays that the 1U •• Aileo nihil apud Latinos diaBonum ab 

consul Micuius, in the year 417, triumphed over Romana re prater animos crat." — VIII. 8. 



Chap. XXIX.] ALLIES OF ROME. 263 

amongst the nations of Italy, and from the families which they afterwards fur- 
nished to Rome, when it became their common country. The Latins were able to 
contend on equal terms with the Samnites and Volscians, with the countrymen 
of C. Pontius and C. Marius. From Latium Rome received the Fulvii, 11 a family 
marked at once with all the great and all the bad qualities of the Roman aris- 
tocracy ; and what Roman house could ever boast of brighter specimens of every 
Roman virtue than the Latin house of the Catos of Tusculum ? The issue of the 
contest was not owing to the superior courage of the Romans, but to the inhe- 
rent advantages possessed by a single powerful state when contending against a 
confederacy whose united strength she can all but balance alone, while to each 
of its separate members she is far superior. 

With the Latins were joined, as we have seen, the Camr inians, the Sidicinians, 
the Auruncans, and the Volscians, including under this name the The Latin confederacy, 
various remnants of that people, the Antiatians on the coast, and and its weftknessos - 
the several tribes or cities in the valley of the Liris. Laurentum, Ardea, and 
perhaps Lanuvium, 12 alone of all the Latin cities took part with Rome : Fundi 
and Formiae stood aloof from the rest of their Volscian countrymen and remained 
neutral, allowing a free passage to the Roman armies through their territory. 13 
It was a more remarkable circumstance, and one of ill omen for the unanimity 
and perseverance of the Latin confederacy, that the knights 14 or aristocracy of 
Capua, whether of Samnite extraction, or of mixed blood, Samnite, Etruscan, 
and Opican, protested as a body against the war with Rome, although for the 
present the influence of the Latin party overbore their opposition. But it was evi- 
dent that on the first reverses they would regain their ascendency, and hasten to 
withdraw their countrymen from the league. We have also indications 16 of a Roman 
party in some of the cities of the Latins ; and it is impossible to suppose that 
Tusculum in particular should not have contained many zealous supporters of the 
old alliance with Rome. Probably the Roman and anti- Roman parties were in 
most places more or less identical with the aristocracy and the party of the com- 
mons ; and already, as in the second Punic war, Rome was regarded by the 
Italian aristocracies as the greatest bulwark of their ascendency. 

With Rome were united some few Latin towns, 16 some of her own colonies, 17 
her old allies the Hernicans, and above all the Samnites and their Allies of Rome. 

11 L. Fulvius, who was consul in the year when their cause was almost desperate. But I 
427, had been chief magistrate ol'Tusculum only am not sure that the mistake is not to be as- 
the very year before he was consul at Eome. — cribed to Livy himself rather tban to* his copy- 
Pliny, Hist. Natur. VII. 43. Ed. Venet. 1559. ists : for it seems a just remark of Draken- 

12 I agree with Mebuhr and with Sigonius, borch's that Livy calls the people of Laviniurn 
that in Livy's narrative, VIII. 12, 13, Lavinio not Lavinii, but Laurentes, as if he had con- 
and Laviniis should be restored instead of La- fused the two towns together. Yet "Lau- 
nuvio and Lanuvinis. It is not only that the rentes," in VIII. 11, must mean the people of 
Fasti Capitolini name the people of Lavinium Laurentum, not of Lavinium, from a compar- 
and not of Lanuvium as those over whom the ison with Livy's own statement about Lavini- 
consul Masnius triumphed, or that several MSS. um in the beginning of the same chapter ; and 
of Livy support the correction ; but in the set- that the two names really belong to two distinct 
tlement of Latium the Lanuvians are named places is proved by their being both found in 
apart, as if they had been treated with singular the list of the thirty Latin towns given by 
favor, which is scarcely to be conceived, if they Dionysius, V. 61. 

had been among the last of the Latins to re- J3 Livy, VIII. 14. 

main in arms. And that they were favorably 14 Livy, VIII. 11. 

treated appears also from the famous article 15 The" Komans received information of the 

"Municipium" in Festus, where they are class- hostile designs of the Latins, says Livy, "per 

ed along with the people of Fundi, Forrnise, and quosdam privatis hospitiis necessitudinibusque 

others, who we know were thought worthy of conjunctos." These, like the npdfevoi in Greece, 

reward rather than punishment. Besides, Livy would undoubtedly form a party disposed to 

himself tells us that the Antiatians in the year Borne, whose influence would be felt as soon as 

415 ravaged the district called Solonius (VIII. the fortune of the war turned against the Latins. 

12), and we know from Cicero, de Livinatione, 16 The lands of the Ardeatians were ravaged 

I. 3*i, that this district was a part of the terri- by the Antiatians in 415 (Livy, VIII. 12). Ardea, 

tory of Lanuvium. It is certain, therefore, that therefore, must have been at that time in alli- 

Lauuvium must have been friendly to Borne at ance with Bome. 

that time, and if so, it is not conceivable that 17 iSuchas Ostia, whose lands were also rav- 

she could afterwards have joined the Latins, aged by the Antiatians in 415. (Livy, ibid..) 



264 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX. 

confederacy, including, it is probable, the warlike nations of the Marsians and 
the Pelignians. 

When the Latins sent the two praetors aS ambassadors to Rome, it is evident 
that no active warfare could be going on in Campania. Latin gar- 

The Romans commence . ., iii • jiil 1 i t • • i 

the war unexpectedly, risons had probably wintered there to repel plundering parties ol 

and both o nauls march 10 . ViTx- 1 i -i 1 ■ i 

through samnium into the feamnites ; and the Latin army would march thither as soon 

Campania. . „ ... • * . ,.. 

as the season lor military operations arrived, to renew their inva- 
sion of Samnium. No expectation seems to have been entertained that their 
proposal of an equal union would be answered by an immediate declaration of 
war. Certain it is that the breach of the old alliance was far more to be charged 
on the Romans than on them ; for the Romans had deserted them in the midst 
of a war jointly undertaken by the two nations, and had made peace with the 
common enemy ; and the Campanians, who had originally joined the alliance to 
obtain protection against the Samnites, had no choice but to follow the Latins, as 
from them alone was that protection now to be hoped for. But the opportunity 
was tempting, and the Romans, taking advantage 18 of the earliness of the season, 
when the Latins might scarcely be prepared for active operations, hastily declared 
war, and dispatched both consuls with two consular armies, not by the direct road 
into Campania by Tarracina or by the Liris, but by a circuitous route at the back 
of their enemies' country, through the territory of the Marsians and Pelignians 19 
into Samnium. There the consuls were joined by the Samrate army ; and their 
combined forces then descended from the mountains of Samnium, and encamped 
in presence of the enemy in the plain of Capua, with a retreat open into the 
country of the Samnites on their rear, but with the whole army and territory of 
the hostile confederacy interposed between them and Rome. 

"While the Romans and Latins lay here over against each other, the consuls 
The son of t. Maniius issued an order 20 strictly forbidding all irregular skirmishing, or 
toa^toWs&Ss"?- single encounters with the enemy. They wished to prevent the 
ders, and is executed, confusion which might arise in chance combats between two par- 
ties alike in arms and in language ; perhaps also they wished to stop all inter- 
course with the Latins, lest the enemy should discover their real strength, or 
lest old feelings of kindness should revive in the soldiers' minds, and they should 
begin to ask whether they had any sufficient grounds of quarrel. It was on this 
occasion that T. Maniius, the consul's son, was challenged by Geminus Metius, 
of Tusculurn ; 21 and, heedless of the order of the generals, he accepted the chal- 
lenge and slew his antagonist. The young man returned in triumph to the camp, 
and laid his spoils at his father's feet ; but the consul, turning away from him, 
immediately summoned the soldiers to the prastorium, and ordered his son to be 
beheaded before them. All were struck with horror at the sight, and the younger 
soldiers, from a natural sympathy with youth and courage, regarded the consul 

18 When we consider that the usual season for again "with effect, even after it has been often 

hostilities at this period was the autumn, it may told before, if we have received it from an ori- 

be doubted whether the Latin army ■which fought ginal and independent source; because If 

under Vesuvius was mo/e than that force which twenty eye-witnesses give an account of the 

had wintered in Campania to garrison the sev- same event, the impression which it has made 

oral towns, and as such very inferior in num- on each of them will have been different, and, 

bei-s to the tw nsular armies of the Romans, therefore, each will tell the story in his own way, 

The rapid march ofthe consuls through the cen- and it will contain something new and original. 

tral countries of Italy max lia\ e been unknown But when we derive all our knowledge from one 

to the Latins, and tneir sudden appearance in single account, and that account has been once 

Campania in conjunction with the Samnites may perfectly given, there is nothing to be done by 

have been as startling a surprise to the enemy, later writers but to copy it, or simply to state 

as that of Claudius Nero to Hasdruba] after his its substance. Thus it is with 1, ivy's famous 

admirable march from Bruttium to join his col- description of the condemnation of T. Maniius 

league on the Motaurus ; or as that of Napoleon by his father; the story cannot he better told 

to the Aiistriaiis when the army ol' reserve than he has told it. ami we have no means <>( 

broke out from the V*a] d' Aosta on the plains adding to it orvarying it from other original 

ofLombardj in the campaign of 1800. sources. 1 have therefore followed Niebuhrin 

ig Livy, VIII. <i. simply Btating its outline; for the finished pia- 

80 Livy, VI II. tl. ture the reader must consult Livy himself. 

21 Livy, V11I. 7. The same story may he told 



A 



Chap. XXIX.] BATTLE UNDER MOUNT VESUVIUS. 265 

with abhorrence to the latest hour of his life ; but fear and respect were mingled 
with their abhorrence, and strict obedience, enforced by so dreadful an example, 
was felt by all to be indispensable. 

The stories which we are obliged to follow, shifting their scene as rapidly and 
unconnectedly as our old drama, transport the two armies without 

J ' Sr. The two armies meet 

a word of explanation from the neighborhood of Capua to the root ^oMon nt of V Se v Ri 
of Mount Vesuvius, where, on the road which led to Veseris, ac- j™ generals to devote 

7 ' ■ ■ l 1 • • i 1 themselves to death tor 

cording; to their own way of expressing it, the decisive battle was the victory of their 

o J x o a • a country. 

fought. What Veseris was, 22 or where it was situated, on which 
side of Vesuvius the action took place, or what had brought the two armies 
thither, are questions to which we can give no answers. But he who had been 
present at the last council held by the Roman generals before they parted to take 
their respective stations in the line, might have seen that, having planned for the 
coming battle all that skill and ability could devise, they were ready to dare all 
that the most heroic courage could do or suffer : the aruspices had been con- 
sulted 23 as to the import of the signs given by the entrails of the sacrifice : their 
answers had been made known to the principal officers of the army ; and with it 
the determination of the consuls, that, on whichever side of the battle the Ro- 
mans should first begin to give ground, the consul who commanded in that quar- 
ter should forthwith devote himself, and the hosts of the enemy with himself, to 
the gods of death and to the grave : " for fate," said they, " requires the sacri- 
fice of a general from one party, and of an army from the other : one of us, there- 
fore, will be the general that shall perish, that the army which is to perish also 
may be not ours, but the army of the Latins." 

We have seen that the arms and tactic of both armies were precisely similar. 
In each there were two grand divisions, the first forming the ordi- simil ar dispositions of 
nary line of battle, and the second the reserve; the latter being, botharmie8 - 
in point of numbers, considerably the strongest. 24 The first division, however, 
was subdivided into two equal parts, the first of which, known by the name of 
the Hastati, consisted of light and heavy armed soldiers, in the proportion of one- 
third of the former to two-thirds of the latter ; the second part, called the Prin- 
cipes, contained the flower of the whole army, all heavy-armed men, in the vigor 
of their age, and most perfectly and splendidly accoutred. The reserve, forming 
in itself a complete army, contained a threefold subdivision ; one-third of it was 
composed of veteran heavy-armed soldiers, the Triarii ; another third of light- 
armed, Rorarii ; and the remainder were mere supernumeraries, Accensi, who. 
were destined to supply the places of those who should have fallen in the first 
line, or to act with the reserve in cases of the last extremity. These divisions 
being the same in both armies, the generals on either side knew precisely the 
force and nature of the enemy's reserve, and could calculate the movements of 
their own accordingly. 

The tactic of the Romans was, at this period, in an intermediate state, between 
the use of the order of the phalanx, with the round shield and pike, Tactic of the Romiln i e _ 
and the loose array of the later legion, with the large oblong shield, s ionatthis P eiiod - 
sword, and pilum, such as it is described by Polybius. But the want of all co- 

22 " Apud Veserirn fluvium," is the expres- the dead, and earth, the mother of all, claimed 

sion of the author " de Viris Illustrious" twice as their victims the general of one party, and 

over, in his notices of P. Decius and of T. Man- the army of the other: the consuls then sacri- 

lius. Cicero twice mentions the name, but sim- ficed, to see whether the sign observed in the 

ply says " ad Veserirn." There is no stream at entrails of the victim would speak the same 

present on either side of Vesuvius which will language as their vision. 

answer the description ; but it is scarcely pos- •* See the famous description of the legion at 

sible to calculate the changes effected in the ge- this period in Livy, VIII. 8, and Niebuhr's coin- 

ography of a country by volcanic action during ments upon it, Vol. I. p. 497, &c. Ed. 2, 1827, 

a period of so many centuries. and Vol. III. p. 110, &c. The first line, com- 

^ 3 Livy, VIII. 6. Both consuls, said the story, prising the hastati and principes, contained in 

had seen in the night the same vision ; a figure each legion only 1890 men ; the reserve, eon- 

of more than human stature and majesty ap- sisting of the triarii, rorarii, and accensi, arnount- 

peared to them, and told them that the gods of ed to 2790. 



266 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXIX 



temporary accounts of this middle period makes it exceedingly difficult to com- 
prehend it clearly. Reserving, therefore, for another place all minute inquiries 
into the subject, I shall here only take for granted some of the principal points, 
so far as they are essential to a description of the battle. 

The Roman and Latin legions were, as we have seen, opposed to each other, 
order of battle of both The Sammtes and Hernicans, who formed one wing of the Roman 
armies. army, must, in like manner, have been opposed to the nations of 

their own or of a kindred stock, the Campanians, Sidicinians, and Volscians. 

Of the Roman line itself, the legions on the right were commanded by Titus 
Manlius, 25 those on the left by Publius Decius. 

The battle began with the encounter of the hastati, who formed on each side, 
Battle under Mount ve- as we have seen, the first division of the first line. Consisting both 
8uviu9 - of light and heavy armed soldiers, they closed with each other 

with levelled pikes, amidst showers of darts from their light-armed men, who 
either skirmished in the intervals between the maniples of the pikemen, or, shel- 
tered behind them, threw their missiles over the heads of their comrades into the 
line of the enemy. 

In this conflict the right wing of the Latins prevailed, and the Roman hastati 
Roman first ike in dis- °f the left wing fell back in disorder upon the principes, who formed 
crder - what may be called the main battle. 

Decius then called aloud for M. Valerius, 25 the pontifex maximus. " The gods," 
p.Decius devotes wm. he said, " must help us now ;" and he made the pontifex dictate 
6elf - to him the form of words in which he was to devote himself and 

the legions of the enemy to the gods of death. It should be remembered that 
to Decius, as one of the commons, all the ceremonies of the Roman religion were 
an unknown mystery. The pontifex bade him take his consular toga, 27 and wrap 



25 Livy, VII. 9. 

56 Who this M. Valerius was, we know not; 
whether it was the M. Valerius Poplicola, who 
was consul in 400 and 402, or M. Valerius Cor- 
vus, who had been already three times consul 
and once dictator, and of whom Pliny relates, 
that in the* course of his long life, he was ap- 
pointed to curule offices no fewer than one and 
twenty times. Hist. Natur. VII. 48. 

27 "Togam praatextam sumere jussit ;" "su- 
mere," because it was not commonly worn in bat- 
tle. The form of words in which Decius devo- 
ted himself ran as follows : " Thou, Janus, thou, 
Jupiter, thou, Mars, our father, thou, Quirinus, 
thou, Bellona ; ve, Lares, ye, the nine sods, ye, 
the gods of our fathers' land, ye, the gods whose 
power disposes both of us and of our enemies, 
and ye also gods of the dead, 1 pray you, I hum- 
lily beseech you, I crave, and doubt not to re- 
ceive tin's grace from you, that ye would pros- 
per the people of Borne and the Quirites with 
all might and victory; and that ye would visit 
the enemies of the people of Rome and of the 
Quirites with terror, with dismay, and with 
death. And, according to these words which 
I have spoken, so do l now, on the behalf of 
the -commonwealth of the Roman people and the 
Quirites, on the behalf of the army, both the le- 
gions and the foreign aids, of the Soman peo- 
ple and the Quirites, devote tie- legions and the 
foreign aids of our enemies, alone with myself, 

to the gods ol'the dead, and tO the grave." No 

one can doubt the genuineness of this prayer, 
which, together with the rules to be observed 
in these solemn devotions, Livj has copied, lie 
tells us, "verbis ipsis, ul > tradita auneupataque 
sunt:" VIII. 11; where "tradita," 1 may ob- 
serve, does not refer to any oral tradition, but 
to the pontifical books: just as Cyprian, where 
he appeals to " traditio apostolica," means to 



refer to the apostolical writings in the New Tes- 
tament. Livy himself may have copied the 
prayer immediately from one of the older an- 
nalists, either from Fabins Pietor, from whom 
Gellius quotes one or two similar notices of an- 
cient religious observances, or from L. Cincius, 
whose treatise "de Re Militari" contained the 
form used by the Fetiales in declaring war, and 
that of the military oath. See Gellius, XVI. 4. 
Varro also was fond of recording ancient forms, 
carmina, in their own words ; of which we have 
several instances in that almost solitary rem- 
nant of his voluminous works which has reached 
our times, his work on the Latin language. 
Forms of all sorts, and laws, may be relied on 
as perfectly genuine, even when ascribed to a 
period the history of which is good for nothing. 
To notice more particularly the prayer of De- 
cius, it may be seen that it addresses Janus he- 
fore all other gods, even before Jupiter himself; 
in evident agreement with that ancient rite of 
opening the sates of Janus at the beginning oi 
a war, which implied that he was in an especial 
manner the god whom the Romans wished 
to go out with them to battle. See p. 4. Mars 
Pater, like the Zeis and 'Au-oAAwi' nitTpi7>o$, has a 
manifest reference to the legend of the birth of 
Romulus. As a sod of war. Mars, 1 should ima- 
gine, was of a later date in Italy than Jan us; 
Mi-, at any rate, that the two gods came to the 
Romans from different quarters. Virgil speaks 
of the opening of the gates of Janus as a Latin 
rite, older than the origin of Rome. The " la- 
res" here Bpoken of, would he, 1 suppose, 'Ma- 
res militares" (see Orelli's Inscriptions, No. 
L665), "lares," as is well known, being a gener- 
al title, and denoting powers, or mighty ones; 
their particular character and office being ex- 
pressed by a particular title, or implied 1>\ the 
nature of the case. Thus L. iEmilius, in the 



Chap. XXIX.] P. DECIUS DEVOTES HIMSELF TO DEATH. 267 

it round his head, putting out his hand from under it, to hold it to his face, and 
to set his feet upon a javelin, and so to utter the set words which he should dic- 
tate. When they had been duly spoken, the consul sent his lictors to his col- 
league, to say that he had devoted himself to death for the deliverance of the 
Roman army. Then, with his toga wrapped around his body, after the fashion 
adopted in sacrifices to the gods, he sprung upon his horse, armed at all points, 28 
plunged amidst the ranks of the enemy, and was slain. Such an example of self- 
devotion in a general is in all cases inspiriting ; but the Romans beheld in this 
not only the heroic valor of Decius, but the certain devotion of their enemies to 
the vengeance of the gods ; what was due from themselves to the powers of death 
Decius had paid for them ; so, like men freed from a burden, they rushed on with 
light and cheerful hearts, as if appointed to certain victory. 

The Latins, too, understood the meaning of Decius' death, when they saw his 
dress and heard his words of devotion ; and no doubt it produced t^ main battles on 
on their minds something of dismay. But, soon recovering, the botliside s ^"go- 
main battles on both sides closed in fierce onset ; and though the light troops of 
the Roman reserve were also brought into action, and skirmished amongst the 
maniples of the hastati and principes, yet victory seemed disposed to favor the 
Latins. 

In this extremity Manlius, well knowing that in a contest so equal the last re- 
serve brought into the field on either side would inevitably decide 
the day, still kept back the veterans of his second line, and called eides the' fa" 96 ©? the 
forward only his accensi or supernumeraries, whom, for this veiy 
purpose, he had, contrary to the usual custom, furnished with complete arms. 
The Latins mistook these for the veterans, or triarii, and thinking that the last 
reserve of the Romans was now engaged, they instantly brought up their own. 
The Romans struggled valiantly, but at last were beginning to give way, when, 
at a signal given, the real reserve of the Roman veterans started forwards, ad- 
vanced through the intervals of the wavering line in front of them, and with loud 
cheers charged upon the enemy. Such a shock at such a moment was irresisti- 
ble ; they broke through the whole army of the Latins almost without loss ; the 

war with Antioclius, when engaged in a sea- prayer, to show that the Eomans did not treat 

fight with the enemy, vowed to build a temple them with that irreverence which the Latin am- 

to the lares permarini, or "the powers or genii hassador had manifested towards the Jupiter 

of the deep." Livy, XL. 52. Macrobius, Sat- of the Capitol. 

urnalia, I. 10. Muller, Etrusker, Vol. II. p. Lastly, to end this long note, it has been 

129, conf. p. 91. The war lares, to whom Decius doubted what is the meaning of the expression, 

prayed, are, apparently, the same powers that "veniam peto feroque," which occurs in the 

are represented on two Etruscan tombs, engra- prayer of Decius. I think the true interpreta- 

vings of which are given by Micali in the plates tion of " fero" is " nanciscor ;" and that as some 

accompanying his history, PI. 105, 106. They have understood it (see the note on the words in 

are winged figures, male and female, who are Bekker's Livy), the words are added as of good 

present in a battle, taking part with the several omen, " the grace which I crave I feel sure that 

combatants. I shall also obtain ;" in the well-known future 

The " nine gods," " dii novensiles," are prob- sense of the present tense, in which " fero" sig- 

ably the nine gods of the Etruscan religion, nifies, "I am going to obtain." It may, per- 

who alone had the power of launching light- haps, signify no more than an earnest wish, " I 

ning and thunderbolts. See Muller, Etrusker, am ready to obtain," " I would fain obtain ;" 

Vol. II. p. 84, note 10. According to another but, at any rate, " ferre veniam" must signify 

definition, Servius, JEn. VIII. 187, the dii no- " to receive favor," as "petere" signifies to sue 

vensiles were gods who had been deified for for it." 

their good deeds ; " quibus merita virtutis dede- 28 " Armatus in equum insilivit," says Livy. 

rint nummis dignitatem." Zonaras says, r<5 '6v\a hSvs (VII. 26). But this 

By "the gods whose power disposes both of must refer only to the moments while he was 

us and of our enemies,' r " divi quorum est po- uttering the prayer : when that was ended, he 

testas nostrorum hostiumque," may be meant resumed the full arms of a Roman general ; only 

either the especial tutelar powers of each nation, his sacred character, as one devoted to the gods, 

the " lares urbium et civitatum" (see Orelli, was marked by the peculiar manner in which 

Inscription. Collect. 1668, 1670, and Muller, his to^a was wrapped around him, the " cinctus 

Etrusker, Vol. II. p. 91, 93), or the peculiar na- Gabinus." 

tional gods of each, such as the Jupiter, Juno, With respect to the nature and origin of the 

and Minerva of the Capitol for Rome, and the cinctus Gabinus, see Muller, Etrusker, Vol. II. 

Jupiter of the mountains of Alba for Latium. p. 266. 
The gods of Latium might be addressed in the 



268 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX. 

battle became a butchery, and, according to the usual result of engagements 
fought hand to hand, where a broken army can neither fight nor fly, nearly three- 
fourths of the Latins were killed or taken. 

How far the Samnites contributed to this victory, whether they, after having 
share of the samnites beaten the Volscians and Campanians, threatened the flank of the 
•u the bank. Latins at the moment of the last charge of the Roman veterans, 

there was no Samnite historian to tell, and no Roman annalist would tell truly. 
Nor need we wonder at this ; for if we had only certain English accounts of the 
battle of Waterloo, who would know that the Prussians had any effectual share 
in that day's victory ? 

If the importance of a battle be a just reason for dwelling upon it in detail, 
then I may be excused for having described minutely this great action between 
the Romans and Latins under Mount Vesuvius ; for to their victory on that day, 
securing to them forever the alliance of Latium, the Romans owed their conquest 
of the world. 

The wreck of the Latin army retreated by different routes out of Campania ; 
_. T . and the conquerors had suffered so severely that they were in no 

The Latins are again ... . ^ . mi /■ • • n t i t -mm- oo 

defeated, and many cit- condition to pursue them. I he fugitives first halted at Minturnae ; 

ies submit. * O . > 

then finding themselves not molested, they advanced again to 
Vescia, a town described as in the country of the Ausonians, one of the Greek 
forms of the name of the Opicans or Oscans, and situated apparently on the east- 
ern or Campanian side of the Massican hills, where the streams run towards the 
Savone. Here they rallied, and L. Numisius, the Latin praetor, used every effort 
to revive their courage, and to procure reinforcements both from Latium, and 
from the Volscians ; Campania having been wholly lost by the late battle. A 
large force was thus again assembled, and the Romans and Samnites, who had 
been themselves also reinforced, we may suppose, in the interval, from Samnium 
at any rate, if not from Rome, hastened a second time to encounter them. But 
the victory was easy and decisive ; and as no third army could immediately be 
raised, the consul entered Latium without opposition, plundered the open coun- 
try, and received the submission of several cities. The Latin confederacy was, 
in fact, broken up forever. 

According to the Fasti, the consuls of the preceding year must have resigned 
t. Maniius returns to s0 l° n g before the regular expiration of their office, that Manlius 
Rome and tnunpb.. and rjecius must have been appointed to succeed them almost be- 
fore the end of the winter, and their great campaign was carried on in the early 
spring. Manlius made all haste, no doubt, to return home to his triumph ; but 
as he triumphed on the 18th of Ma)-, 30 it is clear that he had greatly anticipated 
the usual season for military operations, and by so doing had perhaps taken the 
enemy by surprise. Great as had been his services, his triumph was regarded 
with no joy ; such rejoicings seemed unbecoming 31 in one who had lost both his 
colleague and his own son in the course of the contest ; and the younger Romans 
looked on him less as the conqueror of the Latins, than as the murderer of his 
son. 

The Latin towns which had already submitted were deprived of all their public 
or domain land, and a like penalty was imposed on the Campanians. 32 But as 

w Livy, VIII. 10, 11. It is plain from this that by a route circuitous indeed, but secure from 

Samntam was altogether the base ofthe Roman interruption, through the country of the Blar- 

army'a operations, and thai whatever was the Biane and Pelignians. 

jcene of the greol battle, the Romans 30 The notice in the fragments ofthe Fasti 

fought with the enemy's army interposed be- runs as follows : — 

tween them and Rome. Thfe sufficiently marks [T. MJanlius L. F. A. N. Imperiossus Tor- 
the grand Boale of these operations, and also the quatus [C]os III. De Latineis . Campaneis . Si- 
enlarged military views of the Roman consuls, dioineis . Aurunceia . A.«'P\I1I. xv. K. Ju- 
Tluy ventured to abandon altogether the line of nias. 

their own territory, and to cany the war di- 31 Dion Cassius, Fragm. XXIX. Mai. 

reotlj into Campania, resting on the territory M Livy, \ III. LI. Niebuhr thinks that tho 

of their allies, and communicating with Rome settlement of Latium was attended by many ex- 



Chap. XXIX.] THE LATIN'S AGAIN" DEFEATED. 269 

the Campanian aristocracy had been -wholly opposed to the war . 

I J •it 11 -1 L Th e Campanian imstoc- 

with Rome, they were rather entitled to reward than punishment, racy rewarded for their 

J • i t n i • n -r» •• i*i attachment to Rome. 

They therefore received the franchise of Roman citizens, which 
enabled them to intermarry with Romans, and to inherit property, while their 
ascendency in their own county was abundantly secured ; and as a compensation 
for the loss of their domain land, they were each to receive from the Campanian 
people 450 33 denarii a year. 

Whilst the consuls were absent in Campania, L. Papirius Crassus, the praetor, 
had been left at home with the command of the forces usually 
appointed to protect the city. He had watched the Antiatians, 
and checked their plundering inroads, but had been able to do nothing of import- 
ance. After the return of Manlius he was appointed dictator, as Manlius himself 
fell sick. It seems probable that he was appointed dictator for the purpose of 
holding the comitia, and that Manlius, having been left sole consul, and after- 
wards being himself disabled by illness, was required, like the consuls who had 
preceded him, to resign his office before the end of his year. 34 He was succeeded 
by Ti. vEmilius and Q. Publilius Philo. 

The history of their consulship is obscure. The Latins are said to have re- 
newed the war again, 35 to recover their forfeited domain ; it is more The new consuls defeat 
likely that only some of their cities had submitted to Manlius, and theLat ™ a s aiD - 
that the treatment which these met with drove the rest to try the fortune of 
arms once again. They were defeated by the consul Publilius, 36 and more of 
their towns then submitted ; some, however, still continued to resist, and amongst 
these Pedum, Tibur, and Praaneste, are particularly named. The consul Ti. 
yEmilius laid siege to Pedum, but the defence was obstinate ; and whatever was 
the true cause, Pedum remained to the end of his consulship unconquered. 

• This was probably owing to the state of affairs in Rome. Out of the large 
tracts of domain land won in the last campaign, the assignations of Q . p uo iiii U8 P hu dic- 
land to the commons had in no case exceeded the amount of three ^£ J^ £^f£ tj£ 
jugera to each man : all the rest was occupied, as usual, by the great i>ubmiai1 laws - 

ecutions, -which history, from a desire to soften ** Something of this sort must be supposed, 

the picture, has omitted, Vol. III. p. 159. The if Livyhad any authority for his statement, that 

Eomans, however, far from being ashamed of the consuls in the year 420, only ten years after 

such executions, rather gloried in them, and this period, still came into office on the 1st of 

even Livy himself relates with entire approba- July. (Livy, VIII. 20.) For as Manlius en- 

tion the cruel vengeance taken upon Capua in tered on his consulship before, the winter was 

the second Punic war. The moment that the well ended, and triumphed as early as May, the 

war was at an end with any of the Latin states, consular year must have begun from that time 

it was the policy of Eome to avoid driving them forwards, not in July, but in the early spring, 

again to despair by any bloody executions ; and unless it had again been altered by some subse- 

as the deportation of the senators of Velitrse is qnent change. But the whole chronology of 

mentioned as an instance of remarkable severity, this period is still so uncertain in its details, that 

.it seems reasonable to believe that no blood was it is impossible to arrive at any certain conclu- 

shed except on the field of battle. sion. 

33 Livy, VIII. 11. Mr. Twiss supposes that * Livy, VIII. 12. 

thirty talents were fixed upon as the annual pay- S6 The dates for these years furnished by the 

ment to be made to each century of the Cam pa- Fasti are as follow : 

nian equites, which would make one hundred T. Manlius triumphed on the 18th of May, 
and twenty talents for the whole four centuries ; 413. Q. Publilius Philo triumphed on the 13th 
and as there were four hundred knights in each of January, 414 ; and L. Camillus and C. Mai- 
century, it allows just four hundred and fifty nius triumphed on the 28th and 30th of Sep- 
denarii or drachmae to each individual. Nie- tember, 415. Now, as the Fasti reckon the years 
buhr well observes that the yearly payment of of Eome from the 21st of April (the Palilia), the 
so large a sum as one hundred and twenty tal- traditionary date of the foundation of the city, 
ents gives us a high idea of the wealth of Capua, it is obvious that between May, 413, and Janu- 
The coin paid is called by Livy " denarios num- ary, 414, there intervened twenty months, 
mos;" and although silver denarii were not coin- whilst between January, 414, and September, 
ed at Eome till a later period, yet this proves 415, there would be no more than eight. But 
nothing against their earlier use in Campania; whether these dates are correct is quite another 
and although Eckkel and Mionnet acknowledge question. I believe that it is impossible to fix 
only a copper coinage of ancient Capua, yet Micali the chronology of much of the fifth century of 
gives an engraving of a silver coin, with an Oscan Eome with precision, because it is impossible 
inscription, which must, undoubtedly, have be- to fix the history ; and again, we cannot attempt 
longed to Capua in the clays of its independence, to fix the history by the chronology, because 
See plate 115 of Micali's Atlas. that is in itself uncertain. 



270 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX. 

families of the aristocracy. Great discontent was excited at this, and other cir- 
cumstances occurred, in all probability showing a design on the part of the pa- 
tricians to take advantage of their successes abroad in order to recover their old 
ascendency. Niebuhr supposes that the majority of the senate was opposed to 
these projects, and cordially joined with the consuls in repressing them. Both 
the consuls were wise and moderate men; both had been amongst 37 the five 
commissioners for the relief of the general distress in the year 403, whose merits 
were so universally acknowledged h} 7 all parties. There is no likelihood that 
such men should have indulged a spirit of faction or personal pique at such a 
moment, or should have proposed and carried laws of the greatest importance 
without any especial call for them, and yet without encountering any formidable 
opposition. Nor is it consistent that the senate, after having had some months' 
experience, according to the common story, of the factious character of the two 
consuls, should have required them to name a dictator in order to ^et ricl of 
them, when the very result which did take place might have been so easilv fore- 
seen, that ^Emilius would name his own colleague. It is far more probable that 
the senate foresaw, and had in fact arranged that it should be so, in order that 
the reforms which were judged necessary might be supported and carried with 
the authority of the greatest magistracy in the commonwealth. The reforms 
now effected were purely constitutional, and consisted mainty, as far as appears, 
in destroying the power of the aristocratical assembly of the curiae, a body ne- 
cessarily of a very different character from the senate, and in which the most 
one-sided party spirit was likely to be predominant. General assemblies of the 
members of a privileged or separate order 33 are of all things the most mischie- 
vous ; as they combine with the turbulence and violence of a popular assembly 
all the narrow-mindedness and exclusiveness of a particular caste. It seems that 
no greater benefit could have been conferred on Rome than the extinction of the 
power of the curiae ; and accordingly one of Publilius' laws deprived 39 them of 
their power as a branch of the legislature with regard to all laws passed by the 
comitia of tribes ; and another reduced it to a mere formality with respect to all 
laws submitted to the comitia of the centuries : 40 whatever law was proposed by 

37 Livy, VII. 21. " Meriti cequitate curaque enacted ; but Niebuhr'' s explanation is so con- 
sunt ut' per omnium annalium monumenta sistent and so probable that 'I have been in- 
celebres nominibus essent." duced to adopt it. 

38 It scarcely needs to be observed that our 40 "Utlegum quse coruMis centuriatis ferren- 
house of lords resembles the Roman senate, and tur ante initum suffragium patres auctores tie- 
not the comitia of the curiae. If our nobility rent." I need not say that "patres" here was 
were like that of the continent, so that all a generally supposed to mean the senate, and I 
peer's sons were noble, or like the patrician or- have no doubt that Livy so understood it : but 
der at Rome, so that all his descendants in the I think Niebuhr is right in understanding it of 
male line were noble, a representative body the patrician curia?, who had before possessed 
chosen out of and by so large a privileged class, a distinct voice as a branch of the legislature, 
without any mixture of new creations, would The power of the curiae was likely to be dis- 
be a very different thing from our house of puted earlier than that of the senate; the 
peers, and would give a tolerable idea of the na- senate was now a mixed body, composed of 
ture of the Roman comitia of curiae'. Compare the most eminent men of both orders; it 
also the spirit, at once factious and intolerant, was a true national council; and that such a 
which has marked the convocations of the body should exercise the power of deciding 
clergy, and particularly the lower house of con- what questions should be submitted to the 
vocation as opposed to the upper; that is, again, comitia of the people at large, was nothing 
the curia: as opposed to the senate. Consider more than what was common in Greece even at 
also that worst of all possible assemblies, the this very period; and it was held not to be in- 
diet of the nobles of Poland. compatible with a democracy, provided thai I lie 

■ 1 have followed Niebubrin his explanation body in which this power was vested was not 
of the Publilian laws. Vol. 111. p. 169, et seqq. of too narrow and exclusive a character. Act 
Livy Bays the purport of the first law was " ut piv yap tlva( ti toiovtov <p empties carat rov ti'fiov 



plchiscita oinnes (Juiiites leneient :" evidently KpoJ3ov)icictv' . . touto <5f, uvdXlyot rbv aptO/tin watv, 

understanding it to have had the same purport dXiyapx'udv. Aristotle, Politics IV. 15. See 

with the Valerian and Eoratian law of the year also the institution of the vopoipiXaKts at Athens 



306, which enacted, "ut quod tributim plcbes irpoypddovat 6cd rtjs (3ov\tjs koi irpb 7% iKxXiiolas 

jussisset populum tcneret." III. 55. It is eer- into &v irpr xP'?/•" ,, ■^ £ ' , '• Pollux, from Aris- 

tainly possible that the same law having fallen totic, VIII. § 95. It is not probable then that 

into disuse, or rather being obstructed by the the senate at Rome should have thus early lost 

power of a party, should bo again solemnly re- a power which still existed generally in Greece ; 



Chap. XXIX.] SETTLEMENT OF LATIUM. 271 

the senate to the centuries, and no measure could originate with the latter, was 
to be considered as having the sanction of the curiae also : so that if the cen- 
turies passed it, it should have at once the force of a law. A third Publilian 
law enacted that one of the two censors should necessarily be elected from the 
commons ; a fourth, as Niebuhr thinks, provided that the prsetorship also should be 
thrown open, and that in each alternate year the praetor also should be a plebeian. 

"The patres," says Livy, "thought that the two consuls had done the com- 
monwealth more mischief by their domestic measures than service 
by their conduct of the war abroad." If the term patres be un- proved by o majority 
derstood of the majority of the patrician order, Livy is probably 
right ; but if he meant to speak of the senate, he must have judged them over- 
harshly. That assembly contained the best and wisest of the aristocracy, but it 
did not represent the passions and exclusiveness of the patrician vulgar. The ma- 
jority of the senate, whether patricians or commoners, saw the necessity of the 
Publilian laws, and had the rare wisdom to pass them in time. Accordingly, they 
were followed by no demands for further concessions ; but by a period of such 
unbroken peace and order, that for many years the internal dissensions of the 
Romans are heard of no more ; and the old contests between the patrician order 
and the rest of the people may be said to have ended forever. The Hortensian 
laws, about fifty years later, were occasioned by contests of another sort, such as 
marked the latter period of the commonwealth ; contests of a nature far more 
dangerous — where the object sought for is not so much political power for its 
own sake, but as the means of obtaining bread. 

In the following year the war with the Latins was brought to a conclusion. 
The new consuls were L. Furius Camillus, perhaps a grandson 41 Fina] 8Ubmis8ion of La . 
of the great Camillus, and C. Msenius. Camillus marched against tium " 
Pedum, while his colleague attacked the Antiatians, who were supported by the 
people of Velitrae, Aricia, and Lavinium. Both were completely successful ; Pe- 
dum Avas taken by Camillus, 42 and the people of Tibur and Prseneste, who en- 
deavored to relieve it, were defeated ; while Masnius gained a victory over the 
Antiatians and their allies near the river, or rather stream, of Astura. Then all 
the cities of Latium severally submitted, as did also the people of Antium ; gar- 
risons were placed in them, and the future settlement of Latium was submitted 
by the consul, Camillus, to the decision of the senate. It appears that the case 
of each city was considered separately, and its fate was settled as justice or ex- 
pediency might seem to dictate. Unluckily, Livy either could not find, or grew 
impatient of repeating, what was- the particular sentence passed upon each state ; 
he has only noticed the fate of a few, and we are left to conjecture what was de- 
termined with respect to the rest. 

First of all, it was ordered as a general law, that there should be from hence- 
forth no common meetings, assemblies, or councils for any two or 
more of the cities of Latium ; 43 and that they should be made as DUsoiSoftheVatlli 
foreigners to one another, with no liberty of intermarriage, or of confederacy - 

but that the curiae should be deprived of it was peaceably, and, so far as we hear, without a 

perfectly natural. And as Niebuhr observes, struggle." 

that the principal members of the senate, head- 41 He is called in the Fasti, "Spurii Alius, 

ed by the dictator and supported by the mass Marci nepos." The great M. Camillus is known 

of the people, should have triumphed over the to have had a son named Spurius, who was the 

ultra aristocratical spirit of the curias, is easily first praetor. Livy, VII. 1. The other consul, 

conceivable : but the senate would not so read- C. Msenius, must have belonged to one of the 

ily have yielded an important prerogative of its most distinguished families of the commons, 

own ; and it is not possible to believe that had for although we have no yearly lists of tribunes 

the senate joined the body of the patricians in preserved, yet three tribunes of the name of 

resisting the dictator's measures, they could Msenius are'incidentallv mentioned at different 

have been carried without some violent convul- times by Livy, IV. 53, VI. 19, and VII. 16. 

sions. Whereas the Publilian laws, very un- 42 Livy, VIII. 13. 

like the Hortensian, the Genucian, the Canu- 43 "Ceteris Latinis populis connubia com- 

leian, or any other of the great measures carried merciaque et concilia inter se ademerunt." Livy, 

by the commons against the inclination of the VIII. 14. 
senate as well as of the patricians, were passed 



272 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX. 

purchasing or inheriting lands in each other's territories. All notion of a Latin 
state or union was to be utterly done away ; and each city was to be isolated 
from its neighbors, that all community of interests and feelings between them 
might as much as possible be destroyed. This was the system on which the 
Romans settled the kingdom of Macedon after their final victory over Peresus : it 
was split up into four distinct portions, 44 and each of these was debarred from 
any interchange of the rights of citizenship with the other three. 

Tibur and Preeneste, the two most powerful cities of Latium, were deprived 
of their domain land, 45 and probably of any dominion which they 

Condition of the several ■. . ■, . -, i l j t t • , • A i 

Latin states. Tiourand may have exercised over the decayed towns or districts in their 
immediate neighborhood. They retained their own laws and mu- 
nicipal independence, and there was still to exist between them and the Romans 
the old mutual right of assuming at pleasure each other's citizenship, so far as 
regarded the concerns of private life. But in war they were bound to follow 
where Rome should lead, and to furnish soldiers as auxiliaries or allies to the 
the Roman legions. 

Lanuvium obtained the full rights of Roman citizenship, and its people formed 
the whole or a part of one of the new tribes which were created at 
the next census. 46 It is probable that several other districts of La- 
tium obtained the same privilege : perhaps such as had been hitherto dependent 
on some of the larger towns, since the decay or destruction of their own 
cities. In this manner the inhabitants of Scaptia and Gabii, which once were 
among the thirty cities of Latium, but had since fallen to decay, may have be- 
come latterly subjects of the Tiburtians, and now, in all likelihood, received the 
full citizenship of Rome, and composed the Scaptian tribe, which was created 
five years afterwards. 

Aricia, 47 Pedum, Nomentum, and perhaps Tusculum, obtained the Roman citi- 
zenship without political rights ; in other words, they were placed 
in the condition of provincial towns, without any municipal or 
corporate privileges, and justice was administered amongst them by a praefect 
sent from Rome. Their law was altogether that of Rome ; their citizens were 
enlisted in the legions, and their taxation was in all respects the same as that of 
the Romans. 

In Velitrae, from some reason to us unknown, the aristocracy appear to have 

44 Livv, XLV. 29. censors, Q. Publilius and Sp. Postumius. It 

45 Livy, VIII. 14. That Tibur remained a derived its name, according to Paulus, the 
distinct state is proved by the language of Livy, epitomator of Festus, " a ouodam castro." And 
IX. 80, where lie speaks of the Romans sending Livy, VI. 2, speaks of a place near Lanuvium, 
ambassadors to the people of Tibur; and still which be calls "ad Moecinm." The probability 
more by the feet that Roman citizens might is, therefore, that thb Miecian tribe contained 
choose Tibur as a place of exile, as was also the in it the people of Lanuvium. 

case with Praneste. Late in the sixth century 47 This may seem at variance with Livy's 
of Ron)'-, we have instances on record of this, statement, who says that they were admitted to 
l.iw, XL 111. 2 ; and Polybius, writing early in the rights of Roman citizens on the same foot- 
the seventh century, speaks of the Bame right as the people of Lanuvium. But it is tru- that 
as still existing, adding, as the reason of it, that Lanuvium, immediately after the war. did re- 
the Romans were bound by solemn treaties to ceive no more than the civitas sine sutfragio; 
the people of these cities. These treaties, Boicia, it could not enjoy the full franchise till its peo- 
aro rightly understood by Niebuhr to have been pie were admitted into sonic tribe; and this 
the old terms of the Latin league, including the did not take place till the next census. But 
interchange ofall the private rights of citizenship that from the time of the next census, I.anu- 
between the citizens of the two countries : too- vium was in a different condition from Aricia, 
xAirtm. On the other hand, the political depend- and, probably, also from Pedum and Nomen- 
ence of Tibur and Prseneste upon Romeisevi- turn, appears from the famous article "Muni- 
dent: Papirius Cursor, when consul, had a snm- cipium" in Festus; Niebuhr's commentary on 
mary power^flife and death own he general of which (Vol. 11. ohap;4, pp. 55-60, Eng. Transl.) 
the Prsenestane auxiliary troops Berving in his is one of the best specimens of his unrivalled 
army, Livy. IX. L6, so that the alliance probably power in discerning the true political relations 
contained the famous clause which distinguished oftheanoient world. 1 would refer the reader 
adependent from an equal ally: "Majestatem continually to this passage in Niebuhr, for a full 
populi Romani comiter conservato." See Cice- explanation of the various rights included Bome- 
ro,proBalbo,16. Compare Livy, XXXVIII. 11. times under the common term of " muuicip- 
45 The Mu'eian tribe was created in 422 by the ium." 



Chap. XXIX.] SETTLEMENT OF LATIUM. 273 

been zealous supporters of the late war, while the people were well disposed 
to the Romans. Accordingly, the walls of the town were de- vein™. 
stroyed, 48 and all the senators deported beyond the Tiber, with a heavy penalty 
upon their return to Latium. All their lands, whether domain or private prop- 
erty, were taken from them and given to some Roman colonists who were sent 
to supply their place. Yet the people of Velitrse appear to have received the 
full Roman citizenship five years afterwards, and to have been included at that 
time in the new Scaptian tribe. 49 

Larentum, which had taken no part in the war, remained, as before, municipally 
independent, 50 enjoying: an interchange of all the private rights of 

■ • i • ■ i t-> i 1 • i ■ i i Laurentnm. 

citizenship with Rome, but bound to aid, or in other words, to 

serve, the Romans as an ally : and this, probably, was the condition also of 

Ardea. 

The relations of some Volscian and Campanian towns, which Re i at i 0DS f voisdan 
had taken part in the late contest, were also fixed at this time. ^campanian to™. 

The people of Antium 51 were obliged to surrender all their ships of war, and 
foi-bidden to send any more to sea for the time to come. A col- 
ony was to be sent thither, but the Antiatians might themselves, if 
they chose, be enrolled amongst the colonists ; that is to say, their territory was 
to be divided into lots, according to the Roman method of assignation, and all 
former limits or titles of property were to be done away ; but every Antiatian 
might receive a portion of land in the new allotment, as a member of the Roman 
colony of Antium. The municipal independence of Antium ceased, as a matter 
of course ; the Roman laws superseded the old laws of the city ; and the An- 
tiatians became Roman citizens in all their private relations, but with no political 
rights. 

Fundi and Formiae, 52 which had remained neutral, Capua, for whose fidelity its 
own aristocracy would be a sufficient guarantee, and several other 
Campanian towns, such as Cumse, Suessula, Atella, and Acerrse, 
were either now, or shortly afterwards, made capable of enjoying the private 
rights of Roman citizens, but retained their own laws and government. Their 
soldiers in war formed distinct legions, 53 and were not numbered amongst the 

48 Livy, VIII. 14. in " Municeps." Festus says expressly of Fundi, 

49 The Octavii belonged to the Scaptian tribe Formiae, Cumse, and Acerrse, that after a certain 
(Suetonius in Augusto, 40), and their origiual number of years they became Eoman citizens, 
country was Velitrse. The tale which Suetonius that is, in the full sense of the term, being en- 
adds, of their having come to Borne in the time rolled'jn a tribe, and being made eligible to all 
ofTarquinius Priscus, and having been made public offices. But the "certain number of 

Eatricians by Servius Tullius, but afterwards years" was about a century aud a half ; for the 

avina: ch'isen to become plebeians, is merely date of the admission of Fundi and Formiae to 

one of the ordinary embellishments of a great the full citizenship happens to be known, and 

man's pedigree, invented after he has risen to it did not take place till the year 564. (Livy, 

eminence. XXXVIII. 36.) What can be meant by the ex- 

50 " CumLaurentibusrenovarifcedusjussum, pression that the people of Cumse and Acerrse 
renovaturque ex eo quotannis post diem deci- after some years became Eoman citizens, it is 
mum Latiharum." Livy, VIII. 11. not easy to decide ; but it may be that they re- 

51 Livy, VIII. 14. Antium became a mari- ceived the full franchise later than the period 
time colony, and as such was exempted from included in the last remaining book of Livy; 
furnishing soldiers to the legions (Livy, XXVII. and for that subsequent period we have no de- 
38) ; it was obliged, however, to furnish sea- tailed information. 

men for the naval service. (Livy, XXXVI. 3.) 63 "In legione merebant," says Festus, in 

With regard to the prohibition to send ships to "Municeps." The Campanian soldiers who 

sea, it must be understood only of triremes and made themselves masters of Ehegiumalittle be- 

quinqueremes ; for that the Antiatians after this fore the first Punic war, are called hy Livy, 

period not only had many smaller vessels, but Legio Campana ; and the name of then- leader, 

were accustomed to sail even as far as the Greek Decius Jubellius, is clearly Campanian. Yet 

seas, appears from the complaints of their pira- these same soldiers are called by Polybius (I. 

cir addressed to the Eomans successively by 6. 7), and by Appian (Samnitic. Fragm. 9), 

A? under and by Demetrius PoUorcetes. Stra- "Eomans," and Orosius calls them the "eighth 

ho, V. p. 232. legion" (IV. 3) ; nor should it be forgotten, that 

52 Livy, VIII. 14, compared with Festus in Polybius, in his list of the forces at the disposal ' 
" Municipium." Acerrse is mentioned by Livy, of the Eomans in the great Gaulish war of 529, 
VIII. 17, and by Festus in " Municipium," and reckons the Latins and the other Italian nations 
in "Municeps." Atella is mentioned by Festus separately, but classes the Eomans and Cam- 

18 



274 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXIX 

auxiliaries ; a distinction which perhaps entitled them to a larger share of the 
plunder, — possibly also these states may have even received portions of con- 
quered land to add to their domain. 

Equestrian statues of the two consuls by whom this great war had been brought 
Honors paid to the con- to a conclusion, were set up in the Forum ; 54 and the beaks of the 
sois. -The rostra. Antiatian ships were affixed to the front of the circular stand or 
gallery, between the comitium and the Forum, from which the tribunes were ac- 
customed to address the people. From this circumstance it derived its well- 
known name of rostra, or the beaks. 

Three years were sufficient to finish forever the most important war in which 
The war with Lafmm Rome was at any time engaged ; whilst with the Samnites the con- 
and^eneadiiiyiorbo^ test was often renewed, and lasted altogether for more than sev- 
parties " enty years. It was not that the Samnites were a braver people 

than the Latins, but that the Latin war found immediately its natural termination 
in a closer union, which it was hopeless and not desirable to disturb ; whereas, 
in the Samnite contest, such a termination was impossible ; and the struggle 
could end in nothing short of absolute dominion on one side, and subjection on 
the other. The Samnites were complete foreigners, remote in point of distance, 
with a different language and different institutions ; they and the Romans were 
not likely to form one people, and neither were willing to be the others' mere 
subjects. But between Rome and Latium nature had given all the elements of 
union ; and the peculiar circumstances of the Latins precluded that mischievous 
national pride which has sometimes kept two nations apart, when nature, or 
rather God speaking in nature, designed them to be one. Had Latium been a 
single state like Rome, neither party 55 would willingly have seen its distinct na- 
tionality merged in that of the other ; but the people of Tusculum or Lanuvium 
felt no patriotic affection for the names of Tibur or Prseneste : they were as ready 
to become Romans as Tiburtians ; and one or the other they must be, for 
a mass of little states, all independent of each other, could not be kept together ; 
the first reverses, appealing to the sense of separate interest in each, inevitably 
shattered it to pieces. Those states that received the full Roman franchise be- 
came Romans, yet did not cease to be Latins ; the language and manners of their 
new country were their own. They were satisfied with their lot, and the hope 
of arriving in time at the same privileges was a prospect more tempting even to 
the other states than any thing -which they were likely to gain by renewed hos- 
tilities. Tibur and Prgeneste, thus severed from their old confederates, could not 
expect to become sovereign states ; they must, according to the universal prac- 
tice of the ancient world, be the allies of some stronger power ; and if so, their 
alliance with Rome was at once the most natural and the most desirable. Thus 

panians together, and names the amount of had two flights of steps leading up to them, one 

their joint force. This seems to show that the on the east side, by which thepreaehcraseended, 

connection between Some and Campania from and another on the west side, for bis descent, 

the great Latin war to the invasion of Hannibal See Ducange, Glossar. Med. et Inflm. Latinit. 

was unusually intimate; and we know also that in "Ambo." Specimens of these old pulpits 

a mutual rite of intermarriage prevailed be- are still to be seen at Koine in the churches of 

tweea the inhabitants of both countries. Livy, St. Clement, and S. Lorenzo fuori le mure. 

XX 11 1. 4. Bunsen aptly compares the platform of the ros- 

M Livy, VIII. 13, 14. For the description of tra, on which the speaker moved to and fro, as 

the rostra given in the text, see Niebuhr, Vol. he wished to address different parts of his au- 

III. note 268; and particularly Bunsen, "Lea dience, to the hustings of an English election. 
Forum de Borne," p. 41. Bunsen, judging from M The rights of succession in an hereditary 

the views of the rostra given on two coins in his monarchy may affect a union between two 

possession, supposes thai it was a circular build- countries, by the crown of each devolving on 

rag, raised on arches, with a stand or platform the same person, which would have been ut- 

on the top bordered by a parapet; the access terly impracticable had either of them been a 

to it being by two flights of steps, one on each republic. As it was, the union of the crowns of 

side. Lt fronted towards the i titium, and the England and Scotland preceded the union of 

rostra were affixed to the front of it, jn>t under the kingdoms by more than a century ; and had 
the arches. Its form has been in all the main not the crowns been united, what human power 
points preserved in the amboncs, or circular pul- could ever have effected a union of the two par- 
pits, ot the most ancient churches, which also liamcnts i 



Chap. XXX.] ALEXANDER'S CONQUESTS IN ASIA. 275 

the fidelity of the Latins was so secured that neither the victories of Hannibal, 
nor the universal revolt of all Italy in the social war, tempted it to waver: one 
strong proof amongst a thousand, that nations, like individuals, cheerfully acqui- 
esce in their actual condition, when it appears to be in any degree natural, or 
even endurable ; and that their desire of change, whenever they do feel it, is less 
the wish of advancing from good to better, or a fond craving after novelty, than 
an irresistible instinct to escape from what is clearly and intolerably bad, even 
though they have no definite prospect of arriving at good. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

GENEEAL HISTORY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR- 
PEIVEENUM— PAL^EPOLIS— A. U. C. 418-428^113-423, NIEBUHK. 



Tfjv did jxiaov ^Vjifiaaiv u Tig yirj a^idau Tr6\ijiov vofii^eiv ovk ipSai; SiKaiwaei. — Tot; yap epyois o>y 
iifiprjTat aSpeiTO), ical slpf/crec ovk sikosSv dpyvrjv avrtiv Kpi3rjvai. — Thucydides, V. 26. 



According to the synchronism of Diodorus, the same year which witnessed the 
final settlement of Latium, was marked also by the first military 

n . . , - , . .... . J , T11 ^ Alexander's conquests 

enterprises of Alexander, by his expedition against the Lllynans, and m. Asia contemporary 
his conquest of Thebes. During the twelve following years, the diateiy following the 

i o t m o J * Latin war. 

period nearly which I propose to comprise within the present chap- 
ter, Asia beheld with astonishment and awe the uninterrupted progress of a hero, 
the sweep of whose conquests was as wide and as rapid as that of her own barbaric 
kings, or of the Scythian or Chaldaean hordes ; but far unlike the transient 
whirlwinds of Asiatic warfare, the advance of the Macedonian leader was no less 
deliberate than rapid : at every step the Greek power took root, and the language 
and the civilization of Greece were planted from the shores of the JEgsean to the 
banks of the Indus, from the Caspian and the great Hyrcanian plain to the cata- 
racts of the Nile ; to exist actually for nearly a thousand years, and in their 
effects to endure forever. 1 In the tenth year after he had crossed the Helles- 
pont, Alexander, having won his vast dominion, entered Babylon ; and, resting 
from his career in that oldest seat of earthly empire, he steadily surveyed the 
mass of various nations which owned his sovereignty, and revolved in his mind 
the great work of breathing into this huge but inert body the living spirit of 
Greek civilization. In the bloom of youthful manhood, at the age of thirty-two, 
he paused from the fiery speed of his earlier course ; and for the first time gave 
the nations an opportunity of offering their homage before his throne. They came 
from all the extremities of the earth, to propitiate his anger, to celebrate his great- 
ness, or to solicit his protection. African tribes 2 came to congratulate and bring 
presents to him as the sovereign of Asia. Not only would the people border- 
ing on Egypt upon the west look with respect on the founder of Alexandria and 
the son of Jupiter Ammon, but those who dwelt on the east of the Nile, and on 
the shores of the Arabian gulf, would hasten to pay court to the great king 

1 I leave out of sight the question as to the ties afforded by the diffusion of the Greek lan- 
greater or less influence exercised upon the civ- guage and civilization in Asia and Egypt to the 
ilization of India by the Greek or semi-Greek early growth of Christianity, 
kingdoms of the extreme eastern part of Alex- 2 See Arrian, VII. 15. 
ander's empire, and refer merely to the facili- 



276 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXX. 

wh.ose fleets navigated the Erythraean sea, and whose power was likely to affect 
so largely their traffic with India. Motives of a different sort influenced the bar- 
barians of Europe. Greek enterprise had penetrated to the remotest parts of 
the Mediterranean ; Greek traders might carry complaints of wrongs done to 
them by the petty princes on shore, or by pirates at sea, to the prince who 
had so fully avenged the old injuries of his nation upon the great king himself. 
The conqueror was in the prime of life ; in ten years he had utterly overthrown 
the greatest empire in the world : what, if having destroyed the enemies of 
Greece in the east, he should exact an account for wrongs committed against his 
nation in the west ? for Carthaginian conquests, for Lucanian devastations, for 
Etruscan piracies ? And he would come, not only having at his command all the 
forces of Asia, whose multitude and impetuous onset would be supported in time 
of need by his veteran and invincible Macedonians, but already the bravest of the 
barbarians of Europe were eager to offer him their aid ; and the Kelts and Ibe- 
rians, who had become acquainted with Grecian service when they fought under 
Dionysius and Agesilaus, sent embassies to the great conqueror at Babylon, al- 
lured alike by the fame of his boundless treasures and his unrivalled valor. It 
was no wonder, then, that the Carthaginians, 3 who had dreaded a century earlier 
the far inferior power of the Athenians, and on whose minds Timoleon's recent 
victories had left a deep impression of the military genius of Greece, dispatched 
their ambassadors to secure, if possible, the friendship of Alexander. But some 
of the Italian nations, the Lucanians and the Bruttians, had a more particular 
cause of alarm. They had been engaged in war for some years with Alexander, 
king of Epirus, the uncle by marriage of the conqueror of Asia. Alexander of 
Epirus had crossed over into Italy as the defender of the Italian Greeks against 
the injuries of their barbarian neighbors : in this cause he had fallen, after having 
long and valiantly maintained it, and his great kinsman could not have heard 
without indignation of the impious cruelty with which his enemies had outraged 
his lifeless body. 4 Thus the Lucanians and Bruttians are especially mentioned 
as having sent embassies to Alexander at Babylon : it is not unlikely that their 
kinsmen, the Sanmites, who had been their allies in the war, joined with them also in 
their endeavors to escape the dreaded vengeance, although their name was either 
not particularly known, or not thought worthy of especial record by the great 
Macedonian officers who were their king's earliest and best historians. 

"The Tyrrhenians also," said Aristobulus and Ptolemaeus, "sent an embassy 
Embassies from My to to tne king to congratulate him upon his conquests." The ports 
Alexander m Babylon. f the western coast of Italy swarmed at this time with piratical 
vessels, which constantly annoyed the Greek traders in those seas, and some- 
times ventured as far as the eastern side of the Ionian gulf. This reproach was 
not confined to the Etruscans ; it was shared certainly by the people of Antium ; 
it may be doubted whether Ostia, Circeii, and Tarracina were wholly free from it. 
These piracies had been reported to Alexander, 5 and he sent remonstrances to 

3 Arrian, VII. 15. bring the death of Alexander of Epirus to the 

• I.ivv. VIII. 24. Livy sets the death, of Alex- consulships either of M. Valerius and M. Atilius 

ander of Epirus in the consulship of Q. Pub- in 420 (415), or of T. Veturius and Sp. Postu- 

lilius and L. Cornelius. This consulship, ac- mius, in the year following. Yet the treaty of 

cording i" Diodorus, synchronizes with Olymp. Alexander of Epirus with Rome is placed in the 

118-8, and lie places tin- embassies to P,;il\vlon consulship of A. Cornelius and Cn. Domitins, 

and the death of Alexander two years later, in that is, in 422 (417); and this is likely to be a 

Olymp. 114-1. But his reckoning in this place sure synchronism, because the treaty would 

is confused, and hi- Fasti differ from those of aaturafly contain the names of the Soman ina- 

Livs ; for with him there i.- a year between the gistrates who concluded it. It seems impossi- 

consulships of Publilius and < lornelius and Pee- He to tix exactly the date of the death of Alex- 

telius and Papirius, which, according to l.ivy, ander of Epirus, but it seems flromeverj oalou- 

were uexl to one another. Again, uvj places lotion that we may safely place it so early as to 

the death, of Alexander of Epirus in the same make it certain that his nephew must have heard 

yearwith the foundation of Alexandria. But ofit at the time when he received the Italian am- 

Alexandria, according toArrian, was founded bassadora at Babylon. 

in Olymp. 112-1, and, according to Diodorus 6 Strabo, V. p. 282. Aidvcp Kal 'A\i{avtpos irptrt- 

one year later, in Olymp. 112-2, which would pov lyna\iiv hlaTciXe,KalArini'iTpin(icTcpov. Some 



Chap. XXX.] WAR WITH THE SIDICTNIANS. 277 

the Romans on the subject. Perhaps his name was used by his kinsman Alex- 
ander of Epirus, with whom, in the course of his campaigns in Italy, the Romans 
concluded a treaty. But having, on the one hand, to justify themselves from the 
charge of supporting pirates to the injury of the Greek commerce, and being able, 
on the other hand, to plead the merit of their alliance with the king of Epirus, 
there is every reason to believe that among the Tyrrhenian ambassadors men- 
tioned by Alexander's historians there were included ambassadors from Rome. 
Later writers, 6 yielding to that natural feeling which longs to bring together the 
great characters of remote ages and countries, and delights to fancy how they 
would have regarded one another, asserted expressly that a Roman embassy did 
appear before Alexander in Babylon : that the king, like Cineas afterwards,/ was 
so struck with the dignity and manly bearing of the Roman patricians, that he in- 
formed himself concerning their constitution, and prophesied that the Romans 
would one day become a great power. This story Arrian justly disbelieves ; but 
history may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman ambassador did meet 
at Babylon ; that the greatest man of the ancient world saw and spoke with a 
citizen of that great nation, which was destined to succeed him in his appointed 
work, and to found a wider and still more enduring empire. They met, too, in 
Babylon, almost beneath the shadow of the temple of Bel, perhaps the earliest 
monument ever raised by human pride and power, in a city stricken, as it were, 
by the word of God's heaviest judgment, as the symbol of greatness apart from 
and opposed to goodness. But I am wandering from the limits of history into a 
higher region ; whither, indeed, history ought forever to point the way, but within 
which she is not permitted herself to enter. 

During the period of Alexander's conquests, no other events of importance 
happened in any part of the civilized world, as if a career so bril- ProgTeS8 f the sam- 
liant had claimed the undivided attention of mankind. The issue ^°°&eUpp e rLiri8. 
of the Latin war at once changed the friendship between the Romans and Sam- 
nites into a hollow truce, which either party was ready to break at the first favor- 
able moment : neither was any longer needed by the other as a friend, to bring 
aid against a common danger ; the two nations from this time forward were only 
rivals. The Samnites had made conquests from the Volscians, as the Romans 
had enlarged their dominion in Latium and Campania ; they had won a portion 
of the upper valley of the Liris, and, as it seems, were still carrying on the war 
on their own behalf in this quarter, after the Romans on the one side, and the 
Latins and Campanians on the other, had retired from the contest. They even 
crossed the Liris,' 1 had taken and destroyed Fregellse upon the right bank, and 
had thus acquired a position of no small importance ; for Fregellse stood on the 
Latin road, the direct line of communication between Rome and Samnium, on the 
frontier of the Hernicans, at the point where the valley of the Trerus or Sacco 
joins that of the Liris. 8 This was not unnoticed by the Romans, and they kept 
their eyes steadily on the advance of the Samnite dominion in a quarter so 
alarming. 

Meantime the embers of the great Latin war continued to burn for a time on 
the frontiers of Campania. The Sidicinians still remained in arms, 9 
with what hopes or from what despair we know not ; they attacked ia™. colony planted 
the Auruncans, who had submitted to Rome, and destroyed their 
principal city ; and the Romans were so slow or so unsuccessful in opposing them, 

writers have understood this Alexander to he 8 "Westphal places Fregellse at Ceprano, a small 

Alexander of Epirus ; hut it is quite clear from frontier town of the pope's dominions, just on 

Strabo's language that he meant the most emi- the right bank of the Liris ; but says that there 

nent man of the name of Alexander, as well as is no vestige of the ancient city m existence, 

the most eminent Demetrius ; that is to say, Mr. Keppel Craven is disposed to identify Ere- 

Alexander the Great, and Demetrius Polior- gellse with some remains about four miles lower 

cetes. down, below the junction of the Trerus, near to 

6 Arrian, VII. 15. the present village of S. Giovanni in Carico. 

7 Livy, VIII. 23. Dionysius, XV. 12, Fragm. 9 Livy, VIII. 15. 



278 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXX 

that they were in the next year joined by the Opicans of Cales, 10 whom Livy 
calls Ausonians. Cales stood on the edge of the plain of Capua, 
not more than ten miles from the city : u its example might be- 
come contagious, and therefore the Romans now roused themselves in earnest, 
and sent both consuls to act against this new enemy ; and, having driven both the 
Sidicinians and the Ausonians within their walls, they chose M. Valerius Corvus 
as consul for the succeeding year, and committed the war especially to his charge. 
He laid regular siege to Cales, and took the place : but although both he and 
his colleague, M. Atilius Regulus, proceeded afterwards to attack the Sidicinians, 
yet on them they could make no impression. And although Cales was imme- 
diately made a colony, and garrisoned with 2500 colonists, 12 yet the Sidicinians 
held out during the two following years ; their lands were wasted, but their prin- 
cipal city, Teanum, was not taken, and as neither victories nor triumphs over 
them appear in the annals or in the Fasti, and the termination of the war is never 
noticed, we may suppose that they, after a time, obtained favorable terms, and 
preserved at least their municipal independence. 

Before the close of this contest it was noticed in the annals 13 that Samnium 
was become suspected by theHomans. This was in 421, and the 
Romans and Alexander same thing is remarked of the year following ; so that the Romans 
heard with pleasure in that year, that Alexander, king of Epirus, 
brother of Olympias, and thus uncle to Alexander the Great, had landed in Lu- 
cania, 14 near Paestum, and had defeated the united armies of the 
Lucanians and Samnites. Immediately after this battle, the Ro- 
mans concluded a treaty of peace with the conqueror ; a treaty which could have 
no other object than to assure him of the neutrality of the Romans, and that the 
alliance, which had so lately subsisted between them and the Samnites in the 
Latin war, was now virtually at an end. Whether there were any stipulations 
for a division of the spoil, in the event of his making territorial conquests in Italy, 
must be merely matter of conjecture ; but the Romans, at any rate, took advan- 
tage of Alexander's invasion; and when, in 424, 15 the Volscians of Fabrateria 
sent an embassy to solicit their protection against the Samnites, 

A TT C 4^4 • • 

they received it favorably, and threatened the Samnites with war 
if they did not leave Fabrateria unmolested. And yet the Samnites, in attack- 
ing it, were but putting down the last remains of the Latin confederacy on the 
upper Liris, exactly as the Romans had done in Campania ; the Volscians of 
Fabrateria and the SicHteinians had been alike allied with the Latins against Rome 
and Samnium, and as Rome was now engaged with the latter for her own sep- 
arate advantage, so it was just that Samnium should gain her own share of the 
spoil by conquering the former. But the Romans treated the Samnites now as 
they treated the iEtolians after the battle of Cynocephalse, or the Achceans 
after the defeat of Perseus : as soon as the common enemy was beaten down, the 
allies who had aided Rome in his conquest became her next victims. Two years 
afterwards, in 426, 16 the Romans went a step further, and actually planted a 
colony of their own at Fregellae, a Volscian city, which, as we have seen, had 
been taken and destroyed by the Samnites, so that its territories were now law- 
fully, so far as the Romans were concerned, a part of Samnium. But fortune 
had now turned against Alexander of Epirus, and his power was no longer to be 
dreaded ; the Samnites, therefore, were in a condition to turn their attention to 

10 Livv, VIII. 16. " In 422 it is said that "Samnium jam alto- 

11 Culi's is the modern Calvi, six Neapolitan rum annum t nrbari novis eonsiliis Buapectom 
miles from the modern Capua, and therefore crat.'' — Livy, VIII. 17. 

about eight Neapolitan miles from the ancient " Livy, \'"III. 17. 

Capua, which Btood on the sit,' of the modern y - livy, VIII. 19. Fabrateria is the modern 

village of 8. Maria di Capua, But eight Nea- Falvaterra, standing on a hill on the right bank 

politan miles are about ten English ones, the oftheTrerus or Tolero, a little above itsjuue- 

Neapolitao mile being nearly U English mile. tion with the Liris. 

B Livy, VIII. 16. 10 Livv. VIII. 22. 



Chap. XXX.] WAR WITH PRIVERNUM. 379 

other enemies ; the war between Rome and the Greeks of Palsepolis and Neapo- 
lis immediately followed, as we shall see presently, and this led directly to an 
open renewal of the contest between Rome and Samnium. 

In the mean time the Romans had gained a fresh accession of strength nearer 
home. The unconnected notices of these events recorded" that in War with p rivenmm . 
424 a war broke out with the people of Privernum, in which the A - u - c - 424 - 
people of Fundi took a part, notwithstanding the favorable terms of their late 
treaty with Rome. Not a word of explanation is given as to the causes of this 
war, but the name of its leader has been recorded : Vitruvius Vaccus, a citizen 
of Fundi, who, availing himself of the interchange of all private rights of citizen- 
ship between the inhabitants of the two countries, had acquired property at Rome, 
and actually possessed a house on the Palatine Hill. His influence at Privernum, 
as weli as the fact of his having a house at Rome in such a situation, prove him 
to have been a man of great distinction ; and probably he was ambitious of being 
admitted to the full rights of a Roman citizen, 18 and like Attus Clausus of Regil- 
lus in old times, of becoming a member of the senate, and obtaining the consul- 
ship. Disappointed in this hope, he would feel himself slighted, and seek the 
means of revenging himself. Privernum had been deprived of a portion of its 
domain after the late war, and had seen this land occupied by Roman settlers ; 
motives, therefore, for hostility against Rome were not wanting ; and hopes of 
aid from Samnium might encourage to an attempt which otherwise would seem 
desperate. But either these hopes were disappointed, or Vitruvius had rashly 
ventured on N an enterprise which he could not guide. He was defeated in the 
field, and fled to Privernum after the battle : his own countrymen, the people of 
Fundi, disclaimed him, and made their submission ; but the Privernatians held 
out resolutely against two consular armies till the end of the Roman civil year ; 
and the new consuls, who continued to beset Privernum with the whole force of 
Rome, did not finish the war for some months afterwards. At length Privernum 
submitted ; 19 Vitruvius Vaccus was taken alive, kept in the dungeon at Rome till 
the consuls' triumph, and then was scourged and beheaded ; some others were 
put to death with him ; the senators of Privernum, like those of Velitrse, were 
deported beyond the Tiber : the consuls, L. ^Emilius and C. Plautius, triumphed, 20 
and ^Emilius obtained the surname of Privernas, in honor of his conquest over so 
obstinate an enemy. 

What follows is almost without example in Roman history, and though, like 
every other remarkable story of these times, its details are in some respects uncer- 
tain, yet its truth in the main may be allowed, 21 and it is well worthy of mention, 

w Livy, VIII. 19. full length would have run, C. Plautius Hyp- 

18 The case of L. Ful ius of Tuseulum, a very sseus Decianus. — See Eckhel, Doctr. Num. Vol. 
few years later, seems to throw light upon the V. p. 275. 

views of Vitruvius \~accus. It is mentioned of 21 The details are uncertain, "because Dionys- 

Eulvius, that in one year he commanded a Tus- ius places its date in the year 398, and ascribes 

culan army against Rome, and in the next was the questions put to the Privernatians, not to a 

himself elected Roman consul, having in the Plautius or iEmilius, but to a Marcius ; that is 

interval obtained the full citizenship of Rome, to say, to C. Marcius Rutilus, the first plebeian 

Circumstances favored him, and were adverse dictator and censor. There are also some varia- 

to Vitruvius ; but the object in view was, in both tions in the circumstances of the story. It ap- 

cases, probably the same. pears to me that the story itself was of Priver- 

19 Livy, VIII. 20. natian origin, and that when the Privernatians 

20 See the Fasti Capitolmi, which also give the became Eoman citizens, they used to relate with 
consul iEmilius his title of Privernas. pride this instance of the unflattering nobleness 

The coins of the Plautian family, struck at the of their fathers. When it became famous at 

very end of the seventh century of Rome, still Rome, the Romans, as it reflected credit on them 

record the triumph over Privernum ; in the also, were sdad to adopt it into their history, and 

legend, C. HVPSAE. COS. PREIVER. CAPT. then the several great families which had con- 

Hypsams was one of the cognomina of the Plau- ducted wars at different periods against Priver- 

tian family, and in later times the prevailing num, were each anxious to appropriate it to 

one; but the conqueror of Privernum, accord- themselves. Thus the March wanted to fix it 

ing to the Fasti, was C. Plautius Declaims, to the earlier war with Privernum, which had 

That is, apparently, he was a Decius adopted been carried on by an ancestor of theirs ; while 

into the Plautian family, so that his name at the iEmilii and Plautii claimed it for the last war, 



280 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXX. 

story of the bold ian- as a solitary instance of that virtue, so little known to the Romans, 
fernl e tiar<i d eput'yb e ro« respect for the valor of a brave enemy. After their triumph, 
the Roman senate. ^ e consu i s brought the case of the people of Privernum be- 
fore the senate, and urging their neighborhood to Samnium, and the likelihood 
of a speedy war with the Samnites, recommended that they should be gently 
dealt with, to secure their fidelity for the future. Some of the senators were 
disposed to adopt a less merciful course ; and one of these called to the Priver- 
natian deputies who had been sent to Rome to sue for mercy, and asked them, 
" Of what penalty, even in their own judgment, were their countrymen deserv- 
ing ?" A Privernatian boldly answered, " Of the penalty due to those who assert 
their liberty." The consul, dreading the effect of this reply, tried to obtain 
another of an humbler strain, and he asked the deputy, " But if we spare you now, 
what peace may we expect to have with you for the time to come ?" " Peace 
true and lasting," was the answer, " if its terms be good ; if otherwise, a peace 
that will soon be broken." Some senators cried out that this was the language 
of downright rebellion : but the majority were moved with a nobler feeling, and 
the consul, turning to the senators of highest rank who sat near him, said aloud, 
"These men, whose whole hearts are set upon liberty, deserve to become Ro- 
mans." Accordingly, it was proposed to the people, and carried, that the Pri- 
vernatians should be admitted to the rights of Roman citizenship : in the first 
instance, probably, they were admitted to the private rights only, but ten years 
afterwards two new tribes were formed, and one of these, the Ufentine, included 
among its members the inhabitants of Privernum. 22 

The year 425 is further marked by an alarm of a new Gaulish invasion, which 
Alarm of a new Ganiuh was thought so serious, that the workmen in the several trades, and 
mva ° 10 "- even those whose business was altogether sedentary, 23 are said to 

have been enlisted as soldiers ; and a large army, composed in part of such ma- 
terials, marched out as far as Veii to look out for and oppose the expected enemy. 
A similar alarm 24 had led to the appointment of a dictator, and to an unusual 
strictness in the enlistment of soldiers, three years before ; but in neither instance 
did any invasion actually take place. Polybius says, 25 that at this period, "the 
Gauls, seeing the growing power of the Romans, concluded a treaty with them :" 
he does not mention what were the terms of this treaty, and Livy seems to have 
known nothing of its existence. Probably the Gauls found that their arms might 
be turned against other nations with more advantage and less risk than against 
Rome ; while the Romans, looking forward to a war with Samnium, would be 
glad to purchase peace on their northern frontier by some honorary presents to 
the Gaulish chiefs, and by engaging not to interfere with them, so long as they 
abstained from attacking the Roman territory. 

On then southern frontier, the Romans, still with a view 7 to the expected war 
with the Samnites, secured their direct communications with Cam- 

The Romans found a - . . n i • p . i i l j 

colony at Amur, or Tar- panui, by sending a small colony or garrison ot three hundred 
settlers to occupy the important post of Anxur, 26 or Tarracina. 
Each man received as his allotment of land no more than two jugera, so that the 
whole extent of ground divided on this occasion did not exceed 400 English 
acres. We are not to suppose that these three hundred colonists composed the 
whole population of the town; many of the old inhabitants, doubtless, still re- 
sided there, 1 ' and had continued to do so ever since the place had become subject 

in which their ancestors bad been t ho consuls, a Roman colony given by Scrvius. .En. [.12, 

The Priveroatian Btory, 'in all probability, men- that "deduoti sunt in locum certnm eedificiis 

tioncil do Roman general by name. nranitum." The colonists were sent to inhabit 

22 Featus, in " I lufentina. ' a tow n already in existence, not to build a new 

23 "Sellularii." Livy, VIII. 20. one for themselves; and thus by the verj iu- 

24 Livy, VIII. 17. tore of the ease, they would generally form a 

26 livy, II. is. part only of the whole population of such a 
20 LivV, VIII. 21. town, as the old inhabitants would rarely be al- 

27 It is a part of the well-known definition of together extirpated. 



Chap. XXX.] WAR WITH THE GREEKS OF PARTHENOPE. 281 

to the Romans ; but they had ceased to. form a state or even a corporate society ; 
all their domain was become the property of the Roman people, and they were 
governed by a magistrate or praafect sent from Rome. The Roman colonists, on 
the other hand, governed themselves and the old inhabitants also ; they chose 
their own magistrates and made their own laws : and over and above the grant 
of two jugera to each man, a portion too small by itself to maintain a family, 
they had, probably, a considerable extent of common pasture on the mountains, 
the former domain of the city of Anxur, and of which the colonists would have 
not, indeed, the sovereignty, but the beneficial enjoyment. It should be remem- 
bered, too, that as they retained their Roman franchise, they could still purchase 
or inherit property in Rome, and intermarry with their old countrymen ; and thus, 
if any of them returned to Rome at a future period, they would easily enrol their 
names again amongst the members of their old tribe, and so resume the exer- 
cise of all their political rights, which had been suspended during their residence 
in the colony, but not actually forfeited. 

Two years after the war with Privernum, there began that course of events 
which finally involved the Romans in open hostilities with the Sam- War with the Gieek3 
nites. When the Latin confederacy was broken up by the victory ofParthen °P e - 
of Manlius and Decius, Capua, as we have seen, was punished for her accession 
to it by the loss of her domain land ; and the territory thus ceded to Rome had 
been partly divided out by the government to the commons in small portions of 
three jugera to each settler, and partly had been occupied, after the usual man- 
ner, by families of the aristocracy. Thus a large body of strangers had been 
introduced into Campania ; and disputes soon arose between them and the inhabit- 
ants of the Greek towns of the sea-coast. 28 Of these, Palaepolis and Neapolis, 
the old and new towns of Parthenope, were at this period almost the sole sur- 
vivors. They were both Cumaean colonies ; but Cumae itself had, about eighty 
years before, been taken by the Samnite conquerors of Capua ; and since that 
period it had ceased to be a purely Greek city : a foreign race, language, and man- 
ners were intermixed with those of Greece, and lately Cumae, like the neighboring 
towns of Capua and Acerrse, had become intimately connected with Rome. The 
two Parthenopean towns, on the contrary, had retained their Greek character 
uncorrupted ; when their mother city had been conquered, they opened their 
gates to the fugitives 29 who had escaped from the ruin, and received them as 
citizens of Parthenope ; and although a short time afterwards they formed an 
alliance with the Samnites, perhaps from dread of the ambition of Dionysius of 
Syracuse, yet this connection had not interfered with their perfect independence. 
They kept up also friendly relations with the people of Nola, whose admiration 
and imitation of the Greeks was so great as to give them, in some respects, the 
appearance of a Greek people. 30 Now, for the first time, they were brought into 
contact with the Romans, who accused them of molesting the Roman settlers 
in Campania, and demanded satisfaction for the injury. Certainly the Greeks 
had no scruples to restrain them from making spoil of the persons and property 
of barbarians ; but the hostility was generally mutual ; the Greek cities in south- 
ern Italy had suffered greatly from the attacks of their Lucanian neighbors ; and 
the Roman settlers and occupiers of land in Campania might sometimes relieve 
their own wants by encroaching on the pastures or plundering the crops of the 
Greeks of Parthenope. 

What account the Neapolitans gave of the origin of their quarrel with Rome, 
we know not ; but the Roman story was, that when their feciales were sent to 

28 Livy, VIII. 22. Dionysius' statement rep- 29 Dionysius, XV. 6. Fragm. Mai. 

resents the wrong as offered to the Campa- 30 NwAai/wi' aipdSpa rviis 'EXXqvas aaira^o/jiivaiv. 

nians themselves ; and that the Eomans took Dionys. XV. 5. The coins of Nola closely re- 

up the cause of their dependent allies, or, in the semble those of Neapolis, and the legend is in 

well-known Greek term, of those who were the Greek, not in the Oscan character. 
■jirrjKooi t>js 'Poi^aj'uv fiytjiovias. See Dionys. XV. 
4. Fragm. Mai. 



282 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXX. 

Palaepolis 31 to demand satisfaction, the Greeks, being a tongue- 
m a war with the Sam. valiant people, returned an insulting refusal. Upon this the senate 

submitted to the centuries the resolution that war should be de- 
clared with the people of Palaepolis ; and the centuries having approved of it, war 
was declared accordingly. Both consuls were sent into Campania ; Q. Publilius 
Philo to attack the Greeks, L. Cornelius Lentulus to watch the Samnites, who 
were expected to aid them. It was said that a Samnite garrison of 4000 men, 33 
together with 2000 men from Nola, were received into Palaepolis ; and L. Cor- 
nelius reported to the senate that enlistments of men were ordered all over Sam- 
mum, and that attempts were making to excite the people of Privernum, 
Fundi, and Formise to rise in arms again against Rome. Upon this, the ambassadors 
were sent by the Roman government to the Samnites, to obtain redress for their 
alleged grievances. The Samnites wholly denied their having tampered with 
Privernum, 33 Fundi, and Formiae ; and the soldiers who had gone to Palaepolis were, 
they said, an independent body, who had volunteered into the Greek service, 
and had not been sent by any public authority. This was probable enough, at 
a period when Campanian, or Opican, or Samnite mercenaries, — for the same 
men were called indifferently by all these names, — bore such a high renown for 
valor, and were enlisted into the service of so many different nations. But the 
Samnites further charged the Romans with a breach of the treaty on their part, 
in having planted a Roman colony at Fregellae ; a place which, having been con- 
quered by the Samnites from the Volscians in the late war with the Latin con- 
federacy, belonged rightfully to them as their share of the spoil. The Roman 
annalists seem to have known of no adequate answer that was made to this 
charge : the Romans proposed, it is said, to refer the question to the decision of 
some third power, keeping possession, however, of Fregellae in the mean time. 
But the Samnites thought their right so clear, that it was idle to refer the matter 
to any arbitration, 34 and to allow the Romans in the mean while to exclude them 
from entering upon their own land. They replied, that no negotiations, and no 
mediation of any third party, could decide their differences ; the sword alone 
must determine them. " Let us meet at once in Campania," they said, " and 
there put our quarrel to issue." The answer was characteristic of the Romans : 
" Our lesions march whither their own generals order them, and not at the 
bidding of an enemy." Then the Roman fecialis, or herald, 35 stepped forward : 
" The gods of war," he said, "will judge between us." And then he raised his 
hands to heaven and prayed, " If the Roman commonwealth has received wrong 
from the Samnites, and shall proceed to take up arms because she could obtain 
no justice by treaty, then may all the gods inspire her with wise counsels, and 
prosper her arms in battle ! But if Rome has been false to her oaths, and declares 
war without just cause, then may the gods prosper neither her counsels nor her 
arms !" Having said thus much, the ambassadors departed ; and L. Cornelius, 
it is said, crossed the frontier immediately, and invaded Samnium. 

But the year passed away unmarked by any decisive actions. Q. Publilius 
q. Pubiiihw rhiio is established himself between Palaepolis and Neapolis, so as to in- 
o,a.i.' i ,r °-«" , » ul - tercept all land communication between them, and to be enabled 
to lay waste their territory. He did not venture, however, to besiege either city, 

31 Bionysius, in all bis account of these olis, was founded in a more advantageous sit- 
affairs, makes mention only of Neapolis ; the nation, the old town, or Palaepolis, went to de- 
name of Pala-polis does not once occur in cay. 
his narrative. In the Roman story, Palaepolis ''•" Livy, VIII. 23. 
holds the more prominent place; tor no other ;,,J Livy, VIII, 28. 

reason, apparently, than because Paleepolis was M See the answer of the Corinthians when 

conquered by force, and enabled Publilius to the Corcyra^ans, like the Romans, first be- 

obtairj the honor of a triumph, while Neapolis sieged Epidamnus, and then offered to refer 

entered into a friendly treat] with Koine. But the dispute to the arbitration of some third 

Palfflpolis must really have been averyinsig- party. Thucyd. I. 89. 

niflcant place; for it 'followed almost as an in- * Dionysius, XV. 13. Fragm. Mai. 
fallible ride, that whenever a new town, Neap- 



Chap. XXX.] ATTEMPT TO INFRINGE THE LICHSTIAN LAW. 283 

and as the sea was open to their ships, they were not likely to he soon reduced 
to famine. Thus when the consular year was about to close, Q. Publilius was 
empowered to retain his command as proconsul, 36 till he should have brought the 
war to a conclusion ; and this is the first instance on record of the name and of- 
fice of proconsul, and proves the great interest which Publilius must have had both 
in the senate and with the people at large ; for certainly no urgent public neces- 
sity required that he should receive such an extraordinary distinction. It might 
have seemed of much greater consequence to leave the same general in the com- 
mand of the army in Samnium ; but Cornelius 31 was only excused from returning 
to Rome to hold the comitia, and was required to nominate a dictator for that 
purpose ; as soon as the new consuls came into office, the conduct of the war 
was committed to them. 

The consul named as dictator M. Claudius Marcellus, a man who had been 
himself consul four years before, but was of a plebeian family. 

. , ■. \ „ . f. XT . 11, . • Patrician jealousies a- 

And here we may observe a confirmation of JNiebuhr s opinion, g«>nst a plebeian die- 
that the spirit of the senate at this period was very different from 
that of the more violent patricians, or probably of a majority of the order. The 
senate had just conferred an unprecedented honor on the man whom the patri- 
cians most hated — on the author of the Publilian laws. This probably excited 
much bitterness ; and although M. Claudius Marcellus seems to have given no 
personal cause of offence, yet as he was a plebeian, the more violent patrician party 
determined to vent their anger upon him. They could not stop the proconsul- 
ship of Publilius, for that was solely within the cognizance of the senate and 
people ; but the dictatorship of Marcellus might be set aside by a power which 
was still exclusively patrician,' and for that very reason was likely to be ani- 
mated by a strong patrician spirit, the college of augurs. Reports were spread 
abroad that the dictator had not been duly appointed, that some religious im- 
pediment had occurred ; and of this question the augurs were alone judges. It 
was referred to them, and they pronounced that in the appointment 38 the auspices 
had not been properly taken, and that it was therefore void. The dictator ac- 
cordingly resigned his office ; but the decision of the augurs, although not legally 
questionable, was openly taxed with unfairness. The consul, it was said, was in 
the midst of his camp in Samnium ; he had arisen, as was his custom, at the 
dead of night, and had named the dictator when no human eye beheld him. He 
had mentioned nothing of evil omen to vitiate his act ; there was no witness 
who could report any, and how could the augurs, whilst living quietly at Rome, 
pretend to know what signs of unlucky import had occurred at a given time and 
place in Samnium ? It was plain to see that the real impediment to the dicta- 
tor's appointment consisted in his being a plebeian. 

The patricians appear to have been so encouraged by this victory, as to ven- 
ture upon another attempt of a far more desperate nature : they Attem pts to set aside 
seem to have tried to set aside the Licinian law, and to procure fteLiciuianlaw - 
the election of two patrician consuls. This at least is the most likely explana- 
tion of the fact that after the dictator's resignation, when the comitia were 
to be held by an interrex, the election was so delayed 39 that thirteen inter- 
regna, a period of more than sixty-five days, were suffered to elapse before the 
new consuls were appointed. The fourteenth interrex was L. JEmilius Mamer- 
cinus, a man whose family, since the days of the good dictator Mamercus ^Emil- 
ius, had always been opposed to the high patrician party, who was himself a 
friend 40 of Publilius Philo, and whose brother had been Publilius' colleague and 
associate in the year in which he had passed his famous laws. He brought on 
the election without delay, and took care that it should be conducted according 

36 Livy, VIII. 23. 39 Livy, VIII. 23. 

w Livy, VIII. 23. *° He had named Publilius his master of the 

38 Livy, VIII. 23. " Vitiosum videri dicta- horse a few years earlier, when he was himself' 

torem pronuntiaverunt." dictator. Livy, VIII. 16. 



284 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI 

to law ; and thus the efforts of the patricians were baffled, and a plebeian con- 
sul, C. Pcetelius, 41 was elected along with the patrician L. Papirius Mugillanus. 
It was an untimely moment for the renewal of party quarrels, when Rome was 
entering upon her second and decisive war with Samnium. In the 
»t the beginning of the first contests the two nations had met without animosity, and the 

second Saruuite war. -iii ,i j 'i t» j • . i i» 

war was ended between them soon and easily. But in the four- 
teen years which had since elapsed their feelings had become greatly changed. 
They were now well aware of each other's power and ambition ; their dominions 
were brought into immediate contact ; neither could advance but by driving back 
the other. The Latin states were now closely united with Rome, and it was be- 
come a question which of the two races, the Latin or the Sabellian, should be 
the sovereign of central and southern Italy. The second Samnite Avar, therefore, 
was carried on with feelings of bitter hostility ; and instead of ending, like the 
first, within three years, it lasted, amidst striking vicissitudes of fortune, for more 
than twenty. 



CHAPTER XXXI, 

SECOND SAMNITE WAR— L. PAPIRIUS CURSOR— AFFAIR OF THE FORKS OR PASS 
OF CAUDIUM— BATTLE OF LAUTUL.E— Q. FABIUS, AND THE WAR WITH ETRU- 
RIA.— A. U. C. 423-450 : 423^44, NIEBUHR. 



" Samnites quinquaginta annis per Fabios et Papiriospatres, eornmque liberos, ita subegit a ■ 
domuit (populus Romanus), ita ruinas ipsas urbiurn diruit, ut hodie Samnium in ipso Samnio 
requiratur; nee facile apparcat materia quatuor et viginti triumphorum." — Florus, 1. 16. 



The second Samnite war brings us to the middle of the fifth century of Rome, 
chronology of the sec- an d within little more than three hundred years of the Christian 
and samnite war. ^ &ra Alexander died almost before it had begun; and neither 
Aristotle nor Demosthenes were living when the Romans, in the fifth year of the 
contest, were sent under the yoke at the memorable pass of Caudium. At its 
conclusion, sixteen years later, we are arrived at the second generation of Alexan- 
der's successors ; Eumenes and Antipater were dead, Demetrius Poliorcetes was 
in the height of his renown ; and Seleucus and Ptolemy had already assumed 
the kingly diadem, and founded the Greek kingdoms of Syria and of Egypt. So 
completely had Greece arrived at the season of autumn, while at Rome it was 
yet the early spring. 

The war on which we are going to enter lasted, on the lowest computation, 
General nature and ob- about twenty years. It was full of action, but its events present 
so complicated a tissue, that it is not easy to comprehend its gen- 
eral principle. Here, however, as in the Peloponnesian war, it was a great object 
with either party to tempt the allies of the other to revolt; and thus the Romnn 
armies were so often employed in Apulia, and in the valley of the upper Litis, 
while the Samnites were eager at every favorable opportunity to pour down into 
Campania. At first the fidelity even of the Latin states to Rome seemed doubt- 
ful ; but that was secured by timely concessions, and Rome and Latium, firmly 
united, were enabled to send out armies so superior in number to those of the 
Samnites, that while revolt from the Romans was an attempt of the greatest 

41 Livy, VIU. 25. 



Chap. XXXI.] THE ALLIES OF ROME. 285 

danger, revolt to them was prompted both by hope and fear. The Etruscan war, 
like all the other military attempts of that divided people, offered no effectual 
diversion ; and at last Samnium saw her allies stripped, as it were, from around 
her, and was obliged herself to support the havoc of repeated invasions. She 
then yielded from mere exhaustion ; but was so unsubdued in spirit that she only 
made peace till she could organize a new force of allies to assist her in renewing 
the struggle. 

Q. Publilius Philo, 1 in his new office of proconsul, was continuing his land 
blockade of the Greeks of Parthenope ; while the new consuls of 
the year 428 with their united armies were ordered to invade Apuiian/Te'come the 
Samnium. But the Romans, according to the policy which they 
invariably pursued in their later wars, did not choose to carry on a systematic 
war in their enemy's country till they had secured the alliance of some state in 
his immediate neighborhood. Thus, before they commenced their operations, 
they concluded treaties of alliance 2 with the Lucanians and Apulians, or, at any 
rate, with some particular states or tribes of these two nations. The Lucanians, 
although a kindred people to the Samnites, were politically distinct from them ; 
and they had, moreover, their own internal factions, 3 each of which would gladly 
apply for foreign aid to enable it to triumph over its rival. Besides, they were 
the old enemies of the Greek cities on their coasts ; and as Rome was now in 
open war with Neapolis, and on the brink of a quarrel with Tarentum, this very 
circumstance would dispose the Lucanians to seek her alliance. As for the Apu- 
lians, they were treated by the Samnites, it is said, almost as a subject people f 
and they might, therefore, as naturally look to Rome for deliverance, as the 
allies of Athens in the Peloponnesian war were ready to revolt to Lacedaemon. 
But the Samnite government had not the active energy of the Athenian ; and the 
Romans were still more widely distant from the pusillanimity and utter unskil- 
fulness which marked the military plans of Sparta. 

We know nothing but the mere outside of all these transactions ; the internal 
parties whose alternate triumph or defeat influenced each state's En a of the war with the 
external relations, are mostly lost in the distant view presented NelfoL^beco^eTTe' 
by the annalists of Rome. But it is recorded 5 that the war with »% of the Romans. 
the Greeks of Parthenope was ended by the act of a citizen of Palaepolis, who, 
preferring the Roman to the Samnite connection, found means to admit the Ro- 
mans into his city. Publilius obtained a triumph for his conquest, and Palsep- 
olis is no more heard of in history ; but Neapolis, warned in time by the fate 
of her sister city, did not allow one of her oAvn citizens to place her at the 
enemy's mercy, but at once concluded peace for herself, and was admitted into 
the Roman alliance. 6 From that day forward the political history of Neapolis 
is a blank to us, till, in the revolutions of ages, the Chalcidian colony became 
the seat of an independent duchy, and afterwards of a Norman kingdom. 

The people of Tarentum, 7 it is said, were greatly concerned at the issue of 

1 Livy, VIII. 25.. (Diodortis, XVI. 62-88.) But of the subsequent 

Livy, VIII. 25. relations between Tarentum and the Lucinians 

This, Niebuhr observes, appears from the we have not a word; the whole of the 17th and 

statement that Alexander of Epirus, during his 18th books in their present state being devoted 

wars in Italy, was attended by about two hun- exclusively to the affairs of Greece and Asia ; 

dred Lucanian exiles ; and that these exiles and the portion of the histoyy which treated of 

treated with the opposite party, and purchased the contemporary events in Sicily and the west, 

their return to their several estates by betray- having been entirely lost. 

ing him and murdering him.— Livy, VIII. 24. * Livy, IX. 13. See chap. XXVIII. of this 

It is vexatious that Diodorus, or rather his work history, note 28. 

as it now remains to us, makes no mention of 5 Livy, VIII. 25. 

the affairs of Italy during this period. He no- 6 Livy, VIII. 26, speaks of a " foedus Neapoli- 
tices the war between the Lucanians and Taren- tanum," not "Palsepolitanum," which he ac- 
tum in the 110th Olympiad, in which Archid- counts for by saying, u Eoenim (soil. Neapolin), 
amus, the king of Sparta, fought on the side of deinde summa rei Gnecorum venit." But see 
the Tarentines and was killed ; and which was chap. XXX. note 31. 
exactly contemporary with the battle of Chaero- 7 Livy, VIII. 27. 
nea, and the beginning of the great Latin war. 



286 HISTORY OF ROME. .[Chap, a^.^1 

__ . , this war, and were anxious by every means to stop the alarming 

The Lucamans revolt i r i -n a • i i p -i • 

from Rome, aod again growth of the Roman power. A strange story is told of their 

join the Samnites. j • • it i /• • /> 

deceiving the Lucamans by false representations of outrages of- 
ferred by the Roman generals to some Lucanian citizens ; and the effect of their 
trick, it is said, was so great, that the whole Lucanian nation, in the very same 
year in which they had concluded their alliance with Rome, revolted and joined 
the Samnites. But the Samnites, mistrusting this sudden change, obliged them 
to give hostages for their fidelity, and to receive Samnite garrisons into their 
principal towns. 

It is quite evident that we have not here the whole explanation of the conduct 

of the Lucanians. Some internal revolution must have prepared 

Obscurity of these ac- . /»• -it ■ it r* i r» l 

counts, "operations of the way lor it, and then any stories, whether true or false, of the 
insolence of the Roman generals might be successful^ employed 
to excite the popular indignation. But how the Roman party was so suddenly 
and completely overthrown, and why neither of the consular armies made any 
attempt to restore it, it is impossible to conjecture. The whole account of the 
operations of the two consuls is confined to the statement, 8 that they penetrated 
some way from Capua up the valley of the Vulturnus, and took the three towns 
of Allifee, Callifse, and Rufrium. But no success was obtained of sufficient im- 
portance to deserve a triumph, and the conquered towns were in all probability 
immediately abandoned, for the Romans could not as yet hope to maintain their 
ground permanently on the upper Vulturnus ; and it appears that fifteen years 
afterwards AllifEe was still held by the Samnites. Thus, at the end of the first 
campaign, the aspect of the war was not favorable to Rome. 

The next year opened still more unpromisingly ; for the Vestinians 9 joined the 
, „ „ Samnite confederacy ; and if the Romans attacked them, it was 

A. U. C. 429. Second ... . . , ,, ->.' , r . . . _ ... 

theT" 511 '' War with H ^ e v * na * " ie Marsians, Marrucimans, and rehgnians, would all 
take up arms in their defence. These four nations lay on the north 
and northwest of Samnium, and their territory reached from the coast of the 
Adriatic to the central chain of the Apennines, and to the shores of the lake 
Fucinus. If they were hostile, all communication between Rome and Apulia 
was rendered extremely precarious ; and Samnium was secured from invasion 
except on the side of the valley of the Liris, or from Campania. The Romans, 
therefore, boldly resolved to declare war at once against the Vestinians, and by 
a sudden attack to detach them from the Samnite alliance. One of the new 
consuls, Dec. Junius Brutus, marched immediately into their country ; the 
neighboring nations remained quiet, and the Vestinians, overpowered by a su- 
perior force, saw their whole country laid waste ; and when they were provoked 
to risk a battle they were totally defeated, and were reduced for the rest of the 
season to disperse their army, and endeavor only to defend their several cities. 
Two of these, 10 however, were taken, and although it is not mentioned that the 
Vestinians sued for peace, yet the communication between Rome and Apulia 
seems for the future to have been carried on through their country without in- 
terruption. 

Meanwhile the other consul, L. Furius Camillus, who was to have invaded 
l. Papirius Cursor die- Samnium," was taken ill, and became unable to retain his com- 
Uitor " mand. Being then ordered to name a dictator, he fixed upon L. 

Papirius Cursor, who accordingly appointed Q. Fabius Rullianus his master of 
the horse, and marched out to attack the Samnites. Livy's carelessness, and the 
extreme obscurity of the small towns and villages in Samnium, make it impossi- 

8 Livy, VIII. 25. included that highest part of the whole range 

9 Livy, VIII. 29. of the Apennines known by the name of " H 

10 Cutina and Cingilia. — Livy, VIII. 29. Both gran Sasso d' Italia." But the sites of the 
names are entirely unknown, and both, there- several smalt towns in it, which in all probabil- 
fore, as usual, are given with great variations ity had perished long before the Augustan age, 
in the MSS. The country of the Vestinians lay it is impossible to ascertain now. 

on the left bank of the river Aturnus, and it " Livy, VIII. 29. 



Chap. XXXI] L. PAPIRIUS AND Q. FABIUS. 287 

ble to ascertain the seat of this campaign exactly. We cannot even tell whether 
the Romans invaded Samnium, 12 or were obliged themselves to act on the defen- 
sive, and to meet the Samnite army in the valley of the upper Anio, under the 
Imbrivian or Simbrivian hills, about half way between Tibur and Sublaqueum. 

The faint and obscure outline of the military transactions of this campaign af- 
fords a strong: contrast to the lively and full picture of the dispute • 

O -II- c 1 l 1 • l Story of his seventy 

between the Roman dictator and his master ot the horse, which towards q. Fab™, i.is 

. 7 /»!■ 4 1 master ot the horse. 

the annals have given amongst the events or this year. As the 
story would be considered honorable to both the actors in it, the traditions and 
memoirs of both their families would vie with each other in recording it ; and the 
historian, Fabius Pictor, in honor of his own name and race, was likely to give 
it a place in his history. It is told by Livy with his usual power and feeling ; 
but here, as in the story of T. Manlius and his son, it will be best merely to re- 
peat the outline of it, as we have no other knowledge of it than what we derive 
from Livy himself, and to give it again in detail would be either to translate him, 
or to describe with less effect what in him is related almost perfectly. 

When the auspices were taken, 13 as usual, by the dictator at Rome, previously 
to his marching: out to war, the sigms of the will of the gods were 

..°. .. ° , - ° , Q. Fabius appeals to the 

not sufficiently inteliisfible. It was necessary, therefore, to take tribunes-, and the P eo- 

, • 1 i • Id l-i i 1 11 pie, by their entreaties, 

them over again ; and as they were auspices which could only be prevail on the dictator 
taken lawfully within the precinct of the old Ager Romanus, the 
dictator was obliged for this purpose to return to Rome. He charged his mas- 
ter of the horse to remain strictly on the defensive during his absence ; but Fa- 
bius disobeyed his orders, and gained some slight advantage over the enemy ; an 
advantage which the annalists magnified into a decisive victory, with a loss to the 
Samnites 15 of 20,000 men. However, Papirius, as soon as he heard of this breach 
of his orders, hastened back to the camp, and would have executed Fabius im- 
mediately, had not the violent and almost mutinous opposition of the soldiers 
obliged him to pause. During the night Fabius fled from the camp to Rome, 
and immediately summoned the senate to implore their protection ; but ere the 
senators were well assembled, the dictator arrived, and again gave orders to arrest 
him. M. Fabius, the father of the prisoner, then appealed to the tribunes for 
their protection, and declared his intention of carrying his son's cause before the 
assembly of the people. Papirius warned the tribunes not to sanction so fatal a 
breach of military discipline, nor to lessen the majesty of the dictator's office, by 
allowing his judgments to be reversed by any other power. The tribunes hesi- 

12 Livy fixes the scene of action in Samnium, other countries were either ager peregrinus, or 
and calls the place at which the action was ager hosticus, or ager incertus ; and these re- 
fought " Imhrinium." VIII. 30. But Niehuhr quired different auspices. — See Varro, V. § 33. 
observes, that the circumstances of the story Ed. Miiller. 

which follows, imply that the Boman army 15 Livy, VIII. 30. Some writers, not content 
could have been at no great distance from with this, asserted that two pitched battles had 
Borne ; and the Imbrivian or Simbrivian hills been fought during the dictator's absence, and 
of the upper valley of the Anio are well known, that Fabius had been twice signally victorious. 
In this Samnite war, wherever we have any de- " In quibusdam annalibus tota res praetermissa 
tails of a battle, the geography of the campaign est," says Livy; that is, the action was of no 
is generally more perplexed than ever ; because importance in itself, and therefore was omitted 
such details always come from stories pre- in those annals which did not enter into the de- 
served by the several families of the aristocracy, tails of the story of Papirius and Fabius. But, 
whether in writing or traditionally ; and these, as it made a necessary part of that story, it was 
caring nothing for the military history of the mentioned, of course, in every version of it ; 
previous operations, only sought to describe and both the Papirian and the Fabian tradi- 
the deeds of their hero in the battle. tions would be disposed to exaggerate its im- 

13 Livy,' VIII. 30. portance : the latter, from an obvious reason; 

14 This appears from the well-known passage but the former would be disposed to do it 
in Varro, in which he gives the augurs' division equally, for the glory of the character of Papir- 
of all countries, according to the rules of their ius was placed in his unyielding assertion of 
art ; that is, according to the several kinds of the sacredness of discipline ; and this would be 
auspices which were peculiar to each of them, rendered the more striking, in proportion to 
The ager Bomanus and the ager Gabinus are the brilliancy of the action, which he, notwith- 
classed apart, because in these two districts the standing, treated as a crime, because it had been 
auspices might be taken in the same way. All fought contrary to his orders. 



288 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI. 

tated ; they were unwilling to establish a precedent of setting any limits to the 
absolute power of the dictator, a power which was held essential to the office ; 
and 3'et they could not bear to permit an exercise of this power so extravagantly 
severe as to shock the sense and feelings of the whole Roman people. They 
were relieved from this difficulty by the people themselves ; 16 for the whole as- 
sembly, with one voice, implored the dictator to show mercy, and to forgive Fabius 
for their sakes. Then Papirius yielded ; the absolute power of the dictator, he 
said, was now acknowledged : the people did not interfere to rescind his sen- 
tence, 11 but to entreat his mercy. Accordingly, he declared that he pardoned 
the master of the horse ; " and the authority of the Roman generals was estab- 
lished," says Livy, "no less firmly by the peril of Q. Fabius than by the actual 
death of the young T. Manlius." This is true, if by peril we understand not 
only that he was in danger, but also that he was no more than in danger, and 
that he did not actually perish ; for the execution of Fabius would, perhaps, 
have been more ruinous to discipline than any other possible result of the trans- 
action, as the reaction of feeling produced by laws of extreme severity has a di- 
rect tendency to utter lawlessness. It may be observed also, that, according to 
this story, the tribunes possessed the power within the city of staying the execu- 
tion, even of a dictator's sentence ; and there is no doubt that in him, no less than 
in an inferior magistrate, it would have been a breach of the solemn covenant of 
the Sacred Hill to have touched the person of a tribune. And, in the same man- 
ner, the people in their centuries could, undoubtedly, have taken cognizance of 
the offence of Fabius themselves, and removed it out of the jurisdiction of the 
dictator. But neither the tribunes nor the people wished so to interfere, because 
it was held to be expedient that the dictator's power should be, in practice, unre- 
strained ; and, therefore, it was judged better to save Fabius by an appeal to the 
clemency of Papirius, rather than by an authoritative reversal of his sentence. 
From this story we return again to the meagerness of the accounts of the war. 
It is said, that whilst Papirius 18 was absent in Rome, one of his 
foraging parties was cut off by the Samnites ; and that after his 
return to the army, the soldiers were so unwilling to conquer under his auspices, 
that in a bloody battle, fought under his immediate command, with the enemy, 
the fortune of the day was left doubtful. Then, said the story, 19 Papirius saw 
how needful it was to win the love of his soldiers ; he was assiduous in his atten- 
tions to the wounded ; he commended them by name to the care of their l'espect- 
ive officers ; and he himself, with his lieutenants, went round the camp, looking 
personally into the tents, and asking the men how they were. The affections of 
the army were thus completely regained ; another battle followed, and the vic- 
tory of the Romans was so decisive, that the Samnites were forced to abandon 
the open country to the ravages of their enemies, and were even driven, so said 
the stories of the Papirian family, to solicit peace. The dictator granted an ar- 
mistice, and ambassadors from the Samnites followed him to Rome, when he 
returned thither, about the end of February, 20 to celebrate his triumph. But as 
the terms of a lasting peace could not be agreed upon, nothing more was con- 
cluded than a truce for a single year; a breathing-time which both parties might 
find convenient. 

The new consuls, however, were engaged in hostilities with the Samnites in 

the course of their magistracy, so that the Roman annalists accused 

the Samnites of having broken the truce as soon as Papirius went 

out of office.' 21 In the utter confusion of the chronology of this 

period, and the obscurity of its history, we cannot tell whether the charge was 

" Livv, VII 1. 86. 10 Livy. VIII. 36. 

17 k Nmi noxa cximitarQ. Fabius, scd noxtc w See the Fasti Capitolini. 

damnatus donatur populo Romano, donaturtri- ai Livy, VIII. 37. "Neccarum ipsarum (in- 

bunioise potestati, precarium aonjostom uux- dueiaruin) sancta fides rait: adco, postquam 

ilium li'iviiii."— Livy, VIII. 85. Papirium abisso magistrate nuntiatum est, ar- 

1B Liw, \ III. 85. ' recti ad bellandum animi sunt." 



Chap. XXXI] RISING OF THE CITIES NEAR ROME. 289 

well founded or no. But the events of this year, 431, according to the common 
chronology, have been more than ordinarily disguised and suppressed, for the 
annalists represent it as a year marked by no memorable action ; whereas, in fact, 
it witnessed a coalition against Rome, which was indeed quickly dissolved, but 
in the mean time had exposed the republic to the most imminent jeopardy. We 
must attempt to restore the outline at least of the real but lqpt picture. 

The Samnites had employed the year of the truce in endeavoring to procure 
assistance for themselves amongst the allies and subjects of Rome. The 50Muls march int0 
They succeeded, either wholly or in part, with the Apulians : some Apuiiaandsammum. 
of whose cities 22 revolted from the Romans, and called in the Samnites to assist 
in reducing those who refused to join them. Thus when the truce was either 
ended, or broken, Q. Aulius Cerretanus, 53 one of the consuls, was obliged to march 
with one consular army into Apulia ; whilst the other consul, C. Sulpicius Lon- 
gus, was sent into Samnium. Whether he made his attack on the side of Cam- 
pania, or from the country of the Pelignians and Marsians, we know not ; but it 
appears, at any rate, that both consuls Avere engaged at a distance from Rome, 
and their communications with it would, therefore, be liable to great interrup- 
tion. 

Five years had now elapsed since the rights of Roman citizenship had been 
bestowed on the people of Privernum ; thirteen years had passed Greatrisino . ofthe itic 
since the same privileges had been given to the Tusculans. But near Rome" to claim the 

.... .*. ° n i ! • , ■ i l r , full rights of citizen- 

as this citizenship extended only to private rights, and conierred ship- l.fuwuis consul 

.... r , . . n J . *L . P , m of the Tusculans. 

no political power (tor neither the Pnvernatians nor the luscu- 
lans were as yet included in any Roman tribe, and, consequently, they enjoyed no 
rights of voting), so it was felt to be a degradation rather than a benefit ; or, at 
any rate, it was fitted only for a temporary measure, which ought to pave the 
way for a more perfect union. We may conjecture also, from what has taken 
place in other countries, that hopes had been held out, or even promises made, 
by the Romans, of which the fulfilment was afterwards indefinitely delayed ; and 
the nobility of Privernum and Tusculum, connected with those of Rome in their 
private relations, and. aspiring to share with them also their political distinctions, 
were especially impatient of their actual condition. The Samnite war, and, above 
all, the absence of both the consular armies in remote parts of Italy, seemed to 
afford them an opportunity of enforcing their claims, and obliging the Romans 
to grant them a full equality of rights. Suddenly, therefore, like the Irish vol- 
unteers of 1782, the people of Tusculum and Privernum flew to arms ; and the 
spirit which actuated them must, indeed, have been general, if it be true that the 
people of Velitree, 24 although already included in a Roman tribe, were yet per- 
suaded to join them. One of their leaders was L. Fulvius Curvus, of Tusculum, 
and, like the leaders of the Italian allies in the great war of the seventh century, 
he was invested with the title of consul. 25 A Privernatian leader was, probably, 

22 Livy, VIII. 37. ment of the language of the bill is likely to be 

23 Livy calls him Q. iEmilius Cerretanus, but authentic, we might venture, even from that 
says " Aulium cpuidam annales habent." He alone, to supply the defects of the other part of 
himself calls him Aulius, however, when he Livy' s narrative, even if we had not Pliny's re- 
mentions his second consulship in the year markable notice of L. Fulvius, which throws a 
42 ( J. — Livy, IX. 15. light upon the whole transaction. 

24 In the bill proposed afterwards by M. Fla- 25 " Est et L. Fulvius inter insignia exempla. 
vius for the punishment of the Tusculans, it Tusculanorum rebellantium consul ; eodem- 
was proposed to punish all those "quorum ope que honore quum transisset exornatus eonfer- 
ac consilia Veliterni Privernatesque populo Ro- tim a populo Eomano : qui solus eodem anno 
mano bellum fecissent." This can only allude quo fuerat hostis Bomse triumphavit ex iis quo- 
te the short war of this year ; but the account rum consul fuerat." Pliny, Histor. Natur. VII. 
of these events in Livy is so meager that if we 44. Now, the title of consul was Eoman exclu- 
only followed his narrative the allusion would sively, and not Latin ; the Latins had praetors 
be unintelligible ; for not a word had been said and dictators, but no consuls ; which would nat- 
of Privernum since the war of 425, nor of Veli- urally be the case, if the origin of the name at 
trae since the great Latin war. Drakenborch, Eome were as accidental, and as connected with 
therefore, is naturally at a loss to understand the peculiar circumstances of the time, as I have 
the meaning of the passage ; but as the state- supposed it to have been. See p. 120. If, then, 

19 



290 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI. 

associated with him in this dignity, in intimation that Tusculum and Privernum 
were resolved to form a distinct Roman commonwealth of their own, they too 
being Roman citizens, if the inhabitants of the capital persisted in excluding them 
from the government and honors of their common country. 

Their measures seem to have been taken with the most careful secrecy, and 
Night march of l. Fui- the execution of them fell upon the Romans like a thunderbolt. 
d'emarX oVX' iJ^t I Q the dead of the night, an alarm was given that an enemy was 
gents are granted. before the walls of Rome ; 26 the citizens arose in haste, each man 
seized his arms, and ran to the Capitol, or to defend the walls and secure the 
gates of the city. The attempt of L. Fulvius to surprise Rome, not less bold than 
the mar.|h of C. Pontius Telesinus upon the Colline gate, was timely baffled ; 
and, finding the city secured against a surprise, he retreated as rapidly as he had 
advanced;. But although this single blow had failed, it still revealed the magni- 
tude of the. actual danger. If Velitrse had joined in the revolt, what hope was 
there thafr the other cities of Latium would remain faithful ? and if the whole 
storm of the Latin war should again gather, when the Samnites were no longer 
allies of Rdpne, as in the last war, but her deadly enemies, what prospect was left 
of victory ?<> The pride of the Roman aristocracy was obliged to yield ; and the 
self-same conduct which in Vitruvius Vaccus five years before they had punished 
with death,* they were now obliged, in the case of L. Fulvius Curvus, to reward 
with the consulship. What security they could give that they would keep 
their plighted faith, we know not ; but L. Fulvius was so satisfied that he went 
over to the Romans, and his countrymen and their allies, assured that their de- 
mands would be granted, laid down their arms. A mad, if not a treacherous, 
attempt to disturb this understanding was made by M. Flavius, 27 one of the trib- 
unes ; he proposed a law for visiting with condign punishment those citizens of 
Tusculum who had been the instigators of the late insurrection. This must, un- 
doubtedly, have included L. Fulvius himself ; and had the law passed, the Latins, 
in indignation and despair, would have risen as one man ; and the quarrel would 
have become utterly irreconcilable. One tribe, the Pollian, voted in favor of 
it, and even expressed its wish for a still bloodier vengeance on the whole peo- 
ple of Tusculum, such as the Athenians had taken upon the revolted Melians and 
Scionceans. But all the other tribes, to the number of eight and twenty, had 
the wisdom to reject the bill. In the very next census the Tusculans 28 and Pri- 
vernatians received the full rights of citizenship; but L. Fulvius obtained the 
object of his ambition even without this short delay ; he was elected at once Ro- 
man consul; and the man who in one year had led a hostile army. to assail the 
very walls of Rome, was in the next year invested with the highest civil and mili- 
tary power in the Roman commonwealth. 

Fulvius was really called consul, and not prse- have ruined his design. That he should have 

tor, the title must have heen chosen with the retreated instantly, as soon as he found that he 

same feeling as in the Italian war; when the was discovered, was, of course, necessary: and 

Italian allies, claiming to be the true representa- thus there would have been no enemy to be 

tives of the Soman nation, elected their two seen from the walls of Rome when the day 

consuls and twelve pr&'tors in opposition to the broke ; and yet the alarm in the night Mas any 

consuls and praetors of the oity of Rome. thing but imaginary. 

■ Livy, VIII. 87. " Romffl nocturnus terror ^ Livy, VII. 37. 

ita ex somno trepidant repente civitatem excivit, 2e This is known with regard to the Priverna- 

ut capitolium atque arx moaniaque et portte pie- tians, because they were included in the tribe 

na armatorum faerint, et cum concursatum con- Ufeutina, or Oufentina, which was created in 

clamatomqae ad anna omnibus locis esset, pri- 4:36. See Livy, IX. 20. Diodorus. XIX. 10. With 

ma luce nee auctor nee causa terroris compa- regard to the Tusculans it is only a oonjeoture ; 

ruit." The story thus given is a mere absurd- but we never hear of them afterwards, except 

ity; but it is probable enough, if explained as as full citizens; and their being enrolled in the 

in the text. We read of a similar night attack Papirian tribe (which is known from Livy, \ 111. 

made by the ZEquians upon Tusculum towards 87) seems to suit with the supposition that they 

the close, of the third century of Koine, Livy, were admitted to the full franchise byL. I'apir- 

III. 28 ; and in the same manner Appius Her- ins Cursor, who, as appears from the Fasti Ca- 

donius had actually surprised the Capitol at pitolini , was one of the censors of the year 436, 

Rome in the year 204. It may be that Fulvius when the Falerian and Ufentine tribes were cre- 

expected to be joined by a party within Koine atcd. 
itself, and the failure of this co-operation may 



Chap. XXXI] FOURTH CAMPAIGN.— ROMAN VICTORIES. " 291 

What became of the consular armies in Samnium and Apulia, while these im- 
portant events were passing in the neighborhood of Rome, we have 

1 « -i. . ° T . . i • .i j ji 'l • , Fourth campaign of the 

no means oi discovering. It is certain that they gained no victo- war. victories of the 
ries ; it is possible that they may have sustained some defeats, 
and that their ill fortune may have helped to break the spirit of Roman govern- 
ment, and to enforce a compliance with the demands of the Tusculans. But 
when the seeds of dissension near home were destroyed, and Tusculum and the 
other neighboring cities were cordially united with Rome, the war in Samnium 
assumed a different aspect. The Roman annals represent the year 432 as one 
.marked by most brilliant victories ; although some accounts 29 ascribed the merit 
of them to the consuls, Q. Fabius and L. Fulvius, while others gave it to a dic- 
tator, A. Cornelius Arvina. All agreed, however, in saying that the Samnites 
sustained a bloody defeat, insomuch that the party in Samnium which was favor- 
able to peace obtained, for the moment, an ascendency. This party resolved to 
purchase the friendship of Rome by the humblest concessions : all prisoners 30 and 
all plunder taken from the Romans were to be restored ; all the demands of the 
Romans before the war were to be fully satisfied ; and Brutulus Papius, the 
leader of the war party, was to be given up to the Romans, as the man who had 
broken the peace between the two nations. Brutulus Papius, it is said, would 
not be given up alive ; he killed himself, and only his lifeless body was offered 
to the vengeance of his enemies. But the Romans, thinking that a party which 
could j'ield so much would not dare to refuse any thing, rejected even these 
terms, and would be contented with nothing less than that the Samnites should 
acknowledge their supremacy, and become their dependent allies. 31 One unsuc- 
cessful campaign was not enough to reduce so brave a people to such a humilia- 
tion ; the whole nation resolved to try the chance of war once more ; and their choice 
of an imperator, or captain-general, for the approaching campaign fell on a man who 
has deserved to be called the Samnite Hannibal, or Caius Pontius of Telesia. 32 

The military history of the ensuing year is more than ordinarily obscure, be- 
cause the annals were filled with nothing but the stories about the 
disaster of Caudium ; and, as usual, these stories never think of Romans invade sam- 

j, 1'ij.i ia -jIjI ■ _l nium from Campania. 

connecting the event to which they relate with the circumstance 
which led to it, but plunge into the midst of it at once. The two new consuls, 
it is said, T. Veturius and Sp. Postumius, at the head of two consular armies, 
consisting each of two Roman legions, and a considerable force of auxiliaries, 
marched from Rome into Campania ; as if it was intended to strike a blow at the 
great Samnite cities on the southern side of the Matese at Caudium, and Telesia, 
and Ben.-ventum, or, as it was then called, Maleventum. The last campaign in 
Apulia had, probably, recovered the revolted cities in that country, and the Ro- 
man party amongst the Apulians was supposed to be strong enough to retain 
their countrymen in their alliance with Rome. Thus the seat of war was re- 
moved entirely to the southern frontier of Samnium ; and C. Pontius, the Sam- 
nite general, was prepai"ed-to defend the passes which lead from the plain of 
Naples to Beneventum and the higher valleys within the line of the Apennines. 

But, in order to tempt the Romans to plunge blindly into these defiles, Pon- 
tius contrived to mislead them by a false report that the wdiole They enter &e pass of 
Samnite army was gone off into Apulia, 33 and was there busily Caudium - 
engaged in besieging Luceria ; as if trusting to the natural strength of their own 

29 Livy, VIII. 38, 39. a descendant of the Pontius who defeated the 

30 Livy, VIII. 39. Dion Cassius, Fragm. Romans at the pass of Caudium. 

Ursin. 143. 33 Livy, IX. 2. At what period in this cain- 

31 Appian, III. Fragm. 4. paign, or by what forces, Luceria was really won 

32 He is called Pontius Telesinus hy the au- over to the Samnite alliance, it is not possible 
thor of the little work "de Viris Illustribus," to say. A part of the Samnite forces may have 
in the notice of Sp. Postumius. The great Sam- been in Apulia when the Romans entered Sam- 
nite leader who fought so obstinately against nium ; and C. Pontius may have won his vic- 
Sylla was also Pontius Telesinus, and, possibly, tory with an army much inferior in numbers to 



292 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI. 

country to "withstand the invasion of the Roman consuls. The consuls believed 
this story, and, thinking on the one hand, that the danger of their allies made it 
necessary to choose the shortest route into Apulia, while the absence of the Sam- 
nite army would enable them to force their way through Samnium without dif- 
ficulty, they entered the fatal pass of Caudium. This was a cut or valley in the 
outer line or wall of the Apennines, leading from the plain of Campania under 
the foot of Tiburnus to Maleventum. The modern road from Naples to Bene- 
vento still runs through it, and it is now called the valley of Arpaia. 34 

In this valley the Roman army found itself on a sudden surrounded by the 
They «e defeated, and enemy, who showed themselves on both flanks and on the rear, as 
their retreat is ™t oir. soon as tne fleac } s f the columns were stopped by the obstacles 
with which the Samnites had blocked up the road in front of them. Thus 
entangled in a situation nearly similar to that of Flaminius at Thrasymenus, the Ro- 
mans were completely defeated. 35 Night, however, saved them from total de- 
struction ; but to retreat to the plains was impossible : the pass in their rear, by 
which they had entered the valley, was secured by the enemy ; so that they had 
no other resource but to encamp in th" valley, not far from the scene of their 
defeat, and there hopelessly to abide the issue. The Samnites, having thus got 
them in their power, waited quietly till fan '^e should do their work for them. 
Occupying the road, both in front and on th. rear of the Romans, and guarding 
every possible track by which the enemy migu^ try to escape over the hills on 
either side of the valley, they easily repulsed some desperate attempts made by 
the Romans to break out ; and a large army, surprised on its march, with all its 
communications cut off, and hemmed in within a single narrow valley, could not 
possibly have the means of subsistence beyond a ve' »hort period. Accord- 
ingly, the Romans soon threw themselves on the mer.y o he conqueror: "Put 
us to..the sword," 36 they said, " sell us as slaves, or keep us as prisoners till we 
are ransomed : only save our bodies, whether living or dead, irom all unworthy 
insults." They might have remembered how their own countrymen were accus- 
tomed to lead their captive enemies in triumph, and to execute them in cold blood 
in the common prison ; nay, how they had lately demanded even the lifeless body 
of a noble Samnite, Brutulus Papius, to be given up to them, and had deprived 
it of the rites of burial. But now they could understand that it became a noble 
nature to show mercy, and that an unfortunate enemy deserved to be treated 
with compassion. 

that of the Romans. But the history of this name of a plain. It is said that the valley of 

campaign cannot be completely restored. Arpaia is too open to suit such a description. 

34 The situation of the pass of Caudium has Both Niebuhr and Mr. Keppel Craven call it, 

been a matter of dispute. Mr. Gundy, in a me- however, a narrow valley, and the Romans, as 

moir published by Mr. Keppel Craven, in his they have disguised every other part of the 

tour through the southern provinces of Naples, story, were likely also to exaggerate the natural 

p. 12-20, places it in a narrow gorge on the lit- difficulties of the ground, in order to lessen the 

tie stream of the Iselero, above Sant' Agata shame of their deteat. 

do' Goti. But Niebuhr adheres to the common M Livy, as is well known, makes the Romans 
opinion that it was the valley between Arienzo surrender without a blow, overcome by the insu- 
and Arpaia, through which the present road perable difficulties of the ground where they had 
from Naples to Benevento runs. A village in been entrapped. ButAppian, whenheenumer- 
the midst of this defile is still called Forchia, ates the officers who signed the capitulation after- 
aiid Niebuhr says thai the defile itself was, even wards, names only twelve military tribunes, and 
in the middle ages, distinguished by the name says that those who signed were all who were 
of la Furcula Caudma. The dispute has been surviving; o-u/iTravrtj 8o-oi perd rof>s iicQdapiiivovs 
only occasion apposition that 1. ivy's >jpxov. — III. Fragm. 4,§6. Now two consular 
description of the scene svaa topographically armies consisted offour legions, and had twenty- 
d bj the difficult} of reconciling it four military tribunes ; so that bldfofthe full 
ctualch ,.illi'\ of Arpaia. number must have been either killed or disa- 
But Livy's descriptions, unless we can be sure bled by their wounds. And Cicero, in two 
thai they arc taken 'from some writer who was places, quoted by Niebuhr (De Officiis, III. 30, 
careful about Buch matters, deserve no credit ; and De Senectute, 12), expressly says that there 
and the picture which be gives of the pass of was a battle of Caudium, in which the Romans 
Caudium is 1 mt a representation of almost all were defeated. 

mountain valleys, which contracl al intervals 3li Appian, 111. Fragm. 4. § 2. Compare Dio- 

into mere gorges, and expand between these nysiae, XVI. 4. Fragm. Mai. 
gorges into something almost deserving the 



Chap. XXXI-1 C. PONTIUS OF TELESIA. 293 

They spoke to one who could feel this in the hour of triumph, and not merely 
when fortune had turned against him. The father of C. Pontius 
had been no stranger to the philosophy of Greece ; his intercourse He offersVrms to e ?,he 



with the Tarentines had made him acquainted, it was said, with 
Archytas : 31 nay, he had even taken part in a philosophical conversation, respect- 
ing pleasure, so went the story, not with Archytas only, but with Plato. These 
particulars may not be historical : but the connection with Tarentum was likely 
to have an influence on the most eminent Samnites ; and C. Pontius was proba- 
bly far more advanced in cultivation of mind than any Roman general of that 
age. He resolved to use his victory generously, and to make it, if possible, the 
occasion of an equal, and therefore of a lasting peace. 38 "Restore to us," he 
said to the consuls, " the towns and the territory which you have taken from us ; 
and call home your colonists whom you have unjustly settled upon our soil ; and 
conclude with us a treaty which shall acknowledge each nation to be alike inde- 
pendent of the other. If ye will swear to do this, I will spare your lives, and 
let you go without ransom ; each man of you giving up his arms merely, and 
keeping his clothes untouched ; and you shall pass in sight of our army as pris- 
oners whom we had in our power, and whom we set free of our own will, when 
we might have killed them, or sold them, or held them to ransom." 

When Pontius had announced these terms, he called for the Roman fecialis, 
whose office it was to conclude all treaties and to take the oaths The conau]a t 
in behalf of the Roman people. 39 But there was no fecialis with thefa - 
the army ; for the Romans had resolved to make no peace with the Samnites, 
and to receive no proposals from them but their absolute submission. So the 
consuls and all the surviving officers took the oaths ; and six hundred Roman 
knights were to be delivered as hostages to the Samnites to insure the ratification 
of the peace by the Roman people. 

When the Spartans were hopelessly cut off from all aid in the island of Sphac- 
teria, the Athenian commanders agreed to a truce, 40 in order to 
allow time to the Spartan government to send an embassy to ment ^a/Muif °iy?J 
Athens, and to purchase, if they could, the deliverance of their 
soldiers by consenting to reasonable terms of peace. Why Pontius did not act 
in a similar manner, and insist upon treating, not with the generals of the block- 
aded army, but with the senate and people of Rome, whose consent was obvi- 
ously essential to the validity of any treaty of peace, the suspicious and imper- 
fect accounts of the Roman writers will not enable us to explain. Did he know 
so little of the Romans as to expect that they would ratify the treaty because its 
terms were so moderate, and because he had spared the lives of so many thou- 
sands of their citizens ? But, according to Roman notions, no peace was en- 
durable unless they themselves dictated its conditions ; and the mercy of an ene- 
my was a deadly insult, because it reminded them that they had been van- 
quished. Or did he trust to the force of natural affection ; that the six hun- 
dred knights whom he had demanded as hostages, and who were, probably the sons 

37 Cicero, deSenectute, XII. §41. Cicero makes life of Archytas, speaks of a discussion on 
Cato relate this story on the authority of Nearckus bodily pleasures between him and Polyarchus, 
of Tarentum, whom he had himself person- and he seems to give a reality to the conversa- 
ally known, and who had repeated it to him on tion, by stating that Polyarchus came to Taren- 
the authority of some old men, as a Tarentine turn on an embassy, which had been sent thither 
tradition. Cato is made to add, that according by the younger Dionysius. (Athenams, XII. 
to his own calculation, Plato's visit to Taren- 64.) At any rate, as Niebuhr himself allows, 
turn had taken place in the consulship of L. the very introduction of the name of C. Pontus 
Camillus and App. Claudius; that is, in the into a philosophical dialogue with Archytas 
year of Kome 406, according to the common and Plato would show that the eminent Sam- 
reckoning. Niebuhr thinks that Nearchus' nites had acquired, through their intercourse 
story only means that Nearchus had himself with Tarentum, an interest in and an acquaint- 
wntten a dialogue nspl frfovrjs, in which Archy- ance with the Greek philosophy, 
tas, Pontius, and Plato were made the speakers. 38 Appian, Samnitic. Frao-m. IV. § 5. Livy, 
(Vol. III. note 373.) But Aristoxenus, a scholar IX. 4. 

of Aristotle, and therefore removed from the 39 Appian, Samnit. Fragm. IV. § 5. 

time of Archytas only by one generation, in his 40 Thucydides, IV. 15, 16. 



294 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI 

or near relations of the most influential members of the senate, would be so far 
regarded by their fathers, as to tempt them for their sakes to impair the majesty 
of Rome ? But those fathers were the countrymen and contemporaries of T. 
Manlius, who had ordered his son to be put to death, even when victorious, 
rather than allow of any example which might be injurious to military discipline ; 
how, then, could the lives of sons who had degraded themselves by becoming 
prisoners to the Samnites be purchased at the price of national humiliation ? Or 
was Pontius really guilty of no such imprudence ; and was it his only fault that 
he relied on the solemn faith of a people whose care was not to observe their 
treaties honestly, but to devise some pretext by which, whilst they broke the 
spirit, they might still save the letter ? It is expressly mentioned 41 that not only 
the officers of the army, but two of the tribunes of the commons, gave their sanc- 
tion to the treaty ; and it seems certain that they gave it as tribunes, and that 
they were not merely elected tribunes after the surrender, having been at the 
time no more than tribunes of the soldiers. But if two tribunes of the commons, 
as such, signed the treaty, how came they to do so, or how was it that during 
the term of their sacred office they were abroad with the army, and not within 
the walls of Rome ? Were they sent to the camp for the very purpose of 
deceiving the Sarnnite general, by accepting the treaty, and assuring him that it 
would be ratified ; and did he, knowing their sacred character, and that they 
were the leaders and representatives of the Roman commons, rely too confidently 
on their word, without requiring that formal authority for it, which alone, accord- 
ing to the casuistry of the Romans, could make the nation responsible ? 

When the consuls, quaestors, tribunes of the soldiers, and the two tribunes of 
the commons, had taken the oaths, the first fulfilment of the 
thefr arnTaDcf'marcE treaty immediately followed. The Romans gave up their arms, 
and marched out of their camp wearing or carrying with them 
nothing but one single article of clothing, 42 the campestre or kilt, reaching from 
the waist to the knees, and leaving the upper part of the body naked, now that 
the soldiers had been obliged to give up their coats of mail. Even the consuls 
were obliged to appear in this humble plight, for their war cloaks, paludamenta, 
were taken from them, and their lictors ordered to leave them the instant they 
came out of the camp. The six hundred knights were then delivered up to the 
Samnites, and the rest of the Roman army, stripped of their arms and baggage, 
passed in order through an opening purposely made for them in the Sarnnite 
lines of blockade. 43 Two spears were set upright in this opening, and a third was 
fastened across them at the top ; and through this gateway the vanquished army 
marched out, as a token that they had been conquered in war, and owed their 
lives to the- enemy's mercy. It was no peculiar insult devised for this occasion, 
but a common usage, so far as appears, in all similar cases j 44 like the modern cere- 

41 Cicero, de Officiis, III. 30, § 109. Cicero's observed that this condition of allowing each 

words are, " Eodemque tempore, Ti. Numieius, soldier to march out with a snick' article ot' 

(,). Melius, qui turn tribuni plebis erant, quod clothing was granted by the Athenian com- 

eorum auctoritate pax erat facta, dediti sunt, ut manders to the Potideans, when Potidsea was 

pax Samnitium repudiarctur." The expression, taken in the second year of the Peloponnesian 

"quod eorum auctoritate pax erat facta," shows, war; and that the Athenian government oom- 

I think, that they wire tribunes of the com- plained of the treaty as too favorable to the van- 

mons when they signed the treaty, and that the quished. — See Thueydides, II. 70. 

"auctoritas" hero spoken of was the sanction 43 'O ph USirtos napaXvaa; n rov iiaTeix'"- 

of their sacred office. Livy also mentions the /jnroj. Appian, Frag. IV. §6. &iaTtlx«>i*a, 

feet, that two men who were tribunes ut' the " a cross or dividing wall," because the Sarnnite 

commons in that year were amongst those who blockade would be effected merely by carrying 

signed the treaty, IX. B. two lines across the valley, one above the Ro- 

43 'Ek<httov buiuv ouv l^aHy. — Appian. Samnit. man camp and the other below it. The nature 

Fr. IV. j . r >, "rum Bingulis vestimentas in- of the ground rendered a cireumvallation, or 

ib." Livy. [X. 5. In this state 1. ivy calls ircp(r«fvMrfta, unnecessary, 

them " Beminudi,' 1 IX. 6, because all the upper ** This is shown bj the story of Cincinnatus, 

part of their bodies was naked: Dion C;issius which represents the dSquians as made to pass 

less correctly calls tluin yv/iiouj — 'KkiXcvov hvtuvs under the yoke bj Cincinnatus under similar 

ti's rd uIito (,vy&v yu/iioiis tiockOciv olnip iXcnOivris cii cumstanccs. And Dionysius expressly calls 

&<pd8rioav. Frag. Mai. XXXVli. It may be it a Koman custom to make an enemy wtio had 



Chap. XXXI] THEY RESOLVE TO BREAK THE TREATY. 295 

mony of piling arms when a garrison or army surrender themselves as prisoners 
of war. So far, indeed, was Pontius from behaving with any unusual insolence, 
that he ordered carnages to be provided for the sick and wounded of the Roman 
army ; and furnished 45 them with provisions sufficient to support them till they 
should reach Rome. 

In far different plight, and with far other feelings than thij had entered the 
pass of Caudium, did the Roman army issue out from it again 

i i- p r-t • -r\p j i i t Jii 1 Thev retreat to Capua, 

upon the plain ot Campania. Defeated and disarmed, they knew and from thence return 

1 1 1 . i«i 'ip !"/->• *° Rome. 

not what reception they might meet with irom their Campanian 
allies ; it was possible that Capua might shut her gates against them, and go 
over to the victorious enemy. But the Campanians behaved faithfully and gen- 
erously ; 45 they sent supplies of arms, of clothing, and of provisions to meet the 
Romans even before they arrived at Capua ; they sent new cloaks, and the lictors 
and fasces of their own magistrates, to enable the consuls to resume their fitting 
state ; and when the army approached their city the senate and people went out 
to meet them, and welcomed them both individually and publicly with the great- 
est kindness. No attentions, however, could soothe the wounded pride of the 
Romans : they could not bear to raise their eyes from the ground, nor to speak 
to any one ; full of shame, they continued their march to Rome : when they came 
near to it, all those soldiers who had a home in the country 41 dispersed and es- 
caped to their several houses, singly and silently ; whilst those who lived in 
Rome lingered without the walls till the sun was set, and stole to their homes 
under cover of the darkness. The consuls were obliged to enter the city pub- 
licly and in the light of day, but they looked upon themselves as no longer 
worthy to be the chief magistrates of Rome, and they shut themselves up at 
home in privacy. 

Nor was the blow less deeply felt by the senate and by the Avhole people. 
The actual loss in the battle, and the captivity of six hundred of Grief and humiliation 

i c i n of the senate and peo- 

the flower or the youth ol Rome, were enough ot themselves to pie. • 
throw the nation into mourning ; how much more grievous were they when ac- 
companied by such utter defeat and humiliation l 48 All business was suspended ; 
all orders put on mourning ; the knights and senators laid aside their gold rings, 
and took off the well-known red border of their dress which marked their rank : 
in every house there was weeping and wailing for those who had returned home 
dishonored, no less than for those who were dead or captive : and all ceremonies of 
rejoicing, all festivals, and all private marriages, were suspended, till they could 
be celebrated in a year of better omen. A dictator 49 was named to hold the 
comitia for the election of new consuls ; but the augurs declared that the appoint- 
ment was null and void ; another dictator was then chosen, but the same objec- 
tion was repeated ; till at last, as if the gods abhorred every magistrate of this 
fatal yeai, the elections were held by an interrex. This interrex was M. Valerius 
Corvinus, and the consuls chosen 60 were two of the most eminent citizens in the 
commonwealth, Q. Publilius Philo, the author of the Publiliah laws, and L. 
Papirius Cursor, who had so sternly upheld military discipline in his late dicta- 
torship. 

We cannot suppose that the Samnites would have allowed their victory to re- 
main long unimproved, without assuring themselves whether it t ,. . 

, P . c r ■, T, ° -pi It,s re8oIved t0 hreak 

was the intention of the Koman government to ratify the treaty or the treaty and to give 

t-> i l 1 J 1 • j ci vi up to the enemy the 

no. .But the chronology and history ot these events are alike so generals and officers 
meager, or so wilfully falsified, that it is scarcely possible to ascer- 



who signed it. 



surrendered pass under the yoke, III. 22, p. 47 Appian, Fragm. IV. § 7. Livy, IX. 7. 

469, Keiske. The same thing is implied in the 4e Appian and Livy, ubi supra, 

definition of the terms "jugum," and "sub 49 Zonaras says, that the consuls were obliged 

jugum mitti," in Festus. to resign their office immediately ; TrapavrUa 

45 Appian, Fragm. IV. § 6. ivavoav, VII. 26. 

46 Livy, IX. 6. Dion Cassius, Fragm. Mai, 60 Livy, IX. 7. 
XXXVI. 



296 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXL 

tain either the dates or the real character of the transactions which followed. As 
soon as the new consuls came into office, the question of the rati6cation of the 
treaty 51 was brought before the senate. Sp. Postumius, one of the consuls of 
the last year, being called upon to deliver his opinion, declared at once that the 
treaty ought not to be accepted, but that himself and his late colleague, T. 
Veturius, with every officer who had taken the oaths to the Samnites, should be 
given up to them, as having promised what they were unable to perform. The 
senate embraced his proposal ; and to many of the senators it involved a personal 
sacrifice scarcely less than that which he was making himself, inasmuch as they 
were exposing their sons, who were amongst the six hundred hostages, to the 
vengeance of the enemy. But the Romans were as regardless of their own indi- 
vidual feelings as of the laws of justice and good faith, when either was set in 
the balance against national pride and ambition. The consuls and all the other 
officers who had sworn with them to the Samnites, were committed to the charge 
of the feciales, and were by them conducted into Samnium. They were then 
half stripped, as when they passed under the yoke, their hands were bound be- 
hind their backs, and the feciales solemnly delivered them over to the Samnites 
as men whose persons were justly forfeited to them in atonement for then- 
breach of faith. No sooner was this surrender completed, than Sp. Postumius 
struck the Roman fecialis 52 violently with his knee, his hands and feet being fet- 
tered ; and cried out, " I now belong to the Samnites, and I have done violence 
to the sacred person of a Roman fecialis and ambassador. Ye will rightfully 
wage war with us, Romans, to avenge this outrage." It is hard to say whether 
this trickery, at once so base and so foolish, should be ascribed to mere hypocrisy 
or to fanaticism ; for the fanatic is as prone to falsehood as to crueltj r , and justi- 
fies to himself the one no less than the other, by holding that the end sanctifies 
the means. 

Yet it is a fanaticism, less wicked, indeed, but even more extraordinary, when a 
Pontius retoea to ac- man like Livy can describe such a scene, and can represent, as he 
«ptthem. j^g done, the conduct of Pontius in such strong contrast with that 

of the Romans, without appearing to feel any admiration of the one or any shame 
for the other. Pontius refused the offered victims: "They were not the guilty 
persons," 53 he said, "nor would he, by transferring the punishment to them, 
acquit their country. The Roman government had reaped all the advantages of 
the treaty of Caudium, but refused to fulfil its conditions. Either the legions 
should be replaced in their desperate position, from which nothing but that treaty 
could have delivered them, or the stipulated price of their deliverance should be 

61 Livy, IX. 8. slaves had plundered the Eoman territory, the 
M Livy, IX. 10. Niebuhr supposes that Romans would have called upon the Samnites 
there must have existed between Borne and to give them satisfaction for the wrong ; and in 
Samnium at this period a relation of isopolity ; this sense a Samnite slave had now insulted a 
that is, that the citizens of either country, on Roman fecialis, and Eome had thus received a 
losing or relinquishing their own franchise, wrong, for which she might either demand sat- 
might take up at pleasure that of the other; isfaction, or seek it herself by arms. The latter 
and that in this sense Sp. Postumius, when course might lawfully be taken, unless there 
given up by the Eon-ana, and so having ceased was a special treaty by which the contracting 
to be a Roman citizen, immediately took up his parties had bound themselves to appeal to ne- 
franchise as a citizen of Samnium. But this gotiation in ease of any dispute between them. 
supposition appears to me unnecessary and im- before they had recourse to arms. And accord- 
probable. Sp. Postumius could have no choice intrly we find such a clause in the truce con- 
of becoming a citizen of Samnium, for he was eluded between Athens and Lacedsemon. in the 
given up by the Samnites, deditus, and there- ninth year of the Peloponnesian war, Thucyd. 
fore lunl no rights whatever in relation to them, IV. lis, where the parties mutually eigiiire tu 
but became their absolute property. Seethe a/iQlXoya Mkji Sia'Meiv oven ^oAt'/iou. But the 
language held with respect to the Campanians Spartans at the beginning of the war had chosen 
when they surrendered themselves to Some, to follow a different course, and to sjsek redress 
according to the Roman Btory^ to obtain protec- for their alleged grievances by a direct appeal 
tion a.irainst the Samnites. Livy, VII. 81. Tlio to arms, without any negotiation. — See Ihu- 
meaning of Postumius' action and words was cyd. I. 86. 

this: that lie now belonged to the Samnites, M Dion Cassius, Fragm. Mai, XXXY1I. Livy, 

and that they were responsible for his actions, IX. 11. 
as for those of their slaves. If the Samnite 



Chap. XXXL] L. PAPIRIUS CURSOR. 297 

paid. The gods would not be mocked with the trickery of a childish supersti- 
tion, which endeavored to abuse their holy names for the support of perfidy and 
injustice." So Sp. Postumius and his companions were given back to the Roman 
feciales, and returned unhurt to their own army. 

Such is the account which the Roman annalists have given of the famous de- 
feat and treaty of the pass of Caudium. It differs in many respects, Exaggerated stories of 
probably, from the truth ; yet it is accurate and trustworthy when L - Pa P irius Cur60r - 
compared with the stories of the transactions which followed. L. Papirius Cursor 
was one of the favorite heroes of Roman tradition ; his remarkable swiftness of 
foot, his gigantic strength, his enormous capacities for food, and the iron strict- 
ness of his discipline, accompanied as it was by occasional touches of rough hu- 
mor, 64 all contributed to make his memory popular, somewhat in the same way 
as Richard Coeur de Lion has been admired amongst us ; and his countrymen 
boasted that he would have been a worthy champion to have fought against 
Alexander the Great, if Alexander had ever invaded Italy. This favorite leader 
was consul in the year immediately following the affair of the pass of Caudium ; 
so great a warrior must have signally avenged that disgrace ; and, accordingly, 
he was made to realize the most sanguine wishes of the national vanity ; he re- 
took Luceria, 55 the fatal town which had tempted the consuls of the last year to 
rush blindly into the defile of Caudium ; and in it he recovered all the arms and 
all the standards which had been taken from the Romans, and, above all, he 
there found the six hundred Roman knights who had been given up as hostages, 
and delivered them all safe and sound. Thus every stain of the late disaster was 
wiped away ; but the pride of the Samnites must also be humbled : seven thou- 
sand Samnite soldiers were taken into Luceria, and were sent away unhurt after 
having been made to pass half naked under the yoke, and C. Pontius himself, by 
the especial favor of the gods, was their commander, so that the ignominy which 
he had inflicted on the Romans was now worthily returned upon his own head. 
No wonder, after such a marvellous victory, L. Papirius should have entered 
Rome in triumph ; and never, since M. Camillus had triumphed over the Gauls, 
had there been seen, it was said, so glorious a spectacle. The two triumphs, 
indeed, may well be compared with one another ; both are equally glorious, and 
both also are either wholly or in part the inventions of national vanity. 

The Fasti Capitolini for this year are, unluckily, only partially legible ; but it 
is remarkable that they contain the names of three dictators, of But the Romans were 
only one of whom there is the slightest notice in Livy, and that they ieally very successful - 
place the triumph of L. Papirius not in this year, but in the following, when, ac- 
cording to them, he was for the third time elected consul. One of the three dic- 
tators was L. Cornelius Lentulus ; and as the Cornelian house was very numer- 
ous and. powerful, there were not wanting writers who claimed for him the glory 
of all the supposed victories 56 of this year, which others had given to L. Papir- 
ius. Victories as unreal as the pretended conquest of Luceria might well be 
ascribed to different persons ; that town had only been just taken by the Sam- 
nites, and it is impossible to believe that they would have kept their most pre- 
cious trophies and the whole number of their hostages in a foreign and conquered 
city, rather than in the cities of Samnium itself. Besides, there is reason to doubt 
whether Luceria was recovered at all before the year 440, at which time Livy 
places what, according to him, was its second recapture, as it had just before re- 
volted to the enemy. The real events of this year cannot be ascertained ; but 
there is every probability that the Romans were, in truth, successful ; that they 
did much to remove the feeling of discouragement from the minds of their own 

64 Seo the character given him by Livy, IX. are to be found in Dion Cassius, Fragm. Mai, 
16, and the anecdotes related there, and by Dion XXXVIII., in Dionysius, Fragm. Vaticana, 
Cassius, Fr. Mai, XXXIX. XXXVI., and in Florus, I. 16. 

65 Papirius' campaign is given at length by M Livy, IX. 15. 
Livy, IX. 13-15. Traces of the same story 



298 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXL 

soldiers, and to lower the confidence of the Samnites. It appears that the victory 
of the pass of Caudium had not been a solitary advantage to the enemy ; for 
they had also taken Luceria in Apulia, and driven the Roman colonists out of 
Fregellee," the occupation of which place had been one of the immediate causes 
of the war. The people of Satricum 58 also, in the heart of Latium, are said to 
have revolted to the Samnites ; a fact which is thus barely noticed, with the re- 
markable addition, that the Satricans took an active part in the recovery of Fre- 
gellae. Thus the consuls, Publilius and Papirius, had an arduous task to accom- 
plish ; and they well justified the confidence of their countrymen, who had se- 
lected them above all other citizens to retrieve the honor and the fortune of 
Rome. 

Fregellse, on the upper Liris, and Satricum, in the heart of Latium, the one 
The Roman consuls in on the upper road, the Via Latina, from Rome to Capua, the other 
ApuUa ' nearly on the lower road, by Anxur and Fundi, were now fallen 

into the power of the enemy ; and the war might, at any moment, by the revolt 
of the Hernicans, or of a greater number of the Latin or old Volscian cities, be 
brought under the very walls of Rome. Yet the Romans resolved at once to fix 
the seat of war in Apulia, in the same spirit of courage and wisdom which made 
them send troops to Spain, even when Hannibal was in the heart of Italy. Lu- 
ceria had fallen, and unless the Romans could effectually support their party in 
Apulia, that whole country would soon be lost to them and strengthen the power 
of their enemy. Accordingly, L. Papirius Cursor marched 59 into Apulia by the 
longer but uninterrupted route through the country of the Vestinians and along 
the coast of the Adriatic ; while Q. Publilius was to force his way through Sam- 
nium, and so effect a junction with his colleague. If the main force of the Sam- 
nites was employed in Apulia, it is possible that a Roman consular army, con- 
sisting of two Roman legions and an equal number of allied troops, might have 
found no army in Samnium strong enough to obstruct its march ; and it would 
of itself avoid engaging in the siege of any of the Samnite cities. But the account 
of Publilius' exploit is so extravagant, and at the same time so vague, 60 that we 
cannot tell by what line he reached Apulia : it is only certain that both consuls 
were engaged on the other side of Italy during the whole campaign, and that, 
whether they retook Luceria or not, the progress of revolt in Apulia was effect- 
ually checked. 

Meanwhile the neighborhood of Rome could not be left defenceless ; and the 

dictators of this year were, probably, appointed to provide for the 
fu Rome for the protec safety of the capital, and to prevent the example of Satricum from 

spreading amongst the other cities of Latium. But traces of the 
old patrician party spirit may here be again observed, as in the dictatorship of 
M. Marcellus six years before. Q. Publilius had named C. M senilis" as dictator, 

67 Livy, IX. 12. eign country, which was at that very time the 

68 Livy, IX. 12, 16. seat of active warfare: to say nothing of the ab- 
M Livy, IX. 14. "Locis maritimis pervenc- surdity of an army accomplishing a march of 

rat Arpos." such a distance in a disorderly and scattered 

60 The account is vague, for it names no scene flight. "Apuliam dissipati pcttiere." 

of action more definite than Samnium. "Pub- ci Only fragments of the Fasti Capitolini are 

lilius in S amnio Bubstitit adversus ( laudinas le- here legible, so that the names of the three dio- 

giones." Livy, IX. 12. " Adversus Caudinas tutors of this year, and <>l' their masters of the 

tegiones" is also a vague expression, for it may horse, are mutilated, and stand thus: 

signify either the troops that had lately been C. Ma . . . 

engaged at < 'aiidiuni under ( '. Pontius, or the M. Fos . . . 

forces of the city of Caudium, or of the whole L. Corn . . : 

tribe or district of the Caudinians, one of the L. Papiriu . . 

great divisions of the Samnite uation. And it T. Manli . . . 

is extravagant, because it represents the Sam- L. I'ai'iiui' . . . 

nitea as flying from the field of battle in Sam- That the fiirsl dictator and master of the horse 

nium directly into Apulia, when thev were in were ('. Ma'iiius, spelt Ma'mius in the Fasti, 

such a state of total rout that they did not ven- and M. Foslius, admits ofno doubt, as the Fasti, 

ture to defend their own camp. Had this been in noticing the dictatorship of C. Manias six 

the case, they would rather have fled for shel- years later, call him then dictator for the second 

ter to their own cities, than have gone to a for- time. [II. Dict.] The second dictator is clearly 



Chap. XXXI] TRUCE FOR TWO YEARS. 299 

a man of a plebeian family like himself, and who, together with himself, was made 
the subject of a more violent attack from the patricians in his second dictator- 
ship six years afterwards. The augurs, no doubt, declared his appointment to 
have been invalid, as they had done in the case of Marcellus ; and, accordingly, 
he resigned, and a patrician was appointed to succeed him, P. Cornelius Len- 
tulus. Thus far the accounts are intelligible ; but why Lentulus also should 
have resigned, and the consuls have been required to make a third choice, it is 
not so easy to discover. This third dictator was T. Manlius, apparently the same 
Manlius who eighteen years before had gained the great victory over the Latins 
by Mount Vesuvius ; and it is probable that by him were held the comitia for 
the following year, at which L. Papirius Cursor was again elected consul, togeth- 
er with Q. Aulius Cerpetanus. It may be that the patrician party were anxious 
to secure the re-election of Papirius ; and that P. Lentulus had been opposed to 
it. Manlius, on the contrary, so much resembled Papirius in the sterner points 
of his character, that he was likely to agree with those who thought his re-elec- 
tion desirable. 

Papirius, in his military conduct, justified the confidence of his countrymen. 
He recovered Satricum, 6 ' 2 while his colleague carried on the war 
with continued success in Apulia. The authors of the revolt of 
Satricum were executed ; the people were disarmed, and the town secured by a 
strong garrison. Thus again the sparks of a Latin insurrection, the greatest of 
all dangers, were put out before they could burst into a flame. 

In the next year the Samnites 63 are said to have concluded a truce with the 
Romans for two years ; but it may be that this truce only re- 
strained the two parties from directly invading each other's terri- 
tories, while it left them at liberty to support their respective allies in Apulia. 
At any rate, the war continued in that country without intermission, but with uni- 
form success on the side of the Romans. Teanum, Canusium, and Forentum, 64 
submitted to Rome, and became her dependent allies ; and Apulia was so far re- 
duced that the consuls, towards the end of the second year of the truce, 437-8, 
proceeded to carry the war into Lucania, and took a place called Nerulum. 65 But 
no further progress was made in that quarter. 

During these two years of truce the Romans were engaged in consolidating 
their power in their own immediate neighborhood. The censors, Tw0 new . Rwnan tribe3 
L. Papirius Crassus and C. Msenius, created two new tribes 66 in created - 
the years 436-7, the Ufentine and the Falerian, and enrolled in some of the old 
tribes an accession of citizens. The Roman settlers in Campania, who had re- 
ceived grants of land there after the Latin war, were put under the government 
of a prsefect, who was yearly sent to Capua to administer justice amongst them 
and amongst the Roman citizens residing in Capua itself, according to the Roman 
law ; 61 and a new constitution was given to the colony of Antium, probably im- 

L. Cornelius Lentulus, who is mentioned by therefore, that the second L. Papirius, who was 

Livy, and the third is as certainly T. Manlius ; • master of the horse in this year, must have been 

but the two L. Papirii, who are named succes- L. Papirius Mugillanus ; the same man whom 

sively as masters of the horse, are very uncer- some annals, according to Livy, made consul 

tain. Sigonius makes the latter of them to have instead of L. Papirius Cursor in the year fol- 

been L. Papirius Crassus, who was censor two lowing. 

vears afterwards, and the former, he thinks, was 62 Livy, IX. 16. 

L. Papirius Cursor, the son of the consul, who 63 Livy, IX. 20. 

was himself afterwards so distinguished in the e * Livy, IX. 20. 

third Samnite war. But the annals which Livy 63 Livy, IX. 20. If this place was the Neru- 

notices as having made L. Papirius Cursor mas- lum of the Itineraries, the consuls must have 

ter of the horse to L. Cornelius, meant, un- penetrated deeply into Lucania ; for the Neru- 

doubtedly, L. Papirius the father, and not the lum of the Itineraries lay far to the south, nearly 

son. This, however, could not have been the between the Greek cities of Laos on one sea, 

meaning of the Fasti Capitolini ; for it is plain and Sybaris on the other. 

that they made L. Papirius consul in this year, 66 Livy, IX. 20. Diodorus, XIX. 10. 

although the names of the consuls do not exist 67 Livy, IX. 20, and compare Niebuhr, Vol. 

on our present fragments, inasmuch as in the III. 339. 

next year they call him " Cos : III." — I imagine, 



300 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI. 

proving the condition of the old Volscian population. The importance of Antiura 
as a naval station made it desirable to leave there no seeds of ■ disaffection ; the 
more so, if the Tarentines, as is not improbable, furnished the Samnites with 
some naval assistance at this period, and made occasional descents on the coast 
of Latium. 

Whether there had been any interference of the Romans in the domestic affairs 
unsettled state of men' 3 of the Campanian cities which excited jealousy; or whether the 
minds in Campania. increasing success of Rome in the war of Samnium created a gen- 
eral alarm amongst her allies, lest they should be left without any power capable 
of checking her absolute ascendency, we find at any rate that about this time there 
was a general restlessness amongst the Campanians, and that the Samnites were en- 
couraged to adopt the wiser policy of carrying the war into the territory of their 
enemies' allies, rather than abide the storm passively at home. The Falerian 
tribe, which had been recently created at Rome, included that part of Campania 
known by the name of the Falerian territory ; the Roman settlers there would 
certainly be enrolled in it, while it did not comprise the inhabitants of Cales, 
Fundi, or Formise. Privileges granted to some are a source of discontent if de- 
nied to others ; and the creation of a Roman tribe so near to them, into which 
they were not admitted, might make the Campanian towns more impatient of 
their relation of mere alliance. Thus Nuceria 68 had revolted in the preceding 
year, and other towns were ready, on the first opportunity, to follow its example. 
But here again the chronology and history are both involved in inextricable 

confusion. Livy's account is so imperfect and so unreasonable 
«ssfui an OT i uie are upper that it is clearly impossible to rely on it ; that of Diodorus is far 

more sensible, yet it also has omissions which it is difficult to sup- 
ply. As soon as the truce was over, the Samnites resolved to act on the offen- 
sive, and turned their attention to the valley of the Liris, where, as we have seen, 
they had recovered and still held Fregellse. They attacked and stormed the 
town of Plistia, 69 an unknown place, but apparently situated somewhere in that 
neighborhood ; they then prevailed on the Volscian population of Sora to mas- 
sacre the Roman colonists who held their town, and to join the Samnite confed- 
eracy. It is impossible to believe that while these events were taking place, the 
Roman consuls were sitting idle at Rome ; it is much more likely that one con- 
sular army was, as usual, in Apulia, and the other either watching the Samnites 
in the valley of the Liris, or invading Samnium from the side of Campania. But 
when the news arrived of the fall of Plistia and the revolt of Sora, it was judged 
necessary to appoint a dictator ; and L. ^Emilius, 10 who was the dictator fixed 
upon, immediately began to act on the offensive, and laid siege to Saticula. 
Whether this town belonged to the Samnites, or was only in alliance with them, 
and was still possessed by the old Opican population of Campania, is not easy to 
determine. The Samnites made a desperate effort to relieve the place, but they 
were defeated by the besieging army with considerable loss, and Saticula was 
obliged to surrender. 71 

6(1 Diodorus, XIX. 65. Compare Livy, IX. stating, that in the following year, which, ac- 

38, 41. cording to the Fasti, was the year of Bon 

6U Diodorus, XTX. 72. or 489, according to the common reckoning, ana 

10 Fasti Capitolini, and Livy. IX. 21. But 434 according to Niebuhr, L. Papirius Cursor 
Livy makes the appointment of L. iEmiliuspre- and Q. Tubulins Philo were again elected con- 
cede the fall of rfistia and the revolt of Sora. suls together; and Diodorus places the battle 
I nave followed the order of Diodorus, who, of Lautulsa expressly in their consulship. Nie- 
without naming .Kmilius, places '.he siege of buhr's latest oriticism (Vol. II. p. 627. 2d edit.) 
Saticula, which he conducted, after the other seems to have rejected this consulship as an 
two events. interpolation; and it is remarkable thai Livy, 

Saticula Bl 1 within the first line of hills although he certainly makes a year intervene 

which rise immediately from the plain ot'Na- between the consulship of Sp. NantiusandM. 

pies, in a small valley whieh divides these first Popilius, and that of M. Pa'telius and C. Sul- 

hills from the higher and bolder mountains of pieius, does not give the consuls' names. He 

Taburnus. . Bays, moreover, that they, like the consuls of 

11 The Fasti Capitolini and Diodorus agree in the preceding year. Btayed at Rome and did 



Chap. XXXI.] REVOLT OF CAPUA, ETC. 301 

After the fall of Saticula the consuls of the new year, if these events really 
belong to two distinct years, proceeded on the one hand to in- Thoy defea , the E(V 
vade Samnium on the side of Saticula, and on the other to m ™ sa tLautute. 
march as lisual into Apulia. The army which invaded Samnium overran the 
country in the neighborhod of Saticula, and then either forced its way into 
Apulia, or turned aside to the left up the valley of the Vulturnus, and from 
thence crossed over by the line of the Latin road to the valley of the Liris, and 
advanced upon Sora, in the hope of punishing it for its revolt. A movement was 
made, at any rate, which left Campania open ; and the Samnites, seizing the op- 
portunity, called out, it is said, 72 their whole population within the military age, 
and without withdrawing their armies from Apulia and Sora, they burst down 
into Campania with this third army, which, though hastily raised, was strong in 
its numbers and in its determined courage. All Campania was at once in a fer- 
ment, and the Romans were obliged to name Q. Fabius Maximus dictator, and 
to send him out with all speed with such a force as could be found or raised in 
and near Rome, in order to check the spirit of revolt. Fabius advanced beyond 
Anxur, and occupied the pass of Lautulse between Anxur and Fundi, already 
noticed as a post of importance on the coast road from Rome to Campania. Here 
the Samnites attacked him, and notwithstanding his high military reputation, 
they defeated him with great slaughter. Q. Aulius Cerretanus, the master of 
the horse, sacrificed his life nobly in covering the retreat, but the Samnites 
remained masters of the country* and it is stated in general terms that every 
place in the neighborhood revolted to them, 13 and that all through Campania,' 14 
and even at Capua itself, the party opposed to the Roman alliance began to ob- 
tain the ascendency. 

How the consuls effected their retreat from Apulia and from Samnium we 
know not, nor how far the Samnites either improved or neglected consequences of this 
their present opportunity. The Roman citizens of the new Fale- defen,t- 
rian tribe must have been exposed to the greatest dangers ; for the open coun- 
try of Campania was now in the power of the enemy, and as the Roman settlers 
had no strong towns of their own, they must have either taken shelter in the 
several cities of their allies, or have made their escape within the pass of Tarra- 
cina into the old Volscian country, now the Ufentine tribe, or even to Rome 
itself: But within the limits of the Campagna we hear of no disposition to 
revolt ; there the timely gift of the full Roman franchise had converted Volscians 
and Latins into Romans, and neither Privernum nor Tusculum gave any cause for 
suspicion in this emergency. The new consuls were C. Sulpicius Longus and 
M. Pcetelius Libo ; the latter had not till now commanded an army ; the former 
had indeed been already twice consul, and must now have been advanced in 
years ; but we do not know that he had acquired any remarkable distinction. 

The principal seat of the war in the next campaign appears to have been the 
country between Tarracina and the Samnite frontier ; and both of 
the consuls were employed in this quarter. Their business was the other towns of cam- 
to watch the Samnites, and to protect the allies of Rome, but pan " 
they did not for some time venture to encounter the enemy in the field. In spite 
of all their endeavors, however, Suessa Aurunca and Calatia 15 either revolted or 

nothing, which in a time of such danger as this second battle after the defeat at Lautulse. — 

year must have been, even according to his own IX. 23. 

account, is an absolute impossibility. Diodo- 74 Livy, IX. 25, 26. 

rus places the revolt of Sora, the siege of Sati- 76 This appears, because Calatia is mentioned 

cula, and the battle of Lautulee, all in the same as retaken by the Eomans in the following 

year, which according to him was the year year; and a Eoman colony was sent to Suessa, 

of the consulship of Papirius and Publilius. which, it is said, " Auruncorum fuerat." That 

Amidst all this confusion it is impossible to de- a colony was sent there implies that the place 

termine the order of events with certainty. must have been conquered by the Eomans, 

72 Diodorus, XIX. 72. which could not have happened, unless it had 

73 " Circa omnia defecerunt," are the words previously revolted from them, or been other- 
which Livy puts into the mouth of Fabius, wise in the enemy's power. 

when he is urging his soldiers to venture a 



302 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI 

were taken ; and Capua itself, as if judging that the battle of Lautulse was now 
proved to have decided the fate of the war, broke off its alliance with Rome, and 
declared for the Samnites. 16 This last misfortune obliged the Romans to name 
a dictator ; and C. Masnius, who had once before filled that office, was now 
again invested with it, and was sent out with a third army to act especially 
against Capua. An obscure report, barely noticed by Livy," has acquainted us 
with the existence of another danger which beset Rome at this time, and which 
must have been more alarming than all the rest. Cabals, and even conspiracies, 
were formed amongst some of the Roman aristocracy, to turn the perilous crisis 
of their country to their own personal advantage. Who were the individuals con- 
cerned in these plots, or what was their special object, we know not ; we can 
scarcely be mistaken, however, in supposing that Appius Claudius, who was 
censor two years afterwards, was one of them; and his subsequent conduct 
makes it probable that he wished to make a party amongst the lowest of the 
people, and by their help, combined with the strength of the more violent pa- 
tricians, to overthrow the actual constitution, and restore the exclusive ascend- 
ency of the old burgher aristocracy. Disasters in war excite discontent, and dis- 
content readily attacks the existing orderof things, however unconnected it may 
be with the immediate evil ; and in this manner the defeat of Lautulse might be 
made instrumental to a patrician revolution. 

But the domestic and foreign danger was alike dispelled by the military suc- 
cess of the consuls. While an» aristocratical conspiracy at Rome 

The Ausonian cities are ,, , . ,, . , ••! . .-. x 

betrayed to the Ro- was threatening the most extreme evils, a similar conspiracy in 
the Ausonian cities of Ausona, Minturnae, and Vescia, occurred 
most critically to revive the cause of Rome in the neighborhood of Campania. 
Twelve of the young nobility 18 of those towns, dreading nothing so much as the 
ascendency of their political adversaries through Samnite assistance, offered to 
the Roman consuls to betray their respective countries into their hands. By 
their means Roman soldiers were put in possession of the gates of the three 
cities, and the mass of the people in each were put to the sword. Thus the Ro- 
mans gained three places of considerable importance from their position ; and the 
bloody execution done upon the inhabitants would spread the impression among 
the neighboring states, that to revolt from Rome might even yet be attended 
with danger. 

Still the Samnite force was yet unbroken, and availing themselves of the effect 
produced by their victory at Lautulse, the Samnite armies were 
RomansTt'cmna s u b! still acting on the offensive. Where the great battle was fought 
mission ot capua. ^i^ch effectually turned the tide, it is not possible to ascertain. 
Livy places" the scene at the edge of the plain of Naples, where the road from 
Capua to Beneventum first ascends the hills of Samnium, apparently not far from 
the p\ss of Maddaloni. Diodorus fixes it at a place which he calls Cinna, 80 a 
name wholly unknown, nor will his account enable us so much as to guess its 
situation. But whatever was the scene of the action, the victory of the Romans 
was complete, and the threatening consequences of the defeat at Lautulse were 
entirely prevented. The news of the battle instantly struck terror into the Cam- 
panians, and they at once 81 made their submission to the dictator, and agreed to 
give up to him the principal instigators of their revolt. Amongst these are par- 
ticularly named two men of one of the noblest families in Capua, Ovius and 
Novius Calavius. They, like Vibius Virrius and his associates in the war of Han- 
nibal, chose to perish by their own hands, rather than by the axe of the dicta- 
tor's lictors, and the principal offenders having thus atoned for their revolt, the 
state of Capua was pardoned, and readmitted to its former alliance with Rome. 

10 Diodorus. XIX. 76. ,e Livy, IX. 25. 

71 IX. 26. " Nee Capua ipsa crimino caruit : ™ Livy, IX. 27. 

quiii Eomam quoque et ad priucipum quosdam m Livy, XIX. 76. 

inquirendos ventum est." B1 Diodorus, XIX. 76. 



Chap. XXXL] COMMISSIONERS FOR NAVAL AFFAIRS. 303 

The strength of the two parties in the Samnite war was so essentially unequal 
that the loss of a battle pressed far more severely on the one than 
on the other. Accordingly, after the defeat which rendered their tie 9 Romans" chines 
victory at Lautulae fruitless, the Samnites were again reduced to ess", 8 hTteramn",' 1 ' and 
the defensive, and saw the towns which they had won successively 
wrested from them. In the next two years 82 Fregellae, one of the original causes 
of the war, Sora, 83 which had revolted just before the battle of Lautulse, and Atina, 84 
another Volscian city situated among the mountains which look down on the 
valley of the Melfa, one of the early feeders of the Liris, were all taken by the 
Romans ; while in Campania and its neighborhood they made themselves masters 
of Suessa Aurunca, of Nola, and Calatia ; 85 and in Apulia they finally obtained 
possession of Luceria. 86 They resolved, too, to secure these conquests by per- 
manent occupation; and thus 2500 81 colonists were sent to Luceria; another 
colony was planted at Suessa Aurunca ; a third in the island of Pontia ; 88 and 
two more, to consist of 2000 colonists each, were ordered to be founded at In- 
teramna on the Liris, and at Casinum on one of the feeders of the Liris. 

These three last colonies were settled on ground which had formerly belonged to 
the Volscians : Interamna and Casinum were an advance of the Roman frontier 
on the upper road into Campania ; but Pontia must have been colonized with a 
different object. Two years afterwards we find that two commissioners 89 for 
naval affairs were for the first time created by the Romans ; and this appoint- 
ment, coupled with the occupation of Pontia, make it probable that during the 
war with Samnium the Roman coasts were exposed to continual plundering de- 
scents, and the Roman merchant-vessels often intercepted on their voyages. 
Whether this annoyance proceeded from the Lucanians, or whether the Taren- 
tines had really lent to the Samnites the aid of their maritime power in this long 
struggle, are amongst the many points in the history of these events of which we 
must be content to be ignorant. 

The Samnite war lasted eight years longer ; nor was even this latter period of 
the contest unchequered by some changes of fortune ; still Rome superiority of the r - 
was continually becoming more powerful, and the various attempts XJhe7a"o™"pp^d 
made by several of the Italian nations to check her growing su- toit- 
premacy served only to set in a clearer light the greatness of her resources. 
Etruria, which had remained at peace for nearly forty years, now, as if alarmed 
by the danger of the Samnites, exerted her whole strength against Rome, but 
in vain. The Umbrians, a people whose name we have scarcely hitherto had 
occasion to mention, attacked the Romans in entire ignorance of their own and 
their enemy's power, and were defeated and struck down in an instant. The 
Hernicans, so long united with Rome in a close alliance, revolted only to be- 
come more completely subjected ; the hardy nations of the Marsians, Pelignians, 
and Marrucinians, after having from jealousy stood aloof hitherto from their Sam- 
nite kinsmen, now at last endeavored to aid them when it was too late, and did 
but involve themselves in their humiliation. Northwards, and southwards, in 
the central Apennines, and on the coast of the Adriatic, the Roman power was 
alike irresistible, and Rome towered above the nations who were jointly or sev- 
erally assailing her, like one of the heroes of the Homeric poems when beset by 
a multitude of common men. 

To those who estimate the power of a nation by its geographical extent, this 

82 Livy, IX. 28. Diodorus, XIX. 101. rather of rocks, in the largest of which, now 

^ Livy, IX. 24. Ponza, the Roman colony was founded. Ponza 

Livy, IX. 28. 4 has a good harbor, and was taken possession 

86 Livy, IX. 28. Diodorus, XIX. 101. of by the British in 1813. It is volcanic, and is 

™ Diodorus, XIX. 72. Livy, IX. 26. about 14 Neapolitan miles in circumference 

Livy, IX. 26. (nearly 17i British), and exhibits several re- 

88 Livy, IX. 28. Diodorus, XIX. 101-105. mains of ancient buildings. See Giustiniani, 

Niebuhr observes, that the plural form, "Pon- Dizionario del Regno di Napoli, in Ponza. 

tise," belongs only to the group of islands, or 89 Livy, IX. 30. 



304 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI. 

iu causes ; the greats constant superiority of Rome may appear extraordinary: for un- 
Oium"™ tn 6 R ™ a 1 doubtedly the portions of Italy possessed by the Etruscans, Urn- 
tw» p ty°of^™Vem* brians, and Samnites, were many times larger than the territory 
ment " of Rome and her allies. But their superiority in population was 

by no means equally great ; nor is it likely that either Etruria or Samnium were 
peopled as densely as Latium and Campania. Livy does not give the returns of 
the several census taken at this period, but he states generally, that the number 
of Roman citizens averaged about 250,000 ; 90 to which the Latin and Campanian 
allies are to be added. Now we do not know what was the population of Sam- 
nium or Etruria at this time ; but if we may at all be guided by the famous 
return of the military force of the several nations of Italy in the great Gaulish 
war of 529, 91 we may conclude that it fell far short of that of the Romans and their 
confederates. To this must be added the still greater advantages on the side of 
Rome, of a central position, a unity of counsels, and a national spirit, as sys- 
tematic as it was resolute. A single great nation is incomparably superior to a 
coalition ; and still more so when that coalition is made up not of single states, 
but of federal leagues ; so that a real unity of counsels and of public spirit is 
only to be found in the individual cities of each league ; which must each be 
feeble, because each taken separately is small in extent and weak in population. 
The German empire alone, setting aside the Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian 
dominions of the house of Austria, could never, even with the addition of the 
Netherlands, have contended on equal terms with France. 

The sudden breaking out of the Etruscan war at this period was determined, 
no doubt, by the expiration of the forty years' peace which had 

Etruscan war. A gTeat , i l i • 1 i m •• * l i 

Etmsean army besieges been concluded with the larqunuans in the year 404. As usual, 

Sutrimn. Campaign of . , „ , ■'. . ill 

q. jEmiiius on the when the term ot peace was drawing to a close, there would be 

Etruscan lrontier, and ,•*•!, ,i , • 09 • ii 

of c. Junius in Sam- some negotiation between the two countries, 11 " to ascertain whether 
the treaty would be renewed, or whether its close was to be fol- 
lowed by immediate war ; and this explains Livy's statement, 93 that in the consul- 
ship of M. Valerius and P. Decius there arose rumors of hostilities with Etruria ; 
and that great preparations were made by both nations, although no actual attack 
was begun by either till the year following. But if we may trust the Roman 
accounts, 94 not Tarquinii only, but all the Etruscan cities except Arretium took 
part in the renewed quarrel. This probably was owing to a jealousy of the 
Roman power on the one hand, and to the cessation of the Gaulish inroads into 
northern Etruria on the other, so that Clusium and Perusia and Cortona were no 
longer prevented by a nearer danger, as in the last war with Veii, from giving 
their aid to the cities on the southern frontier. Accordingly a 

A U. C. 433. B. C. 311. , . . ® * 

great Etruscan army laid siege to Sutrium, 95 which was still, as it 
had been nearly eighty years before, the most advanced point of the Roman do- 

m Livy, IX. 19. "Censebantur ejus tetatis great Gaulish war. Mere more numerous than 

lustria ducena quinquagena millia capitum." the Etruscans, Umbrians, Samnites, and Lu- 

ai The return of free citizens within the mili- cardans, nearly In the proportion of two to one. 
tary age, gave for the Samnites, Lttcanians, And although, in the course of the eighty or 
Marsian8, Marrucinians, Frentanians, and Yes- ninety years which elapsed between the second 
tinians, the number of 120,000 foot soldiers, Samnite war and the Gaulish invasion, the pop- 
am! 14,000 horse. Polybius, II. 24. The Um- ulation of Etruria and Samnium maybe sup- 

brians were 2<>, i; the Etruscans and Sa- posed to have decreased, while that of Rome 

bines together (the number of the Etruscans undoubtedly had increased by the accession of 

telj is no! srivenl were ;'o,nno f IM >t and the llcrnicans, JEquians, and a large part of the 

4 borsei Hen' we have a total of 190,000 Sabines, to the rolls of Eoman citizens, yet still, 

fool and L8, I horse. Bui the same return with every possible allowance that can be made, 

reckons the Bomans, Latins, and Cftmpanians we must believe that the Romans and their 

al 880, I fool and 28,000 bora», Vesicles the allies in the second Samnite war considerably 

forces actually at that time in the field, which surpassed their enemies even in mere num- 

amounted to 50,000 Bomans and Campanians bora. 

more, and probablj too al least £0,000 Latins, "- See of this history, chap. xvi. note 48, and 

with not more than' -lo.ooo of the Samnites, Lu- chap, xviii. p. 147. 

canians, &c, on the verj highest calculation, " 3 [X. 29. 

and probably much less. Tims the Unmans, M Livy. 1\. 82. 

Latins, and (ani]>anians, at the time of the m Livy, IX. 32. 



Chap. XXXI,] ETRUSCAN WAR. 305 

minion on the side of Etruria. Q. iEmilius Barbula, one of the consuls, marched 
with a single consular army to protect the Sutrians, and a battle was fought with 
no decisive result ; but it was most obstinately contested, and the loss on both 
sides Avas immense. The Etruscans, however, continued to besiege Sutrium, and 
they apparently constructed lines around it, as the Romans had done at Veii, in 
which they proposed to keep a part of their army through the winter, that the 
blockade might not be interrupted. Meantime the campaign of this year in 
Samnium had been decidedly favorable to the Romans, although the details are 
utterly uncertain ; for, if we compare Livy's account with that of Diodorus, no 
one would suspect that both writers were describing the events of the same war 
and the same period. According to Livy, 96 the scene of action lay in Samnium, 
and one consular army only, that of C. Junius Bubulcus, was engaged. By this 
army, Bovianum, the chief city of the Pentrian Samnites, on the north side of the 
Matese, is said to have been taken ; and afterwards, when the Samnites had 
nearly surprised the consul by an ambuscade, the practised valor of the soldiers 
repelled the danger, and even obtained a complete victory. According to Di- 
odorus, 97 both consuls were employed, and the seat of war was Apulia. Here 
the Romans, after a battle which lasted two days, gained a complete victory, and 
from that time forwards they remained masters of the field, overran the open 
country Avithout opposition, and took by storm or by the terror of their arms 
several of the enemy's cities. In order to reconcile these apparent contradictions, 
Ave must suppose that Diodorus describes the Avinter campaign, and Livy that of 
the summer folloAving : that both consuls, after entering upon their office in Sep- 
tember or October, were employed in Apulia during the Avinter, which, as Nie- 
buhr has observed, is the best season for military operations in that country ; 
that in the summer of the folloAving year the Etruscan Avar broke out, and that 
then Q. ^Emilius was sent to relieve Sutrium, while C. Junius carried on the war 
in the centre of Samnium. The siege of Bovianum, where the climate is so cold, 
that the snow must render military operations impracticable till very late in the 
spring, and the ambuscade formed by the Samnites to surprise the Romans while 
pursuing the cattle into the high mountain pastures, clearly imply a summer 
campaign. And Avhen C. Junius marched home with his army to celebrate his 
triumph on the 5th of August, he probably found his colleague still engaged 
with the Etruscans on the side of Sutrium. 

Q. Fabius Maximus Avas elected one of the consuls for the new year ; the same 
person who, when master of the horse fourteen years before, had 
so nearly forfeited his life for his disobedience to the orders of the p*W of q. ' Fabius 
dictator, L, Papirius Cursor. As the Fabian house was both 
powerful and popular, he Avas a favorite hero in the stories of these times ; and 
his exploits in this campaign haA r e been disguised by such exaggerations that it 
is difficult to appreciate his real merit justly. We can hardly believe that he de- 
feated the whole united force of the Etruscan nation in a great battle under the 
walls of Perusia, Avith such slaughter that sixty thousand Etruscans Avere killed 
or taken ; nor were the Ciminian mountains so impassable a barrier as to justify 
the statement, that, before the daring expedition of Fabius they had not even 
been crossed by any Roman traders, and that the country beyond was as unknown 
as the wilds of Germany before the conquests of Drusus. Yet the campaign of 
Fabius was, doubtless, in a very high degree, able, enterprising, and successful, 
and the triumph which he obtained in the following year for his victories over 
the Etruscans was assuredly Avell deserved. 

According to Diodorus, 98 both the consuls, R. Fabius and his colleague, C. Mar- 
.cius Rutulus, marched together to relieve Sutrium ; and it was by 
their joint force that the Etruscan besieging army, which had ven- trateinto the heart of 
tured to attack them, was beaten and obliged to take refuge within 



the enemy's country. 



96 IX. 31. <" XIX. 26. " 8 XX. 35. . 

20 



306 .' HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI 

its lines. But the employment of both the consular armies in Etruria was not 
unobserved by the indefatigable Samnites. They poured down into Apulia, and 
ravaged the territory of the allies of Rome in that country without meeting with 
any opposition. This obliged the Romans to recall C. Marcius from Sutrium, 
and to send him with his army against the Samnites. Fabius was thus left alone, 
and the Etruscan lines before Sutrium were too strong to be attacked with suc- 
cess. But it struck him that a sudden and rapid invasion of central Etruria might 
oblige the enemy to recall their army from Sutrium, and would, at the same 
time, enrich his soldiers with the plunder of a wealthy and untouched country. 
It was thus that Hannibal hoped to relieve Capua by his unexpected march upon 
Rome ; and the same policy led Scipio into Africa, as the surest method of 
obliging Hannibal to evacuate Italy. Fabius sent to Rome to acquaint the senate 
with his purpose, that an army of reserve" might be raised to cover the Roman 
territory during his absence : he had also previously sent his brother 100 across the 
Ciminian mountains to collect information, and to persuade, if possible, some of 
the Umbrian states to ally themselves with Rome. His brother could speak the 
Etruscan language, and in the disguise of a shepherd, accompanied only by a 
single slave who had been brought up with him from a child, and also was acquainted 
with Etruscan, he penetrated through Etruria as far as Camerte or Camerinum in 
Umbria, a town on the northern side of the Apennines, near the modern road 
from Foligno to Ancona. The Camertians received him in the most friendly 
manner, and desired him to assure the consul, that if he came into their neigh- 
borhood their entire force should join his army, and that they would supply him 
with provisions during a whole month. With this encouraging message the Ro- 
man officer returned to his brother, and Q. Fabius resolved to lose no time in 
carrying his plan into execution, suspecting, perhaps, that if he delayed he might 
receive a peremptory order from the senate not to risk his army in so hazardous 
an enterprise. 

The Ciminian hills, for we should scarcely call them mountains, are the ridge which 
mt „ . . , .„ divides the valley of the Tiber from the basin of the lake of Bolsena, 

The Ciminian hills. , - - "^ i ■ r /• i/» riiii 

Fabius crosses them, and from the valley which runs from the foot of the lake down to 

and carries tlie war into . .-_ T ^ 

Etruria. His victories the sea. Where the road from Viterbo to Rome crosses them 
they are still covered with copse-wood, and the small crater of the 
lake of Vico, which lies high up in their bosom, is surrounded by the remains of 
the old forest. In the fifth century of Rome the woods were far more extensive ; 
and the hills, having now become the boundary between the Roman and Etrus- 
can nations, were, perhaps, studiously kept in their wild state in order to prevent 
collisions between the borderers of both frontiers. They are a remarkable point, 
because, as they run up to a crest, with no extent of table-land on their summits, 
they command a wide view on either side, reaching far away to the southeast 
over the valley of the Tiber, even to the Alban hills, whilst on the north and west 
they look down on the plain of Viterbo ; and the lake of Bolsena is distinctly 
visible, shut in at the farthest distance by the wild mountains of Radicofani. 

89 That such an army was raised, appears from left bank of the Tiber, between Todi and Ame- 
Tivy, IX. 39 ; and Nicbuhr well observes, that lia, is proved decisively, if, indeed, it could ever 
the mission of five senators, accompanied by have been reasonably' doubted, by an inscrip- 
twoof the tribunes of the commons, who arrived tion found at Camerino, in which the Camer- 
in thecamD before Sutrium too late to stop the tians express their gratitude to the emperor 
expedition into Etruria (Iivy, IX. 86), seems to Severus, for having confirmed to them "the 
imply that some earlier communications had equal rights of their treaty," "jure a-quo fecde- 
passed upon the subject, and thai Fabius hav- ris sibi confirmato :" an allusion to their well- 
ing shown a disposition to disobey the prohibi- known fcedus ffiquum, concluded at t his very 
tiOD pfthe senate, the two tribunes were sent to time of the first Soman invasion of Etruria, and 
arresl him, which they alone, by virtue of their which existed to the end of the commonwealth, 
inviolable character, could do with Bafety. and nominally, at least, as the inscription above 

100 Livy, IX. 36. That the Camertians, who quoted shows, to the third century of the Chris- 
concluded the treaty with the Bomana on this ban era. It was in the territory of Camerinum 
occasion, were the people of Camorinum, the also that L. Scipio was defeated by the Gauls 
modern Camerino, and not, as Dr. Cramer sup- and Samnites in the third Samnite war. The 
poses, of the obscure place of Camcrata, on the above inscription is given by Orelli, No. 920. 



Chap. XXXI] PAPIRIUS CURSOR APPOINTED DICTATOR. 307 

Fabius, having sent on his baggage and infantry during the night, followed him- 
self with his cavalry about the middle of the day following ; and on the next 
morning the whole army crossed the summit of the Ciminian ridge, and poured 
down into the plains beyond. Some of the Etruscan chiefs 101 assembled their 
peasantry, and attempted to stop the plunder of their lands ; but they were de- 
feated with great loss ; and the invaders overran the country far and wide, and 
carried off cattle and prisoners in great numbers. How far they penetrated into 
Etruria is uncertain. According to Livy it was a mere plundering inroad, and 
could not have extended beyond the territory of Vulsinii ; but, according to Dio- 
dorus, 102 the Roman army advanced into the very heart of Etruria, fought a great 
battle, and won a decided victory in the neighborhood of Perusia ; insomuch that 
the siege of Sutrium was raised, and three of the greatest of the Etruscan cities, 
Perusia, Arretium, and Cortona, sued for peace, and concluded a truce for thirty 
years. Livy 103 represents the decisive victory as having been won near Sutrium 
after the return of the Romans from their expedition ; an immense army of Etrus- 
cans, joined by the forces of some of the states of Umbria, hastened to pursue 
and take vengeance on the invaders, but did not overtake them within the Etrus- 
can territory, and thus followed them to their old position in the neighborhood of 
Sutrium. Both accounts agree in describing the victory as signal, and in stating 
that it was followed by a peace with three of the principal cities of Etruria. 

Meanwhile, the war was raging with no less fury in Samnium. 0. Marcius, 
after having been recalled from Sutrium, had marched with his samnium. The Romans 
army into Apulia, 104 and there at first relieved the allies of Rome "api^cm-sort ^'. 
from the plundering incursions of the enemy. But the Samnites pointed dictator - 
had no intention to act merely on the defensive; they were eager to crush the 
army of Marcius, while Fabius was engaged in Etruria ; and they attacked him 
with such vigor 105 that the Roman annals themselves acknowledge that the issue 
of the battle was doubtful, and that it seemed to be unfavorable, owing to the 
loss of several superior officers, and especially as the consul himself was wounded. 
The truth is sufficiently evident that the Romans were, in fact, defeated. When 
the news of this battle reached Rome, the senate resolved immediately that L. 
Papirius Cursor should be again appointed dictator; but it was necessary that 
one of the consuls should name him, and as nothing certain was known of the 
fate of C. Marcius, a deputation was sent to Fabius in Etruria, to request that he 
would perform this office. Fabius and Papirius were personal enemies : the con- 
sul had not forgotten how nearly he had once fallen a sacrifice to Papirius' inex- 
orable temper ; and political difference had since, perhaps, contributed to keep 
alive the personal quarrel. The deputation sent to Fabius consisted, therefore, of 
senators 106 of consular rank, whose private influence with him might be supposed 
likely to aid the expressed wish of the senate, and to induce him to sacrifice his 
own personal feelings. He heard the senate's dacree read, and listened to the 
arguments with which the deputies urged him to obey it ; but he gave them no 
answer, either by look or word, and retired abruptly from the interview. In the 
dead of the night, however, according to the usual form, he pronounced the 
nomination of Papirius ; but when the deputies ventured to thank him for his 
noble conquest over his feelings, he again heard them in silence, and finally dis- 
missed them without any answer. 

The dictator found an army at once disposable in the troops which had been 
raised to cover Rome when Fabius began his march across the H i 8 great victory and 
Ciminian hills. With this force he marched into Samnium; there a P lendid t ri ™>pn- 

ioi The character of the Etruscan government and Poland, formed the bulk of the national ar- 

is well given in Livy's short statement, " tu- mies. 

multuarise agrestium Etruscorum cohortes re- . m Livy, XX. 85. 
pente a principibus regionis ejus concitatag," 103 IX. 37. 
IX. 36. These " principes" were the Luco- 104 Diodorus, XX. 35. 
menes or nobles of Etruria, and the " agrestium 10G Livy, IX. 38. 
cohortes" were their serfs, who, as in Russia M6 Livy, IX. 38. 



308 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXL 

he was joined by the 'wreck of the consul's arm)'-, and by the contingent of the 
Campanian allies of Rome ; but he did not immediately venture upon a battle. 
Again all the previous movements of both armies are unknown, nor is even the 
scene of the battle mentioned, but we are told 107 that after a short time a general 
action took place, in which the dictator Papirius, his master of the horse, C. 
Junius Bubulcus, and his two lieutenants, M. Valerius and P. Decius, both men 
of consular rank, all alike distinguished themselves ; and which ended in a com- 
plete victory on the side of the Romans. Papirius triumphed on the 15th of 
October ; 108 and his triumph was distinguished by the splendor of the captured 
arms which were carried in the procession. There were a number of gilded and 
silvered shields 109 which had been borne by two different bands of Samnites in 
the late battle ; the silvered shields had belonged to a band, each man of which 
had been pledged by solemn oaths, accompanied by a ceremonial of the most 
mysterious and appalling character, to return victorious or to die. As sacred 
soldiers, these men had worn in the field coats of white linen, and silvered arms ; 
and had their station on the right wing, which was the post of honor. The band 
with gilded shields had worn coats of various colors, like a plaid ; and both bands 
had plumes of an imposing height waving on their helmets. All these particu- 
lars of the Samnite arms are mentioned for the first time at the triumph of 
Papirius ; which proves that on no former occasion had the Samnites sustained 
so great a defeat, or had attached such great importance to the issue of the con- 
test, as to adopt the unwonted expedient of a sacred or devoted band. It is added 
that these gay shields were divided out amongst the several silversmiths in the 
Forum, 110 that they might hang them up to decorate their shops on those great 
festivals when the Forum was dressed up as a part of the pageant. 

The chronology is here again involved in confusion. According to the Fasti 
. , Capitolini, L. Papirius held his dictatorship for a whole year, dur- 

Cnnfusions again in the . * . x *■ . J . 

chronology. Submis- mg which there were no consuls; and Q. habius commanded in 
Etruria as proconsul, and triumphed in that office on the 13th of 
November. To this version of the story belongs, apparently, the account of a 
second Etruscan campaign of Q. Fabius, of a great victory gained by him over 
the Umbrians, and of a second gained over the Etruscans at the lake of Vadi- 
mon ; then of the revolt and subsequent submission of Perusia, of the occupa- 
tion of that strong city by a Roman garrison, and of embassies sent from the 
other cities of Etruria to sue for peace. It would be difficult indeed to find room 
for all these great achievements in the single year of Fabius' consulship ; but, on 
the other hand, this second Etruscan campaign is unknown to Diodorus, and both 
he and Livy agree in making the second consulship of Q. Fabius follow imme- 
diately after his first, without any such interval as that mentioned in the Fasti. 
It is remarkable, also, that the little lake of Vadimon should have been the scene 
of two victories over the Etruscans, within a period of about thirty years ; and 
we are tempted to ask whether the first of these battles has not been greatly 
exaggerated. Yet the Etruscans must have been signally humbled by Fabius ; 
for, in the next year, when P. Decius invaded Etruria, he met with little opposi- 
tion; the people of Tarquinii obtained a peace for forty years, 1 " and the other 
Etruscan cities were glad to obtain a truce for a single year; and even this they 

107 livy, IX. 4<». towns of Italy at this day. The shields wore 

108 Fasti Capitolini. hung up on the outside front of the square 
100 Livy, IX. 40. piers, or pile, looking towards the Forum. The 
110 These Bhops of the silversmiths lined the butchers 1 shops, which, in the tame of the de- 

Via Sacra, which, on its coarse from the Velia cemvirs, had occupied this side of the Forum, 

to tin- foot of the Capitol, ran along the north- had lately disappeared with the growing mag- 

ern side of the Forum. They were like cells, niflcence of the city, and had been succeeded 

(.pen in front, built ofpeperino, and with arow- by the shops of goldsmiths and silversmiths. 

of square mass] Bupporte, or piers, in front of See Besehreibung dcr Stadt Roin, Vol. III. 2d 

them, Supporting the first story <>f the houses part, p. 25. 

above; exactly like the covered passages in 1U Livy, IX. 41. Diodorus, XX. 44. 
which the shops are ranged in so many of the 



Chap. XXXL] WAR WITH THE SALLENTINES. 309 

purchased at the price of giving a year's pay to the consul's army, and two coats 
to each soldier. 

Q. Fabius, who had been chosen consul for the third time as the colleague of 
P. Decius, had this year the conduct of the war in Samnium. But 

_,. J ill i j i • • Continued successes of 

the Samnites were so weakened, that their speedy subluxation the Romans, short war 

,. • t l 1 n • f 1 1 1 Ii ■ • l l with the Umbnans. 

seemed inevitable ; and this, we may suppose, failed the neighbor- 
ing nations with a sense of their own danger if Samnium should fall, and in- 
duced not only the Marsians and Pelignians 112 to take part with the Samnites, 
but even shook the long-tried friendship of the Hernicans with Rome, a,nd aroused 
the Sallentines, at the southern extremity of Italy, to look on the Samnite cause 
as their own. But all was of no avail, and the success of the Romans was unin- 
terrupted. Nuceria Alfaterna, in*Campania, which had revolted seven years be- 
fore, was now recovered, the Marsians and Pelignians were defeated, and Fabius 
was enabled to leave his province without danger, and to hasten into Umbria ; 113 
the Umbrians, it is said, having raised so formidable an army as to threaten to march 
straight upon Rome, and P. Decius having thought it necessary to retreat from 
Etruria, in order to watch over the safety of the capital. Here, again, we cannot 
but suspect some exaggeration ; for Fabius is said to have won an easy victory 
over the Umbrians, and the Umbrian towns immediately submitted. This may 
be doubtful ; but it is certain that the people of Ocriculum concluded an alliance 
with Rome, and that Fabius obtained no triumph either for his victory over the 
Umbrians, or for those which he is said to have won in Samnium. Yet his com- 
mand in Samnium was continued to him for another year, with the title of pro- 
consul : the new consuls were Appius Claudius and L. Volumnius. 

As the Etruscan war was now over, and Q. Fabius continued to command the 
army in Samnium, only one of the consuls for this year was re- War with the Sallen . 
quired to take the field. This was L. Volumnius, and he was sent tiaes - 
against the Sallentines," 4 an Apulian or Iapygian people, who dwelt, as we have 
seen, at the extreme heel of Italy, and who were now attacked by the Romans, 
under pretence, we may suppose, of their having annoyed some of the Apulian 
allies of Rome. But Volumnius did nothing worthy of notice, although, accord- 
ing to Livy, he gained some victories, took several towns, and made himself very 
popular with his soldiers by his liberality in the disposal of the plunder. The 
Fasti Capitolini, however, show that he obtained no triumph ; and one of the 
annalists, Piso, 115 omitted his consulship altogether, as if he doubted its reality. 

Fabius, 116 on his part, defeated the Samnites near Allifse, and obliged their 
army to surrender. The Samnites themselves he disarmed, and 
then dismissed them unhurt ; but all the other prisoners, to what- suspected" by n8 tno ec0 Ro 8 - 
ever nation they belonged, were sold for slaves. Amongst this 
'number, there were several who declared themselves to be Hernicans, and these 
were immediately sent off to Rome, and, by order of the senate, were committed 
to the custody of the several allied cities of the Latins. Q. Fabius then led his 
army home ; but either his victory has been exaggerated, or it was balanced by 
some defeats which the Roman writers did not choose to mention, for he obtained 
no triumph. 

The new consuls were Q. Marcius Tremulus, and P. Cornelius Arvina. They 
brought the case of the Hernican prisoners before the senate, which, 
says Livy, 117 so exasperated the whole nation, that the people of 
Anagnia summoned a general council of deputies from every Hernican city, and 
all, with three exceptions, voted for war with Rome. It is manifest that some- 
thing is omitted in this narrative, the decision of the senate upon the case which 
was brought before them. This it was, no doubt, which so exasperated the Her- 
nicans ; and no wonder, if, as there is every reason to believe, it ordered the pris- 

112 Livy, IX. 41. »» Livy IX . 44. 

» 3 Livy, IX. 41. «• Livy, IX. 42. 

124 Livy, IX. 42. » Livy, IX. 42. 



310 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXL 

oners to be scourged and beheaded. Such a bloody execution would naturally 
excite a deep and general indignation, and the common feeling of the Hernican 
people would call aloud for vengeance. 

Meanwhile the indomitable spirit of the Samnites kindled at the prospect of 
this accession to their league against Rome ; and they thought that if 
th e m H^mican C Md sam. they could clear the valley of the Liris, and thus open their commu- 
nications with the country of the Hernicans, their combined forces 
might possibly again carry the war into the heart of Latium, through the great 
mountain-portal by Praeneste. Accordingly, they attacked and carried the two 
posts of Calatia, on the Vulturnus, and Sora, on the upper Liris, and sold the 
prisoners as slaves. 118 Thus the communication with the Hernicans was opened, 
and a Samnite army must have taken up its position in the valley of the upper 
Liris, on the edge of the Hernican country. The Romans then hoped, by a com- 
bined operation of both the consular armies, to penetrate into the heart of the 
enemy's seat of war in two different directions ; and Q. Marcius proceeded to 
invade the Hernican territory from the side of Latium, while P. Cornelius was to 
ascend the valley of the Liris from Campania, and to dislodge the Samnites from 
Sora. But the enemy held their ground so well, 119 and availed themselves so 
effectually of their central position, that the consuls could make no progress ; and, 
being kept in total ignorance of each other's movements, it is likely that each 
successively sustained a severe check from a concentration of the enemy's force 
against his particular army. This state of affairs excited great alarm at Rome ; 
all citizens within the military age were enlisted, and two regular armies of two 
legions each were raised, to be ready for any emergency. 

Thus supported, Q. Marcius soon overbore the resistance of the Hernicans, 
and obliged them to purchase a truce for thirty days by furnish- 

Tlie Hernicans solicit . , . S -.i , ^\ ■> j j.' e 

and obuun a truce, mg the Roman army with two months pay and rations 01 corn, 
five" D m nthT a by two and with clothing for each soldier. They then sued for peace, 
and were referred by the senate to the consul, who received ac- 
cordingly their entire submission. He hastened to effect his junction with his 
colleague, and the Samnite army, oppressed by their united forces, was defeated 
with great slaughter. 120 Marcius returned to Rome and triumphed on the 30th 
of June, 121 and his services were accounted so eminent that an equestrian statue 
was set up in honor of him in the Forum, 128 in front of the temple of Castor, or 
rather of the twin heroes, Castor and Pollux. After his triumph, he rejoined 
his colleague in Samnium, and their two armies being completely masters of the 
field, ravaged, the whole country with the utmost perseverance for the space of 
nearly five months ; 123 cutting down the fruit-trees, burning the houses that were 
not secured within the fortified towns, and doing all the mischief in their power, 
in the hope of forcing the enemy into submission. The consuls were thus de- 
tained so long in the field, that a dictator was named to hold the comitia ; and L. 
Postumius and Ti. Minucius were elected consuls for the year following. 

Before the close of this year the senate had decided the fate of the Hernicans. 124 
Three cities which had taken no part in the late war were left in 
■ettiement of the Her- the enjoyment of their municipal independence ; but Anagnia and 
the other towns were obliged to receive the Roman franchise with- 
out the right of voting ; or, in other w r ords, to become the subjects of Rome, 
without any share either in the general government or in their own municipal 
administration. They were forbidden to hold any common meetings, or to inter- 
marry with one another, and their magistrates were prohibited from exercising 
any other function than that of superintending the performance of the rites of 
religion. 

" e Livy, IX. 43. Diodorus, XX. 80. The temple of Castor was on the southern side 

1M Livy, IX. 48. of the Forum, opposite to the line of the Via 

150 Livy, IX. 43. Sana. 

121 Fasti Capitolim. " 3 Diodorus, XX. 80. 

133 Livy, IX. 43. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXIV. G. «* Livy, IX. 43. 



Chap. XXXI] PEACE BETWEEN" ROME AND SAMISTIUM. 311 

The long contest with the Samnites was now drawing to a conclusion. Before 
the new consuls took the field, and after Marcius and Cornelius . . 

7 . j . , , DeciBive campaign in 

had returned home, the Samnites reveno-ed m some degree the the heart of samnium. 

' -ii- 1 l j • Bovianurn token. 

devastation of their own country, by making several plundering 
inroads into the plain of Campania. 125 But when the legions opened the cam- 
paign, the power of the Romans was again irresistible. The seat of the war was 
now in the very heart of Samnium, on the north side of the Matese, in the coun- 
try of the Pentrians ; and the two consuls attacked the two cities of Tifernum 
and Bovianurn. One last desperate effort was made by the Samnite imperator or 
captain-general, Statius Gellius, to relieve Bovianurn : but it was vain, although 
the battle was so stoutly contested, that the Roman consul Ti. Minucius was 
mortally wounded, and did not live to reap the fruits of his victory. But Gellius 
was himself taken prisoner, and the greater part of his army destroyed. Bovia- 
nurn then surrendered, and the consuls, on their return home, recovered the 
towns which had been lately lost in the valley of the Liris, Sora, Arpinum, and 
an unknown place, Cerennia, 126 or Censennia. 

This campaign was decisive. The new consuls were P. Sulpicius and P. Sem- 
pronius, and Sulpicius immediately took the field in Samnium. 127 

r 7 -T J , iii* The Samnites and their 

He gained some advantages, small perhaps in themselves, but lm- allies submit to the r - 
portant, as the last drop poured into the brimming vessel and 
causing the water to overflow. The Samnites at last sued for peace, and the 
Marrucinians, Marsians, Pelignians, and Frentanians followed the example. They 
were all obliged to become the allies of Rome, but the alliance was no longer on 
equal terms ; 128 they became, in fact, politically subject, and consented to ac- 
knowledge and respect the majesty, or, in other words, the supremacy of Rome. 
In comparison with such a full confession of the superior strength of the Ro- 
mans, anv partial acquisitions of territory were of slight import- , 

' V r J. , t . ,i P ^i ,i Accessions pained to the 

ance. But the Romans had obtained in the course of the war the Roman dominion in the 

.. n t • • a t i*i J f • course of the war. 

important position of Lucena in Apulia, which secured their as- 
cendency in that part of Italy ; and they had also won the whole line of the 
Liris, all those Volscian towns which had been the Samnite share of the spoil at 
the conclusion of the great Latin war. Campania had been retained, and its 
connection with Rome was rendered closer than ever ; and above all, the timely 
extension of the full Roman franchise to so many of the Latin and Volscian cities 
in the neighborhood of Rome, had made the Roman power sound at the heart, 
and had consolidated that mass of citizens, and of allies scarcely less true than 
citizens, within the confines of Latium, of which neither the arms nor the arts 
of Hannibal could tempt a single individual to join his standard. 

The conquest of the Hernicans gave the Romans, it is probable, a considerable 
accession of territory in the forfeited domain land of the several cities ; and it 
put an end to the old equal alliance which entitled the Hernicans to a share of 
all plunder taken by the armies of the allied nations. The victories over the 

125 Livy, IX. 44. Diodorus, XX. 90. year 401, lie says that the Samnites solicited 

126 Diodorus calls it Serennia. Is not this the friendship of Eome ; that " Legatis eorum 
place the "Cisauna" m Samnium, mentioned comiter ah senatu responsum ; fosdere in socie- 
m the inscription on the tomh of L. Scipio tatem accepti." VII. 19. In the same man- 
Barbatus ? ner he misrepresents the early relations between 

127 This appears from the Fasti Capitolini, Borne and Latium. But the negotiations had 
which state that Sulpicius obtained a triumph broken off in the year 432 on this very point, 
for his victories over the Samnites in this year, because the Samnites would not become the 

128 Dionysius, Excerpt, de Legation, p. 2331. dependent allies of Borne ; and as the Bomana 
Beiske. His words are, speaking of the Sam- never receded from the conditions on which 
nites, tov; bnrjKdovs b(io\oyfiaavTag latadai. Livy they had once insisted, we may be sure that 
says, "Fcedus antiquum Samnitibus redditum." they would have granted no peace to the Sam- 
This is because he never seems to have con- nites which did not include their complete sub- 
ceived that any nation could ever have been mission ; nor can we suppose that the Sam- 
the equal ally of Eome, but that from the very nites would have persevered so long in carrying 
beginning it must have acknowledged the Bo- on the war amidst such repeated disasterSj if 
man supremacy. Thus, when he speaks of the they could have ended it on any terms less in- 
first treaty between Borne and Samnium in the tolerable. 



312 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIL 

t 
Etruscans and Umbrians had revealed the secret of the comparative weakness of 
those once dreaded nations, and had taught the Romans that their frontier 
might be extended as soon as they chose beyond the Ciminian hills. 

Thus in the twenty years of the second Samnite war Rome had risen to the 
Rome w» s now the erst first place, beyond dispute, amongst the nations of Italy. And 
power in itaiy. amidst the divisions and corruption of the several kingdoms which 

had grown up out of the fragments of Alexander's empire, there was scarcely a 
power in the civilized world, except Carthage, which could have contended suc- 
cessfully with Rome single-handed. 

Half a century was yet to elapse before Carthage entered upon the contest. 
Meanwhile the Roman power, was yet to be sharply tried ; what Etruria and 
Samnium could neither singly nor by their joint efforts effect, they were to try 
again with the help of the Gauls ; what they had failed to accomplish through 
barbarian aid, they were to attempt in their last struggle with the assistance of 
the arms and discipline of the Macedonian phalanx, and guided by the genius of 
Alexander's genuine successor, the hero-king of the race of Achilles. 



CHAPTER XXXIL 

INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 428 to 454— ABOLITION OF PERSONAL SLAVERY FOR 
DEBT— DICTATORSHIP OF C. iVLENIUS— CENSORSHIP OF APPIUS CLAUDIUS- 
CENSORSHIP OF Q. FABIUS AND P. DECIUS— THE OGULNIAN LAW. 



"Nothing lias contributed more than this lenity to raise the character of public men. Am- 
bition is of itself a same sufficiently hazardous and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions, 
without adding property, life, and liberty to the stake." — Edinburgh Keview, No. XCV. p. 161. 



We have seen that m the year immediately preceding the first campaign of the 
Altered position of Samnite war, several symptoms had been manifested by a strong 
new "lower" poplar party amongst the patricians of the old jealousy towards the 
P Brl y- commons ; M. Marcellus, a plebeian, had been forced to resign his 

dictatorship by the augurs, on the alleged reason that his appointment was in- 
valid from some religious objection ; and the most obstinate attempts were made 
to set aside the Licinian law, and to procure the election of two patrician con- 
suls. In the course of the Samnite war occasional traces of the same feeling are 
discernible. But its shape was no longer what it had been in the earlier days 
of the commonwealth. It was no longer a struggle between an aristocracy in the 
exclusive possession of the government, and a people impatient of their own ex- 
clusion from it. It was no longer a struggle between the whole patrician order 
on one side, and the whole body of the commons on the other. A considerable 
portion of the patricians and a majority of the senate were well reconciled to the 
altered state of things, and cordially received the distinguished commoners who 
had made their way to the highest offices in the commonwealth, and composed a 
new nobility fully worthy to stand on equal terms by the side of the old. Thus 
the moderate patricians, the new nobility of the commons, and the mass of the 
old plebeians were now closely linked together ; and their union gave that energy 
to the Roman councils and arms, which marks in so eminent a manner the mid- 
dle of the fifth century. But as these elements had tended more and more 
towards each other, so they parted off on either side from other elements with 
which, at an earlier period, they had been respectively connected. The moderate 



Chap.XXXIL] RISE OF A NEW POPULAR PARTY. 313 

patricians stood aloof from the high or more violent party, who still dreamt of 
recovering the old ascendency of their order : whilst a new popular party, though 
as yet very inconsiderable in power or influence, was growing up distinct from 
the old plebeians, regarding them with envy, 1 and regarded by them in turn with 
feelings of dislike and suspicion. This new party consisted of freed men, and of 
citizens engaged in the various trades and occupations of a city life, who were 
despised by the old agricultural plebeians as a low and unwarlike populace, and 
who, by a strong public opinion, were excluded from all prospect of political dis- 
tinctions. Many of these persons, indeed, had not even the right of voting, as they 
were not included in any tribe ; and they bore this exclusion as impatiently as 
the old plebeians had borne their exclusion from the highest curule offices. This 
was a class which was daily becoming more numerous, in proportion as Rome 
grew in wealth and population, and it formed the origin of the popular party of 
the later period of the commonwealth ; a party very different, both in its charac- 
ter and feelings, from the commons of its earlier history. 

These extremes of civil society, the highest aristocrats and the lowest populace, 
have often made common cause with each other against that mid- . 
die class which both hate equally. And when the malcontent ^eme parties against 
aristocratical families are few in number, but of the highest nobil- 
ity, any ambitious individual among them is tempted to court the populace for 
objects more directly personal ; he tries to make them the instrument, not of the 
greatness of his order, but of his own. Thus it was commonly remarked of the 
tyrants of the ancient world, that they began by playing the demagogue. In 
such a union between the highest and the lowest classes of society, the gain is 
mostly for the former ; the latter derived little advantage from the alliance, ex- 
cept the pleasure of the horse in the fable, when he saw his old enemy, the stag, 
effectually humbled. But the coalition is not solely one of political expediency ; 
it arises partly out of certain moral affinities existing between those whose social 
and political conditions are the extremest opposites. The moral bond between 
them is their common impatience of law and good government ; that anarchical 
and selfish restlessness, which sees in the existing order of society an equal restraint 
upon the pride and passion of the highest, and on the needy cupidity of the low- 
est. 2 This is the feeling which has so often brought together the proudest despot 
or the most insolent aristocrat and the lowest and most profligate populace ; and 
it was this, though in a far milder degree, which associated in one common party 

1 This is the progress of all popular parties, is so difficult, that it has rarely or never been 

from the necessity of the case. As the ruling attempted ; the excluding party, strengthened 

body in the earliest state of society is extremely by all those who were once excluded, is now 

exclusive, the popular party then comprises extremely powerful, and its power is moral as 

what Sieves would call the nation minus a well as "physical; the excluded or popular 

privileged individual or a very small privileged party, no longer a nation contending against a 

class. Each success of this party satisfies the caste, but yet much more than a worthiness fac- 

wishes of a portion of its members, and thus tion contending against a nation, are conscious 

makes them for the future its enemies. And a of a wrong done to them, and are embittered 

repetition of this process would at last place the by this feeling ; but being unable to cany their 

anti-popular party in that same position which point, and, from their very inability to obtain a 

was at hrst occupied by their adversaries ; they share of the benefits of society, becoming more 

would, in their turn, become the nation, minus and more morally unfit to enjoy them, their tri- 

a very small excluded class, a class, in fact, ex- umph and their continued exclusion are alike 

eluded by nothing but their own ignorance or deplorable. Their triumph is but the triumph 

profligacy. This would be the natural perfec- of slaves broken loose, fall of brute ignorance 

tion of a state, but, unhappily, this as yet has and wickedness ; their continued exclusion is a 

never been attained to ; the process has gone on perpetual cancer, wasting away the nation's 

healthfully in its first stages, satisfying succes- life ; and it is a moral evil, moreover, because it 

sively all those whose exclusion was wholly un- involves injustice. The great and hardest prob- 

natural, that is, who were excluded by dis- lem of political wisdom is to prevent any part 

tinctions purely arbitrary, or overbalanced by of society from becoming so socially degraded 

many more points of resemblance and fitness by poverty, that their political enfranchisement 

for political power. But when it reaches those becomes dangerous, or even mischievous, 

who differ really from the governing body, as 2 % ph irtWa avdynri rriv T<5A^av impixovoa, >) 

in the case of the rich and the poor, then con- <5' i^ovaia vflpci rrjv nXeovefrav xal (j>pov>'i^aTi, . . . 

vulsion and decline have mostly followed. The i^ayovuiv is rovs ictvSvvovs- Thucydides, II. 
work of smoothing down these real differences 



314 HISTORY OF HOME. [Chap. XXXIL 

at Rome, in the period now before us, the humblest of the city populace and 
the representative of the proudest family in the commonwealth, Appius Clau- 
dius. 

But in these coalitions, which are forever occurring in history, the two coa- 
ciiaraeter of such coa- lescing parties are far from deserving the same judgment. His- 
litlon3 - torians have justly pronounced their full condemnation on the sel- 

fish hypocrisy of the tyrant, who talks of liberty in order to establish his own 
despotism. And for those who, despising all the honors and benefits of society 
which are fully open to them, aspire to a rank and greatness of a higher and 
more exclusive sort than the nature of society allows, no condemnation can be too 
severe, for no wickedness can be greater. But the lowest class, when they are 
misled into such alliances, deserve even in their worst excesses a milder sentence. 
Not only are they entitled to all the excuse which may be claimed by ignorance, 
and an ignorance arising rather from their condition than from their choice ; but 
in their quarrel against the existing order of things, there is, and ever will be, 
amidst much of envy, and cupidity, and revenge, a certain mixture also of justice. 
Nothing is more horrible than the rebellions of slaves ; yet it is impossible to re- 
gard even these with unmixed abhorrence. Nor can we ever place on the same 
level those who, being excluded from the benefits of societj', do but seek a share 
of them, and those who, enjoying all these benefits in ample measure, cannot 
rest without something more. Neither are the middle classes apt to be wholly 
guiltless in their treatment of those below them ; when they have established 
their own rights against the aristocracy, they become a new aristocracy them- 
selves, and having themselves passed through the door, they shut it against those 
who would fain follow. But here, as in their own earlier contest with the old 
aristocracy, the fault does not consist in denying political rights to those who 
are not yet fit for them, for this may be often necessary and just ; but in pre- 
venting them from ever becoming fit, by retaining institutions which have an 
inevitable tendency to keep the lowest classes morally degraded, or, at the best, 
by taking no pains to introduce such as may improve them. 

In the high aristocratical party at Rome during the period now before us, two 
individuals are eminent: L. Papirius Cursor, and Appius Claudius. 

Eminent men of this —, , . , . , l . ..„, , _• *■ , . 

period, i. of the high but their obiects seem to have been different. Papirius appears 

ansturmtirul party, L. , , , J . - , , . .. . 1 . 1 .• 

Papirius cursor and Ap- to have been sincerely attached to the old aristocratical constitu- 
tion, and to have honestly wished to restore what in his eyes was 
the uncorrupted discipline of the Roman commonwealth. Appius, like his an- 
cestor the decemvir, or Dionysius of Syracuse, wished to overthrow the existing 
order of things, not in favor of the old patrician ascendency, but of his own per- 
sonal dominion. 

The moderate or middle party, composed as it was of the majority of the sen- 

2. or the middle or ate an d of the whole body of the old commons, numbered amongst 

moderate party. j ts members most of the distinguished men of the time. To this 

party belonged Q. Fabius Maximus, eminent alike in peace and in war, and who 

' ... , r . enjoyed the love 3 of his countrymen no less than he commanded 

Q. Fabius Maximus. t • J ■ • i -i, . , , , , . „ . 1 -r» t-v • 

their admiration and esteem. With him stood his friend Jr. Deems 

Mus, thrice his colleague in the consulship when Rome needed the services of her 

„ . bravest and ablest generals against her foreign enemies ; and his 

P. DeciusMus. .. l-i ii • i • -i i 

colleague also in that memorable censorship, which required and 
found in them all the statesman's wisdom. P. Decius might have disputed the 
palm of happiness in Solon's judgment with Tellus the Athenian. Born to the 
truest nobility, the son of that P. Decius, who, when consul, had devoted himself 

' "When he died the people contributed by Fabins Gorges, the son of tho old Q. Fabius, 
subscript ion a large som ror the expenses of his employed the money in giving a public enter- 
funeral, which seems to have been a method of tainment to one part ofthe people, epulum, 
expressing the public feeling towards the dead, and in Bending portions of meat to the rest, vis- 
even when his family was too wealthy to require cc ratio. Bee the writer "de Yiris lllustribus," 
it as an actual assistance. On this occasion, Q. in his life of Q. Fabius. 



Chap. XXXII] EMINENT MEN OF THIS PERIOD. 31 5 

to death for his country in the great battle with the Latins, he, like his father, 
obtained the highest honors with the purest fame ; and after having performed 
the greatest services in peace and in war, and having been rewarded in the fullest 
measure with the respect and affection of his fellow-citizens, he too, like his 
father, devoted himself to death to save Rome from defeat, and so consigned the 
glory of his life, 4 safe from all stain, and crowned with the yet higher glory of 
his death, to his countrymen's grateful memory forever. Of the same band, yet 
rather to be ranked first than third, was M. Valerius Corvus, to 
whom, no less than to Decius, Solon might have allowed the name 
of happy. His youth had caught the last rays of the romantic glory of earlier 
times ; and his single combat with the giant Gaul, and the wonderful aid whieh 
the gods had then vouchsafed him, was sung in the same strains as the valiant 
acts of the heroes of old, of Camillus, or Cincinnatus, or Cornelius Cossus. His 
manhood was no less rich in glory of another sort, which, if less brilliant, was more 
real. Elected consul for the first time at three-and-twenty, five years afterwards, 
in his third consulship, he won this famous battle of Mount Gaurus against the 
Samnites, and gave in the victorious issue of the first encounter a happy omen of 
the final result of the long contest between the two nations. He was elected 
consul three times afterwards, and twice dictator ; and in his political course, 
true to the character of his family, he finally relieved the long distress of the 
poorer commons, and appeased the most dangerous commotion which had ever 
yet threatened Rome ; and he re-enacted the famous Valerian law in his fifth con- 
sulship, that great law of appeal from the sentence of the magistrate which the 
Romans regarded as the main bulwark of their freedom. In his sixth consulship 
he was nearly seventy years old, but he lived thirty years longer, and died at 
the full age of a hundred years, 5 after having witnessed the triumphant end of 
the long contest with the Samnites, which three generations earlier had been 
under his own auspices so successfully begun. Next to these three great men 
we may rank Q. Publilius Pbilo, the author of the Publilian laws, 
praetor, 5 dictator, censor, and four times consul, who was. chosen 
consul with L. Papirius Cursor after the disaster of Caudium, as being with 
him the man most able to retrieve the honor of Rome. Nor should 
we omit C. Msenius, 7 twice dictator, a man odious to the high 
patrician party for the firmness with which he opposed their projects, but re- 
pelling their attacks by the spotless innocence of his public life. To the same 
party belonged also, in all probability, Q. Aulius Cerretanus, 8 
twice consul, chosen master of the horse by Q. Fabius in his first 
dictatorship, who sacrificed his life in covering the retreat of the Romans in the 
route of Lautulse, and M. Foslius, master of the horse to C. 
Msenius in his second dictatorship, like him obnoxious to the high 
patrician party, 9 and like him protected by his integrity. 

4 Aoku Si jioi St}\ovv av&pbs aperriv irpdrr) rt /trj- two last consulships, and they cannot he fixed 

vvovaa Ka't rcXevraia Pej3atovtxa i) vvv rZvBs Kama- positively. In his first consulship he was only 

TpoQf)- Thucydid. II. 42. In Decius' case his three-and-twenty (Livy, VII. 26) ; which, fol- 

death was not the "first indication" of his lowing the chronology of the Fasti, would give 

worth, but the "last confirmation" of it; it was 382 for the year of his birth. He lived, there- 

the worthy close of a noble life. fore, to the year 482 [475, Niebuhr] ; that is, to 

6 Pliny, Histor. Natur. VII. 48. Pliny says the year after the capture of Tarentum, and the 

that forty six-years intervened between his first end of the fourth Samnite war. 

consulship and his sixth. His sixth consulship 6 Livy, VIII. 15. VIII. 12. VIII. 17. For 

was in the year 453. according to Pliny's own his four consulships see Livy, VIII. 12-22, IX. 

chronology [446 Niebuhr], if we place it four 7, and Diodorus, XIX. 66, and the Fasti Capit- 

years after the consulship of P. Sempronius and olini. 

P. Sulpicius, which with Pliny is the year 449. 7 Por his second dictatorship, see Livv, IX. 

(Hist. Natur. XXXIII. § 20.) His first consul- 26 ; for his first, see the fragments of the Fasti 

ship accordingly would fall in 406, but accord- Capitolini, and note 61 of Chap. XXXI. of this 

ing to the Fasti Capitolini, which place his sec- volume. 

ond consulship two years afterwards, in 407, it " Livy, VIII. 37, IX. 15, and for his death 

would fall in 405. His third according to the see the Fasti Capitolini, and Diodorus, XIX. 

same chronology was in 410 ; and his fourth in 72. Livy, IX. 23. 

418. The Fasti are wanting at the period of his " Livy, IX. 26. 



3] 6 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIT. 

The third or new popular party could not be expected, from its very nature, 
3. or the mw popular to produce, as yet, any men of high distinction. -Yet one individual 
prnty, cn. Fiavius. belonging to it made himself remarkable, and will claim a place in 
this history, Cn. Flavius, the scribe or clerk, who divulged the secrets of the pon- 
tifical calendar, and of the technicalities of actions at law, and was rewarded 
with the curule aedileship in spite of his humble origin and occupation. 

That we are able to notice so many individual characters at this period, shows 
that we are arrived at the dawn of what may be called real history. And this 
previous sketch of the parties of the commonwealth, and of their most eminent 
members, may, perhaps, make the account of the transactions in which they were 
engaged, not only clearer, but more interesting. 

During the first half of the Samnite war, but in what year 10 is uncertain, there 
Abolition or phonal was passed that famous law which prohibited personal slavery for 
suvery fcr debt. debt . no cre ditor might for the future attach the person of his 

debtor, but he might only seize his property ; and all those whose personal free- 
dom was pledged for their debts (nexi), were released from their liability, if they 
could swear that they had property enough to meet their creditor's demands. 
It does not appear that this great alteration in the law was the work of any trib- 
une, or that it arose out of any general or deliberate desire to soften the severity 
of the ancient practice. It was occasioned, we are told, by one scandalous in- 
stance of abuse of power on the part of a creditor towards his debtor, who, ac- 
cording to the old law, had been given over to him as a slave (addictus), because 
he had pledged his person for his debts, and had been unable to redeem his 
pledge. The outrage excited so general a feeling, that the senate immediately 
passed a bill for the effectual prevention of such atrocities for the future ; and the 
consuls, or rather, as it would seem, the dictator, C. Pcetelius, was desired to pro- 
pose it to the people, that it might become a law. But although personal slavery 
for debt was thus done away, yet the consequences of insolvency were much more 
serious at Rome than they are in modern Europe. ,He whose property had been 
once made over to his creditors by the praetor's sentence, became, ipso facto, 
infamous ;" he lost his tribe, and with it all his political rights ; and the for- 
feiture was irrevocable, even though he might afterwards pay his debts to the 
full ; nor was it even in the power of the censors to replace him on the roll of 
citizens. So sacred a thing did credit appear in the eyes of the Romans ; and so 
just did they consider it, that a failure in the discharge of one of the most im- 
portant social obligations should be visited with a forfeiture of social and politi- 
cal rights. 

As the internal history of Rome during this period can only be collected from 
state of parties with < l f ew detached notices, we are compelled to pass over in silence 
["'TuV'nial'.'i ami'i'ri- those memorable years which were marked by the rising of the 
Vtr """ ,s Tusculans and Privernatians, and by the defeat at the pass of 

Caudium. This last disaster, indeed, was such as to still for a time all domes- 
tic disputes, and to make every Roman feel alike for the national calamity ; 
and the election of L. Papirius Cursor and Q. Publilius as consuls for the follow- 
ing year, seems to show a common desire to appoint the two ablest generals of 

10 Livy places the story in the consulship of Miiller lias corrected this into, " Hoc C. Popilio 

<'. Pceteiius, in tlic very ftrsl year of the war; auctore Yisol<> dictatore Bublatum." "Visolo" 

VIII. 28. Bui as Dionvsius (Fragm. Vol. IV. having been a conjecture of Anton. Augustino, 

-. Keiske) and Valerius Maximus (VI. l, and approved bvScaliger, because the cogno- 

late it as Laving happened after the affair men ofC. Pcetelius was Visolus, as we learn 

of the pass of Caudium. Niebuhr refers it to the from the Fasti Capitolini. But I would rather 

dictatorship of C. Poetelius, in the L2thyear of read "C. Popilio provocante," in ithe fbrraerpart 

the war. i.I.ivv, IX. 28. i A passage in Varro, of the sentence, than "C. Popilio auctore." 

de Ling. Lat. (VIL 105, ed. Mullen, relates to " " In pudons notam capitis posna.conversa, 

this subject, hut is bo corrupt in the Mss. that bonorum adhibitfi proscripUone^siiffuipfterema- 

its testimony cannot be appealed to with cer- luithominisBangninemqnam etn i n de r e." — Ter- 

tainty. It runs "Hoc C. Popilio vocare Sillo tullian, Apologet. 4. 

dictatore sublatum ne fleret, ut omnes. quLbo- See also the strong language of Cicero pro 

naineopiainjuriiruiit, neessent nexi, sou soluti." Quintio, 15, 16. 



Chap. XXXIL] C. MiENIUS DICTATOR. 317 

the commonwealth, without any reference to party distinctions. But the war 
with Tusculum, Privernum, and Velitree was of another character ; and the claims 
of these cities, and the treatment which should be shown to them, must have been 
judged of very variously. Are we mistaken in supposing that the moderate or 
middle party supported the liberal policy which was actually pursued, while the 
new popular party, the party of the populace, called aloud for severity and ven- 
geance ? We know that L. Fulvius Curvus, who had so lately ledj the Tusculans 
to assail the city of Rome, was elected consul, 12 together with Q. Fabius ; and 
that, six or seven years afterwards, he was appointed master of the horse 13 by L. 
JEnlilius Mamercinus ; and both Fabius and JEmilius were eminent amongst the 
leaders of the moderate party. We know also that M. Flavius, the tribune, who 
brought forward the bill for the punishment of the Tusculans, was a man of 
doubtful private character, 14 and that he was said to have owed his first tribune- 
ship to a largess which he had given to the poorer citizens, in gratitude for hav- 
ing been acquitted by them when indicted by the eediles on a criminal charge. 
It appears also that he must have been elected tribune twice, at least, within 
four years ; 15 which, in a man of such character, seems to argue that he continued 
to practise the arts of a demagogue. If this be so, his bill for the punishment of 
the Tusculans exactly resembled, both in himself and in the personal and politi- 
cal character of its author, the famous bill of Cleon for the execution of the My- 
tileneans : and we have here another instance that a low popular party has as lit- 
tle claim as that of the high aristocracy to the title of high-principled and liberal. 
The six years which followed the affair of Caudium are to us, as far as regards 
domestic affairs, a blank ; but in the year 439 (Niebuhr, 434), the 

i/. /.-i- -i -i. ii , itj. Intrigues of the aria- 

dereat ot Lautulse and its consequences led to the second dictator- tocnucai party of the 
ship of C. Meenius, an event of which the notices preserved to us Capua. c.Miemus die- 
are unusually full. Capua had revolted, 16 and as the consuls, M. 
Poatelius and C. Sulpicius, were fully engaged with the Samnites, a dictator with 
a third army was appointed to reduce the Campanians. The battle of Cinna, as 
we have seen, terrified the Campanians into submission ; and the principal leaders 
of the revolt perished by their own hands. But the dictator, C. Msenius, 11 dur- 
ing his inquiry into the origin of the revolt at Capua, gained some startling infor- 
mation, which showed that it had received encouragement from a powerful party 
in Rome itself; the spirit 18 of his commission, he argued, called upon him to fol- 
low up this investigation ; and when he returned to Rome he pursued it with 
vigor. No proof, it seems, could be obtained of any direct act of treason ; but 
there existed what were in Greece the well-known preparations for a revolution, 
a number of organized societies 19 for the purpose of influencing the elections, and 
procuring the appointment of particular candidates. These societies, it is implied, 
consisted partly of the highest members of the aristocracy, and partly of the 
lowest classes of citizens, both at present being combined in one common cause. 
The dictator, therefore, encountered a formidable opposition ; the high patrician 
party recriminated upon him and upon his master of the horse, M. Foslius Flac- 
cinator : " Men of the commons, 20 such as they were, needed undue means to 
secure their way to public offices, rather than the patricians, who derived from 

12 Livy, VIII. 38. " Livy, IX. 26. 

13 Livy, IX. 21. 1B " Versa Eomam interpretando res, non no- 

14 Livy, VIII. 22. minatirn qui Capuse, seel in imiversnm qui us- 

15 Compare Livy, VIII. 22, and 37. Huschke, quam coissent conjurassentve adversus rempub- 
in his work on the Constitution of Ser. Tullius, licam, quteri senatum jussisse." — Livy, IX. 26. 
p. 730, refers to this M. Flavius the anecdote re- 19 " Coitiones honoruni adipiscendorum causa 
lated by Valerius Maximus, VIII. 1, § 7. He factas." — Livy, IX. 26. These words are al- 
ingeniously observes, that the anecdote must most a translation of the description given by 
refer to a period when the number of the tribes Thucydides of the aristocratical clubs of Athens, 
was twer-jty-nine, which exactly tallies with the rag ^vvtopiocriag, dhtp hiyxavov -n-pdrtpov iv t$ ^Ati 
date of the story as given by Livy. According otW im bUaig Kal apxatg. VIII. 54. 

to Valerius Maximus, the curule sedile by whom 20 " Negare nobilium id crimen esse, quibus 
Flavius was impeached was C. Valerius. si nulla obstetur fraude, pateat via ad honorem, 

18 Diodorus, XIX. 76. sed hominum novorum."— Livy, IX. 26. 



318 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXII. 

their noble birth a sufficient and an honorable title to the votes of their country- 
men." Immediately the dictator and his master of the horse courted and called 
for the fullest inquiry into their conduct ; they resigned their offices, were put 
upon their trial before the consuls, and, in spite of the efforts of the aristocratical 
party to prove them guilt)'', they were most honorably acquitted. 21 Q. Publilius 
Philo, the most distinguished commoner of his time, was accused by the same 
party on the same charge, and was acquitted no less completely. But by thus 
dexterously assailing their assailants, the high nobility gained a considerable ad- 
vantage ; it seemed as if both parties were open to accusation, and that an in- 
quiry into an offence so universal must needs be fruitless. Besides, the most 
serious danger had been removed by the favorable turn of the events of the war ; 
and when men's minds were no longer under the influence of alarm, the inquiry 
would cease to be supported by that sti'ong public feeling which alone could 
enable it to proceed with effect. Accordingly, the societies triumphed ; and the 
coalition between the high aristocracy and the populace, thus ineffectually attacked, 
began to manifest itself more freely and more decidedly. 

Accordingly, two years afterwards, Appius Claudius was elected censor, to- 
censorship of Appiu 8 gether with C. Plautius. The censorship, it should be remem- 
ciaudius. bered, was, in point of rank, the highest office in the common- 

wealth : its power was almost unbounded ; its command over the public money, 
and the opportunities of distinction and of influence which it afforded as origin- 
ating and conducting all public works, made it an especial object of ambition to 
a man like Appius, who was less fitted to signalize himself as a general. Besides, 
he probably had from the first formed the design of prolonging his term of office 
for the full period of five years, in defiance of the JEmilian law ; and so vast a 
power, enjoyed during so long a period, might be made to serve the wildest pur- 
'poses of ambition. 

One of his earliest acts as censor was to revise the list of the senators. It 
Hi. revision of the ii»t was usual on these occasions to add to the list the names of such 
of senators. citizens as seemed best to deserve that honor ; and the selection 

would commonly be made from those who, within the last five years, had been 
elected for the first time to any curule magistracy, and who, therefore, had not 
been in the senate at the last census. But, in addition to the deaths caused by 
the Samnite war (and the master of the horse could not have been the only sen- 
ator who fell in the rout of Lautulae), the year immediately preceding Appius' 
censorship had been marked by a visitation of pestilence, so that the names which 
he would have to add to the roll of the senate would be more than usually nu- 
merous. To the utter scandal of the old plebeians, no less than of the patricians, 
Appius passed over many names which other censors would have inserted, and 
tilled up the vacancies with numbers of the low popular party, many of whom 
were the sons of freedmen, 22 and therefore, according to Roman law, the grand- 
sons of nobody. The persons thus chosen were, probably, wealthy men, and 
many of them may have already filled the offices of tribune or plebeian aadile ; 
but the time when the senate had been a purely patrician assembly was too re- 
cent to allow of its being tlu wn open not merely to commoners, but to men 
whose grandfathers had been slaves ; and the attempt of Appius to fill the senate 
with those who would have been no better than his creatures, like some of his 
ancestor's colleagues in the decemvirate, was too violent a measure to be endured. 
Accordingly, the consuls of the next year, C. Junius Bubulcus and Q. yEmilius 
Barbula, set his list aside without hesitation, and summoned those only as sena- 
tors whose names had been on the roll of the last previous censors, L. Papirius 
Crassus and C. Maenius. 

Not discouraged, however, by this ill success, Appius acted on the same sys- 

'■" " Publilius ctiam Philo, multiplicatis sum- tas, ceterum invisua nobilitati, causam dixit." — 
mis konoribus post res tot doini belloquo ges- Livy, IX. 26. 

23 Diodorus, XX. 85, 36. Livy, IX. 29, 80. 



Chap. XXXIL] CALENDAR OF Off. FLAVIUS. 319 

tern when he proceeded to revise the rolls of the several tribes. His He admits many freed- 
colleague, C. Plautius, unable to bear the shame of seeing his list men int0 the tribeB " 
of the senate utterly disregarded, had resigned his office at the end of the year. 23 
If a censor died or resigned before the completion of the eighteen months fixed 
by the JEmilian law as the term of his authority, it was accounted unlucky to 
elect another in his place ; and his colleague, on such occasions, usually resigned 
immediately, rather than incur the odium of wielding such vast powers alone. 
Appius, however, had no such scruples, and continued to act as sole censor. In 
his revision of the tribes he admitted a great number 24 of freedmen and citizens of 
low condition to the enjoyment of a full franchise ; and he entered them pur- 
posely in all the tribes, that the influence of his party might extend to all. It 
will readily be understood that a large proportion of the members of the more 
remote tribes especially, would attend but seldom at the comitia ; whilst the city 
populace and the tradesmen and artisans were always on the spot, and would be 
frequently the majority of voters in their respective tribes. Thus, the old agri- 
cultural commons saw themselves overwhelmed by their new tribesmen, and that 
share in the government which they had so hardly won was on the point of being 
wrested from them by men whom, according to the general feeling of the ancient 
world, they despised as little better than slaves. 

Thus far the conduct of Appius was not inconsistent. with a mere desire to re- 
store the old ascendency of the patricians; for the lowest classes, He encourflf j e3 en. fu- 
being as yet quite incapable of exercising dominion, might safely endVr°and bl his ac S co C unt 
be used as auxiliaries for humbling the classes next above them; "er^d^m™ actions ob t 
just as the feudal kings occasionally courted the commons, and law - 
were enabled through their aid to weaken the power of the nobles, without any 
danger of seeing their own authority subjected to the control of a representative 
assembly. But if it be true that Appius encouraged Cn. Flavius 25 in the acts 
which gave such offence to the aristocracy, we cannot conceive his objects to have 
been other than personal ; for it was against the old patrician influence, much 
more than against the new plebeian nobility, that the proceedings of Flavius were 
directed. This man was the son of a freedman, a clerk or writer by his occupa- 
tion, and at this time employed in the business of the censor's office under Ap- 
pius. It was by Appius' instigation that he published his famous calendar or 
almanac ; that is, he stuck up whited boards round the Forum, on which were 
marked down the days and parts of days in every month on which law business 
might lawfully be done ; a knowledge which the people had hitherto been obliged 
to gain from the pontifices, or a few of the patricians who understood the pon- 
tifical law ; and as the days did not recur regularly, and the principle which de- 
termined them was carefully kept a secret, the people were wholly at their in- 
structors' mercy. 26 At the same time Flavius also published an account 27 of 
the forms to be observed in the several ways of proceeding at law ; a work 
which, in after times, must have been exceedingly curious ; but which must have 
utterly failed in practice, if its object was to enable a common man to conduct 
his own suit, without consulting some one learned in the law. Accordingly, it 
was to the publication of his calendar that Flavius owed his great popularity ; he 
was elected soon after tribune ; 28 he was appointed to one or two other impor- 
tant public offices, and six years later, as we shall see presently, he obtained the 
rank of curule sedile. 

Thus making it his pleasure to lessen all dignity and to diminish all influence 
but his own, offending in his pride the old aristocracy no less than 
the new, and the middle classes, Appius now, as sole censor, feel- '" P " 

23 Livy, IX. 29. M "Publicatis diebus fastis, quos populus a 

24 Diodorus, XX. 35, 36. Livy, IX. 46. paucis principuin quotidie petebat." — Pliny, 

25 " Appii Coeci scriba, cujus hortatu exce- XXXIII. 6. 

perat eos dies consultando assidue sagaci inge- 27 "Actiones composuit." See Cicero, de 
mo promulgaveratque."— Pliny, Hist. Natur. Orat. I. 41. Epp. ad Attic. VI. 1. 
XXXIII. 6. Ed. Sillig. ™ Livy, IX. 46. 



320 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXII. 

ing himself in possession of almost kingly power, resolved to distinguish his name 
by public works on a most magnificent scale, such as the greatest king might 
emulate. Without any authority from the senate, 29 he applied the large sums of 
public money which were paid into his hands by that multitude of persons who 
farmed the state property in all its manifold kinds, to the execution of two great 
works : one, the construction of a military road from Rome to Capua ; the other, 
the bringing a constant supply of good water into the city from a distance of 
about eight miles from the Esquiline gate, partly by pipes under ground, and 
partly by an aqueduct. 

The great road from Rome to Capua, which was afterwards continued to Brun- 
The Appian Road to disium, has, indeed, immortalized the name of its author ; nor will 
Capua ' the mightiest works of modern engineers ever rival the fame of 

the Appian Way. This has been owing to accidental causes ; yet the road was 
a magnificent undertaking, and even without noticing the excellence of its pave- 
ment, which was added at a later period, we may justly admire the labor be- 
stowed in order to keep its line generally on a level, the deep cuttings through 
hills, and the vast substructions of massy stones on which it was carried across 
valleys. The whole line from Rome to Capua was about 120 English miles ; the 
road left the city at the Porta Capena, the gate of Capua ; it passed in a straight 
line over the Campagna till it reached the foot of the Alban hills at Bovillae ; there 
it ascended to the higher grounds, and, passing through Aricia, and leaving Veli- 
trse and the modern road to Naples on the left, it descended again into the plain 
nearly in the same straight line, and ran on to the Pontine marshes. At this 
point, as Niebuhr thinks, the road stopped ; and the communication through the 
Pontine marshes was carried on by a canal almost as far as Tarracina. But the 
very excavation of the canal would, of itself, supply materials, in part, for an em- 
bankment by the side of it ; and it is more likely that both it and the road were 
carried through the marshes together. Afterwards the road ascended the mount- 
ains behind Tarracina, thus avoiding the ill-om'ened pass of Lautulse, and soon 
after descended again into the plain of Fundi, crossed the Liris at Minturnse, and 
the Vulturnus at Casilinum, and three miles further it arrived at the termina- 
tion of its course, the city of Capua. 30 

The other work of Appius was less remarkable in itself, than as being the 
earliest of those famous aqueducts which still, amid their ruins, 
are such striking and characteristic monuments of Roman great- 
ness. In fact, it can scarcely be called an aqueduct, for the water 31 was carried 
under ground throughout the whole of its course, with the exception of sixty 
Roman paces, or about a hundred yards, in the low ground by the Porta Ca- 
pena, where it was conveyed partly on arches, and partly on a solid substruction 
of massy stones. Its termination was at the salt works by the river-side, close 
by the Porta Trigemina, and immediately under the northwest corner of the 
Aventine ; and it seems to have been especially intended to supply water to the 
inhabitants of the low district about the Circus, who had hitherto been obliged 
to use the water of the river, or the rain-water collected in tanks or cisterns. 
When we remember that this part of Rome was particularly inhabited by the 
poorest citizens, we may suspect that Appius wished to repay the support which 
he had already received from them, or to purchase its continuance for the time 
to come ; but we shall feel unmixed pleasure in observing that the first Roman 
aqueduct was constructed for the benefit of the poor, and of those who most 
needed it. 

"These two works exhausted," says Diodorus, "the whole revenue of Rome." 

m Diodoras, XX. 85, 36. 3I The whole account of thiB aqueduct is taken 

80 It is well known that the ancient Capua did from tlic work of Frontinus. He was superin- 

not stand on the Vulturnus, but about three tendent of the aqueducts in the reign of Nerva, 

miles to the south of it, on the site of- the preB- and Ins account of them is exceedingly full and 

ent S. Maria di Capua. The modern Capua accurate. 
corresponds with the ancient Casilinum. 



Chap. XXXIL] APPIUS RETAINS HIS CENSORSHIP. 321 

But, considering the unavoidable expenses of the war, to which 

, . , in • , i 1 t ii e How money and labor- 

the tnbutum was wholly appropriated, the disposable revenue Irom er S were found for these 
the vectigalia, or rents received by the commonwealth, must have 
been insufficient ; and Niebuhr reasonably conjectures that Appius must have 
sold large portions of the state's domain, in order to raise the money which he 
required. The workmen employed consisted, doubtless in great measure, of the 
prisoners taken from the Samnites, either in battle or in the repeated invasions 
of their territory ; the rest were the public or government slaves, or those fur- 
nished by the several contractors for the work : for such labors were held to be 
degrading to free citizens, and Appius would have acquired ho popularity amongst 
the poorest classes, by offering to provide them with employment in making his 
road, or digging his water-course. 

The regular term of the censor's office, eighteen months, was far too short for 
the completion of these works ; and had they been finished by an- 
other censor, the glory of them would have been lost to Appius. norsiup beyond the ie- 
Setting, therefore, all law and all opposition at defiance, Appius per- s ' 
sisted in retaining his censorship when the eighteen months were expired ; and 
although the tribune P. Sempronius Sophus, 32 one of the most eminent com- 
moners of this period, threatened to send him to prison if he persisted in dis- 
obeying the law, and although six of the other tribunes supported their colleague, 
yet the remaining three promised Appius their protection ; and as their negative 
was all-powerful, Appius was secured from any molestation so long as they con- 
tinued in office. He found some tribunes equally devoted to him in the next 
year, for he retained his censorship four years, and in the fifth he endeavored to 
add to it the power and dignity of consul, and whilst he still continued to be 
censor, he declared himself a candidate for the consulship. Here, however, that 
negative power of the tribunes which had hitherto been his support was em- 
ployed against him : L. Furius 33 forbade the business of the comitia to proceed, 
until Appius had resigned his censorship. Then, however, he was elected con- 
sul, and perhaps in this capacity finished and dedicated the two works of which 
he so greatly coveted the glory. 

The extreme moderation of the party opposed to Appius deserves in all these 
transactions the highest praise. They composed probably the wise moderation of the 
majority in the senate, and if they had exerted their whole P art y°pp° 8ed tohim - 
strength they must have been also the majority in the comitia. Yet they suf- 
fered Appius to defy the laws for a period of two years and a half, and after- 
wards they allowed him to be elected consul without opposition, nor when he 
became a private citizen did they ever impeach him for the violence of his con- 
duct. We cannot, in our ignorance of the details of these times, appreciate fully 
the wisdom of this conduct ; but as violence begets violence, so unquestionably 
does moderation in political contests lead to moderation in return. The personal 
ambition of Appius had been gratified even beyond the law ; and this his politi- 
cal opponents had endured at the time, nor did they seek to punish it afterwards. 
Nothing was attempted against him which could either irritate his own passions, 
or invest him in the eyes of the multitude with the character of a martyr in their 
cause. If he had ever carried his views still higher than to a five years' censor- 
ship, if the hope of regal dominion had ever floated before his eyes, the forbear- 
ance shown towards him deprived him not only of every pretext for further vio- 
lence, but, appealing to the nobler part of his nature, restrained him for very 
shame from endeavoring to wrest more, where so much had been already yielded 
to him ; it would not suffer him to assail that constitution which had shown itself 
towards him at once so confident and so placable. Ten years after his first con- 
sulship he was elected consul again in the midst of the third Samnite war, 
and he obtained the prsetorship in the year following. He bore his part not 

32 Livy, IX. 33. w Livy, IX. 42. 



322 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXII. 

without honor, amongst the greatest generals of his day, in that most arduous 
contest when the Gauls again fought against Rome with the 'Etruscans and the 
Samnites to aid them ; and in his old age he had the glory of determining the 
senate, by the last effort of his eloquence, not to treat with the ambassador of 
Pyrrhus.' 

The example which Appius had set in his public works was followed by the 
other public works, succeeding censors, M. Valerius Maximus and C. Junius Bubulcus. 
The vaienan way. They also made some roads 34 through the country in the neigh- 
borhood of Rome ; that is, they either improved the line of the existing local 
roads, or widened them, and constructed them of better materials. One of the 
roads, thus in a manner made anew, led from Rome to Tibur ; and this being 
afterwards continued through the country of the iEquians by Carseoli and Alba, 
as far as Sulmo and Corfinium, and thus bavins' become, one of the greatest lines 
of communication in Italy, was known throughout its whole length by the name 
of the Valerian Way, because the first twenty miles of it from Rome to Tibur 
were made by the censor M. Valerius. 

In the same year, 447-8 (Nieb. 441), we may place the trial of A. Atilius 
Trial of a. Atuius ca- Calatinus, on a charge of having betrayed the garrison of Sora to 
latmu3- the Samnites. He had married a daughter of Q. Fabius, and had 

been left by his father-in-law in the command of the place, when he himself left 
his province of Samnium to return to Rome. Sora and Calatia were at this 
period 35 both surprised by the Samnites, and the troops who garrisoned them 
were sold for slaves. Atilius either made his escape, or was taken prisoner and 
allowed to be ransomed ; but on his return to Rome he was accused of treason, 
a charge often made against unsuccessful officers, and listened to the more readily, 
because, while the soldiers had been led away into slavery, their commander had 
met with a fate so different. Perhaps in this accusation we may trace the influ- 
ence possessed at this time in the comitia by the city populace, who were not 
commonly enlisted in the legions, and who were apt to judge the conduct of 
military men unfairly and severely, in proportion to their own total ignorance of 
war. It might have fared hardly with Atilius, had his father-in-law been any 
less distinguished man than Q. Fabius. But Fabius 36 came forward and declared 
to the people that the charge was groundless: " Had it been otherwise," said 
he, " I should not have allowed my daughter to remain the wife of a traitor." 3 ' 
The people, suspicious because they were ignorant, but meaning honestly, lis- 
tened at once to the testimony of so great a general and so upright a man, and 
Atilius was acquitted. His son, the grandson of Q. Fabius, became one of the 
most distinguished citizens in the first Punic war ; he was twice consul, dictator, 
and censor. 33 

Two years afterwards the influence of the new popular party in the comitia 
reached its highest point, when Cn. Flavius, the clerk of Appius, 

jEdileslnp of Cn. Flo- , - ° ^ ' ' r e 

vius the cierk of Ap- and the man who had published the calendar and the forms ot 

piUS CliludiuS. . 1 - * , 1 T1 fTTl I t* 

actions at law, was elected curule aedue. When the first votes 
were given in his favor, the aedile who presided at the comitia refused to receive 
them, saying that a clerk was not fit to hold a curule magistracy. It so happen- 
ed 39 that Flavius himself was attending on the curule aedile at that very time in 
the way of his occupation ; he had his tablets and his style in his hands, to record 
the votes. As soon as he heard the objection he stepped forwards ; he laid 

84 Livy, IX. 43. Cnssiodorus. sented herself from him for three nights in tho 

36 Dioclorus, XX. 80. Livy, IX. 43. year. See p. 100. 

3n Valerius Maximus, VIII. I. § 9. M His epitaph said of him, in language re- 

31 By which it appears, as Niebuhr well oh- sembling the epitaphs of the Seipios, 

serves, that the practice of marrying without " Pluriime consentiunt gentea 

conventio in inaiiiiiii was common even amongst ropuli primarium fuisse viruin." 

distinguished families. Thus the daughter still See Cicero, de Senect. 17. 

remained in her father's power, if, to bar her 3 ' L. Piso, Annul. 111. quoted by Gellius, 

husband's right to her by prescription, she ab- VI. 9. 



Chap. XXXIL] REFORMS OF Q. FABIUS AND P. DECIUS. 323 

down his tablets, and declared upon oath that from that day forwards he would 
follow the business of a clerk no more. The aedile then received the votes that 
were given for him, and Cn. Flavius was duly elected. His colleague was Q. 
Anicius 40 of Prgeneste, who had only within the last few years became a Roman 
citizen ; while two commoners of consular families, C. Poetelius and Cn. Domiti- 
us, were unsuccessful candidates. The indignation of the patricians and of the 
old commons on this occasion was so great, that the senators laid aside their 
gold rings, and the young patricians, and wealthy commoners who formed the 
equestrian order, put off their chains of honor (phalerse), as if so great a dishonor 
to the commonwealth required a general mourning. It should be remembered 
that the curule aedileship was at this time an office of high distinction, and that 
every curule magistracy was supposed to convey something of kingly and there- 
fore of sacred dignity ; so that it was a profanation if it were bestowed on a 
freedman's' son, although he might have held the tribuneship of the commons 
without offence. Flavius, however, was a man of spirit, and was not abashed by 
these signs of displeasure ; nay, he even enjoyed the mortification of the nobility ; 
and a story 41 was told how on a time, when his colleague Q. Anicius was sick, 
Flavius went to visit him ; and when he entered his room he found several noble 
youths who were sitting there with him. They, scorning the freedman's son, re- 
mained in their places, and would not rise as they were bound to do to the curule 
sedile. Upon which Flavius sent for his curule chair, and placed it in the door- 
way so that no one could pass, and then taking his seat in it, obliged them to see 
him in the enjoyment of his dignity. Yet, although he would not allow himself 
to be overborne by insolence, he could not bear to be the occasion of divisions 
between his countrymen ; and he vowed to build a temple to Concord, 42 if he 
could succeed in effecting a reconciliation between the higher and lower classes 
of the commonwealth. 

We must suppose, therefore, that he witnessed without opposition the decree 
of the senate that two censors should be immediately appointed, Q . Fabill9 and P . De _ 
although not a year had elapsed since the last censors had resigned cms ceufl0r8 - 
their office. Still less could he find fault with the choice of the comitia, which 
fell upon two of the most popular men in Rome, Q. Fabius and P. Decius. 

This censorship, according to JSTiebuhr, effected little less than a remodelling 
of the whole constitution ; in particular, he supposes that the per- 

.. - . . i? j «i i ,• i ■ i • i ■ Measures supposed to 

plexing combination or tribes and centuries, which is known to have been taken in their 
have existed in the later periods of the commonwealth, was the 
work of Fabius and Decius ; and that they adjusted, in a manner satisfactory to 
all parties, the ever- contending claims of nobility and wealth on the one hand 
and of numbers on the other. I cannot assert this, even on Niebuhr's authority, 
not only from the total want of all direct evidence, but because I am inclined to 
think that the mixture of tribes and centuries in the later form of the comitia 
centuriata was the work of the fourth century of Rome rather than of the fifth. 
Nor do I quite believe the story 43 that it was to his eminent services in this cen- 
sorship that Q. Fabius owed his surname of Maximus. 

What is actually recorded of the censors of this year is sufficiently probable ; 

40 Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXXIII. 6. populus," that is, the patricians and the old 

41 Piso, apud Gell. VI. 9. Livy IX. 46. commons, as opposed to the "forensis factio." 
44 "Flavius vovit sedem Concordia, si popu- 4S The story is told by Livy, IX. 46, and by 

lo reoonciliasset ordines." Niebuhr under- several other writers. But Polybius asserts 

stands by populus the old patricians, and by that the surname of Maximus was given to the 

ordines the plebs and the freedmen. But surely dictator Q. Fabius in the second Punic war, on 

the old sense of populus is inapplicable here ; account of his great services at that period. III. 

and we must either understand "ordines" of 87. This is undoubtedly a mistake, but I be- 

the senate and the equestrian order, which is lieve the other story is no less so ; and that the 

undoubtedly the meaning, if the words are surname Maximus in the Fabian family, no less 

Pliny's own ; or if he copied them from an than in the Valerian and Carvilian, had refer- 

older writer, " ordines" may signify the clerks, ence originally to personal size rather than to 

scribse, and the other trades or inferior callings, greatness of mind or exploits ; that it answered 

and populus means what Livy calls "integer to the surname of Philip le Long, or of Edward 



324 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXII. 



What was certainly ef- 
fected was 
beneficial. 



and that it should have been accomplished not only without a con- 
and test, but as far as appears without exciting any thing but satisfac- 
tion, is one of the most extraordinary proofs of the political wis- 
dom and moderation of the Roman people. The lower classes of the city, and 
those whose blood was not yet clear from the taint of slavery, had gained a po- 
litical power much more than in proportion to their social importance ; and there 
is in this something so unnatural, that it shocks even those who may be sup- 
posed to benefit by it, unless they have been previously corrupted by intolerable 
distress, no less fatal to wisdom and goodness than excessive enjoyment, or have 
been exasperated by previous insolence and oppression. Had there now been 
such a state of misery amongst the poorer classes as that which followed the 
Gaulish invasion, or had the old law of debtor and creditor existed still and been 
rigorously exercised, the lower people would have eagerly retained the power 
which fortune had thrown into their hands ; they would have valued it as en- 
suring them at once protection and vengeance. But when all was prospering, 
when the state was victorious abroad and daily growing in wealth and magnifi- 
cence at home ; when the citizens of highest rank were also the worthiest ; and 
the commonwealth seemed to enjoy a real aristocracy, which is as natural and 
excellent as its counterfeits are hateful ; above all, when there was prevailing a 
general spirit of moderation, which dispelled all fears of tyranny, — wdry should 
men endure such an unfitness as that the lower should take the place of the 
higher, and that those Avho were of least account in society should exercise po- 
litically the greatest power ? So Flavius, resigning all prospect of rising to 
higher honors, allowed that he had already risen too high for one of his class, 
and that more, than one generation should elapse between the slave and the curule 
magistrate. Fabius and Decius removed all freedmen, 44 all artisans, and all other 
citizens of the lowest class, into four tribes only out of the one-and-thirty wdnch 
then existed ; so that they could influence at most but a little more than an 
eighth part of the whole comitia ; and these four tribes were the old tribes of the 
city, as distinguished from those of the country, the Palatine, the Colline, the 
Esquiline, and the Suburran. Then Flavius, seeing the conditions of his vow ful- 
filled, built his temple to Concord, 45 a small chapel, of which the walls were 
plated with bronze, and which stood within the precinct of the temple of Vulcan, 
on the north side of the comitium. It was built with the money arising from the 
penalties paid by some wealthy men for having lent money at a rate of interest 
higher than was allowed by law ; and Flavius, by virtue of his office of aedile, had 
prosecuted them before the comitia. When it was completed, the pontifex max- 
imus, L. Cornelius Scipio, 46 refused to dictate the solemn form of dedication, 
which Flavius, according to custom, was to repeat after him ; but the comitia, 
indignant at the spirit which dictated this refusal, passed a resolution which 
obliged the pontifex to retract it. Yet, afterwards, to complete the picture of 
moderation displayed by the people on this occasion, the comitia passed a bill 
proposed to them by the senate, enacting that for the time to come no man 
should be allowed to dedicate a temple without the sanction of the senate or of 
tin- majority of the tribunes of the commons. The aristocratical pride of the 
pontifex required to lie re-trained : yet it was not fit that he should be called to 
perform the solemnities of the national religion at the pleasure of an individual, 
or that a temple should lie consecrated without the sanction of some public au- 
thority. Happy is that people which delivers itself from the evils of an aristo- 

thc First, rather than t<> that* of Alexander or nolocry of Rome ; for it declares that the con- 
Charlemagne. Bulship of J'. Sempronins and 1'. Bnlpicius, the 
**. 1. ivy," IX. 46. last year of the second Samnite war, was be- 
*" Pliny, Hi-t. XXXIII. 6. In this notice lieved by those who wore then living, and by 
of the founding of the temple bj Cn. Flavius, one who had an access to all easting monu- 
1'liny adds, "inciditque in tabellA Bred earn ments, to have been tin' 204th year from the 
edem oarv. annis post Capitolinam dedicatam." beginning of the commonwealth. 
This is a very important passage for the ohro- *° Livy, IX. 46. 



Chap. XXXIL] THE OGULNIAN BILL. 325 

cratical or priestly dominion, not by running wild into individual licentiousness, 
but by submitting to the wholesome sovereignty of law ! 

"The Carthaginians," says Aristotle, 47 "provide for the stability of their con- 
stitution, by continually sending out a portion of their commons colonies founded at this 
to their settlements in the surrounding country." This policy was time- 
no less familiar to the Romans, and as some of the poorer citizens must have 
been discontented with the recent proceedings of the censors, so we find that 
three colonies were founded in the next two years, and that no fewer than four- 
teen thousand citizens were sent out as colonists. 48 The three places thus 
colonized were Sora, Alba, and Carseoli. Sora had been taken and retaken re- 
peatedly in the late Samnite war, and its important position, just at the point where 
the Liris issues out from the mountains which confine its earlier course upon the 
high plain of Arpinum and Fibrenus, made it desirable to secure its permanent 
possession ; Carseoli and Alba had been conquered in the late war with the 
./Equians. Carseoli was in the upper valley of the Anio, about thirty-eight 
miles from Rome. Alba stood on an isolated hill at a little distance from the 
lake Fucinus ; and the strength of its fortifications was even at this time remark- 
able, for the walls which still exist are built of enormous polygonal blocks of the 
limestone of the Apennines, and belong to a period much more ancient than the 
fifth century of Rome. 

Places so recently conquered, and so exposed to fresh attacks w. enever a war 
should break out again, must have been colonized by men who who were aent aa B6t . 
understood war, and might be able to maintain their own ground, tler3- 
as a sort of frontier garrison. The settlers sent thither could not, therefore, have 
consisted wholly of the unwarlike populace of the city, but of the poorer citizens 
of the old commons, who had been accustomed to serve in the legions, and who 
had the skill and courage of veteran soldiers. It is very probable, however, that 
a certain portion of the freedmen and of the city populace may have been mixed 
up with them. 

In appointing and supporting the censorship of Fabius and Decius, the pa- 
tricians and the nobility of the commons 'must have acted in con- The 0gu iman bin for 
cert with each other. But three years afterwards, there was a creToffi!esX n tht U com-" 
feeble return of the old quarrel between the two orders, when two n "" is - 
of the tribunes, 49 Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, proposed a bill for increasing the number 
of the pontifices and augurs by the addition of new members to be chosen from 
the commons. In Rome, as elsewhere, the civil equality of the two great orders 
of the state had been established, whilst the old religious distinctions between 
them still subsisted ; a commoner might be consul, dictator, or censor, but he 
could not as yet be pontifex or augur. But this exclusion, although it related to 
religious offices, was maintained for political purposes, and could not, indeed, be 
justified on religious grounds. For, according to the old principle, that the 
priests of the gods must be of a certain race or caste, carefully preserved from 
any profane mixture, the Roman patricians had long since forfeited the purity of 
their blood by their frequent intermarriages with the commons. But politically, 
their exclusive possession of the offices of pontifex and augur might secure them 
some advantages. Twice within twenty-five years we have seen the appointment 
of a plebeian dictator annulled by the augurs, on the ground of certain religious 
objections of which they were the sole judges. All questions of augury de- 
pended on their decision ; and this, in a state where nothing either political or 
military was done without consulting the auspices, conferred, necessarily, an im- 
mense power. The pontifices, in like manner, had the absolute control over 
every part of the ritual of religion, and as connected with it, over the calendar. 
What festivals were to be observed, and at what times ; what public sacrifices 

47 Politic. II. 11. sand to Sora, and as many to Carseoli. Livy, 

4B Six thousand were sent to Alba, four thou- X. 1. 3. 

49 Livy 6, et seqq. 



326 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXLL 

should be performed, and with what ceremonies ; and what was an interference 
on the part of any individual with sacred places, persons, or things, were all points 
of their jurisdiction, against which it is doubtful whether even the tribunes would 
have ventured to interpose. It seems but reasonable, therefore, that as the pa- 
tricians and commons were now become one people, and as both alike were ad- 
mitted to those high and sacred dignities of consul and dictator, which involved 
the practice of augury, and the offering sacrifice to the peculiar gods of Rome, 
in the name of the Roman people, so the knowledge as well as the practice of 
the national religious system should be committed to both equally ; that where 
no religious objection really existed, political ambition might no longer be able 
to shelter itself beneath its semblance. 

Still, however, a partj r amongst the patricians, headed, as we are told, by Ap- 
p. Decius supports it, pius Claudius, 50 vehemently opposed the Ogulnian bill. It was 
and it becomes a ia«-. supporte( i by P. Decius ; and no man could have pleaded for it 
with greater effect, when he appealed to his father's memorable death, and re- 
called him to the memory of some of his hearers, as they had seen him in the 
great battle with the Latins, with his toga wrapped around his head, and his 
feet on a javelin, devoting himself to the powers of death in behalf of the Ro- 
man people. "If my father," said he, "was no less fit than his patrician col- 
league to offer himself to the gods, as an accepted expiation for the whole peo- 
ple, how could he be unfit to direct their worship ?" The question, in fact, could 
not be carried ; some of the tribunes were at first engaged to interpose their neg- 
ative, but the general feeling obliged them to forbear, and the Ogulnian bill be- 
came a law. The pontifices, who were then four in number, elected accordingly 
four commoners to complete their college to eight, or, including their head, the 
pontifex maximus, to nine. And the augurs, who were also four, elected five 
commoners to raise their college to the same number of nine, on the notion that 
each of the original tribes of Rome, the Ramnenses, the Titienses, and Luceres, 
was to be represented by an equal number of the public ministers of religion. It 
seems that the new appointments were, fairly and wisely made; P. Decius him- 
self, 5 ' and P. Sempronius Sophus, who had been both consuls and censors, were 
two of the new pontifices ; and amongst the augurs, besides T. Publilius, C. 
Genucius, and C. Marcius, all of them members of the most eminent families of 
the commons, we find the name of P. xElius Paetus, a man of no great po- 
litical or military distinction, but who probably showed a remarkable fondness 
for the study of the pontifical and augural discipline, inasmuch as we find an 
unusual number of his descendants 52 filling the offices of pontifex and augur, 
as if those sacred duties were almost the hereditary calling of their race and 
name. 

In the same year, 53 M. Valerius, one of the consuls, re-enacted, for the third 
The valerian law re- time, the famous law which bore the name of his family, and which 
enacted. wag) m f actj t } ie R oman j aw f tr j a j ^y jury, as it permitted every 

citizen to appeal from the sentence of a magistrate in capital cases to the judg- 
ment of his country. It is not certain whether the consul who brought forward 
this law was M. Valerius Maximus, or M. Valerius Corvus : it must have been 
the latter, however, if the common statement be true that he was six times elected 
consul ; and w T e should be glad to ascribe the measure to a man so worthy of it. 
The law denounced the violation of its provisions as a crime, but named no fixed 
penalty ; leaving it open to the accuser to demand, and to the judges to award, 
a milder or a heavier sentence, according to the nature of the particular case, as 
was so generally the practice at Athens. But why this law should have been 

60 Livy, X. 7. led by Q. ^Elins Pa?tus. Livy, XLI. 21. 

" Livy, X. 9. Nor must we forget that ./Klius whom Enniua 

M Q. .Klius Pffitus, who fill at CanniB, waa honored with the title of "cgregie cordutus 

pontifex, Livy, XXIII. 21. I'. .Klius Pettis waa homo." 

appointed augur in the place of Mardtflus, H Livy, X. 9. 

Livy, XXVII. 36 ; aud on his death he was sue- 



Chap. XXXII.] THE VALERIAN LAW RE-ENACTED. 327 

re-enacted at this particular time we know not. No recent instances of arbitrary 
power are mentioned, nor do we hear of any consul of this period who is charged 
with a disposition to cruelty. Perhaps the object of Valerius was simply to 
satisfy the humbler citizens that the government was not unmindful of their per- 
sonal security, although it had diminished their political power ; and that whilst 
the more distinguished commoners were completing their own equality with the 
patricians, they did not mean to allow the poorer members of their order to be 
oppressed with impunity. Thus, the re-enactment of the Valerian law, taken in 
conjunction with the passing of the Ogulnian, seems to form an aera in the con- 
stitutional history of Rome ; when the commons obtained a confirmation of their 
great charter of personal freedom for the mass of their order, and for those of 
their members who might rise to eminence, a perfectly equal share in all the 
honors of the commonwealth, religious no less than civil. 

In some of the transactions recorded in this chapter, we seem almost to have 
emerged into the light of day, and to be able to trace events and 
their actors with much of the clearness of real history. But even by one very obseweiy 
in those which are in themselves most vivid, we find a darkness 
on either side, concealing from our view their causes and their consequences ; as 
in dreams, single scenes and feelings present themselves with wonderful distinct- 
ness : but what brought us to them, or what is to follow after them, is left alto- 
gether a mystery. Some of the many difficult questions which belong to this 
period, I propose to lay before the reader in the appendix to this volume, as I feel 
that I can offer no explanation of them so satisfactory as to claim the name of his- 
tory. In this number I would place especially the famous question as to the 
later constitution of the comitia of centuries, a problem which not even Niebuhr 
could fully solve, and which has equally baffled other writers who have more recently 
attempted it. But in the following period of about fourteen years, which elapsed 
between the passing of the Ogulnian law and the dictatorship of Q. Hortensius, 
there is scarcely a single fact in the domestic history of Rome which can be dis- 
cerned clearly, and we are left to ask what circumstances could have produced 
so great a change ; and how, after a state of things so peaceable and so pros- 
perous, and a settlement of the constitution apparently so final, we are brought 
back again so suddenly to the circumstances of a long past period, to a heavy 
burden of debt, to quarrels between the different orders in the state from this 
cause, and to a new secession of the commons to the Janiculum. 

In the mean time we must carry on for a while the foreign history of Rome, 
and describe that short but decisive war, in which the Romans triumphed over 
the triple coalition of the Etruscans, the Samnites, and the Gauls. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

FOREIGN HISTORY FROM 450 TO 464 (443 TO 456. NIEBUHR)— CONQUEST OF THE 
JEQUIANS— THIRD SAMN1TE WAR— COALITION OF THE ETRUSCANS, SAMNITES, 
AND GAULS— GREAT BATTLE OF SENTINUM, AND DEATH OF P. DECIUS— FINAL 
VICTORY OF Q. FABIUS OVER THE SAMNITES— C. PONTIUS IS LED IN TRIUMPH, 
AND PUT TO DEATH IN COLD BLOOD. 



" Ter totum fervidus ira 
Lustrat Aventini montein ; ter saxea tentat 
Limina nequidquam ; ter fessus valle resedit." 
Vieg. ^En. VIII. 230. 

" Thrice did the indignant nations league their might, 
Thrice the red darkness of the battle's night 
Shrouded the recreant terror of their flight." 

Milman, Judicium Regale. 



The peace with Samniuru was immediately followed by a war with, the iEqui- 
war with the ^q«i- ans - Since the Gaulish invasion, the very name of this people has 
aus- vanished out of our sight, except on one single occasion in the 

year immediately following the recovery of the city, when Camillus is said to 
have taken from them the town of Bola. 1 As they took no part in the subse- 
quent attacks made b} r the Volscians upon Rome, and did not even join their 
neighbors of Pi teneste, when they, from the allies of the Romans, became their 
enemies, so we may conclude with Niebuhr, that the Gaulish invasion had been 
even more fatal to them than to the Romans ; that they must have been so 
weakened by some great disaster sustained at that period, as to have fallen back 
altogether from their advanced position on the edge of the Campagna to their 
older country in the upper valleys of the Turano 2 and the Salto, and near the 
western shore of the lake Fucinus. From their towns on the edge of the Cam- 
pagna they were, probably, expelled by the Latins ; and acquisitions of territory 
from the ^Equians may have been among the causes which raised Tibur and Prae- 
neste after the Gaulish invasion to greatness far above the rest of their country- 
men. Meanwhile, the JSquians were left unmolested in their remaining territory, 
and for nearly eighty years from the burning of Rome by the Gauls they seem 
to have remained perfectly neutral. But towards the end of the second Samnite 
war, when the Hernieans, in their jealousy of the growing power of Rome, took 
up arms against her, the iEquians also, probably from similar motives, were in- 
duced to join in the quarrel. JEquian soldiers 3 were found, it was said, together 
with Hernieans, in that Samnite army which Q. Fabius, when proconsul in the 
year 447, had defeated at Alii f "se ; and after the Hernican war in the year follow- 
ing, the whole .iEquian people joined the Samnites. Thus, when the Samnites, 
in the year 450, were obliged to sue for peace, the iEquians were left in a posi- 
tion of no small danger. Rome, it appears, was willing to forgive them on no 
other terms than those just imposed on the Hernieans ; namely, that they should 
become citizens of Rome without the right of voting in the comitia ; in other words, 

1 Livy, VI. 2. . field of Seurgola, the scene of Conradin's defeat 

3 The Turano is the stream which, rising at by Charles or Anjou, and when it reappears it 

the back of tlie hills which form the northern receives the name of Salto. It flows through 

boundary of the vallej of the Anio, flows thence the pastoral country of the Cicolano, and falls 

in a northerly direction, and joins the Velino into the Velino above Rieti. See Bunsen's ar- 

just below Rieti. The Salto rises very near to ticle, " Ksanie del sito dei piu antichi stabili- 

the lake Fucino, and, in its earlier course, is mentd [talici," eve. in the Annals of the Arehaj- 

called the lmele; but it sinks into a fissure in ological Society of Rome, Vol. VI. p. 110. 

the limestone, a little below the famous battle- s Livy, IX. 45. 



Chap. XXXIIL] CONQUEST OF THE ^EQUIANS. 329 

that they should submit to become Roman subjects. Hopeless as their condi- 
tion was, their old spirit would not yet allow them to yield, and they resolved to 
abide a contest with the whole undivided power of the Roman commonwealth. 

Both consuls, P. Sempronius and P. Sulpicius, 4 with two consular armies, 
marched at once into the ^Equian territory. Such a force, amounting 

1 i, ,,.•'. n t-, ^ Their country is over- 

to about 40,000 men, confounded all plans ot resistance, .bew run, and their towns 
JEquians of that generation had ever seen war ; their country had not 
been exposed to the ravages of an enemy within the memory of any man then living. 
Abandoning all hope of maintaining the field against the invaders, they took ref- 
uge in their several towns, hoping there to baffle the first assault of the enemy, 
and trusting that time might bring some of the neighboring people to their aid. 
But their towns were small, and were thus each weak in the number of their 
defenders : the Romans well knew the effect of a first impression, and in the 
places which they first stormed, they probably, according to their usual practice, 
made a bloody execution, in order to strike terror into the rest. We have seen, 
under the influence of a general panic, some of the strongest fortresses and one 
of the most warlike nations of modern Europe taken and conquered in the space 
of two months ; so that we cannot wonder that fifty days were sufficient to com- 
plete the ^Equian war, and that forty-one towns were taken within that period, 5 
the greater part of which were destroyed and burnt. The polygonal walls of 
many of them are still in existence, and are to be found scattered along the pas- 
toral upland valley of the Himella or Salto, from Alba almost to the neighbor- 
hood of Reate. The Romans, however, did their work of destruction well ; for 
although the style of the walls in these ruins denotes their high antiquity, yet no 
traces are to be found of the name, or race, or condition of their inhabitants : the 
actual remains will tell as little of the history of the ^Equian people as we can 
glean from the scanty reports of their conquerors. 

The fate which the JEquians had vainly striven to avert now fell upon the rem- 
nant of their nation, after the greatest portion of the people bad 

. , i , . i . ° , A m , . ± r L They submit, and re- 

pensnea or been led away into slavery, lhe survivors, alter see- ceive the Roman baa- 

ing the greatest portion of their territory converted into Roman 

domain land, were obliged to become Roman citizens without suffrage. But five 

7 o t t & 

years afterwards, when war with Etruria and with the Samnites was again threat- 
ening, the Romans admitted them to the full franchise, 6 and they formed a con- 
siderable part of the citizens enrolled in the year 455 in the two tribes then cre- 
ated, the Aniensian and Terentine. 

When the Samnites had made peace with Rome, they were required to restore 
Lucania to its independence ; that is, they were obliged to give 
back the hostages whom they had kept as a pledge of the nation's domimmt a !n pn LifcS~. 
fidelity, and to withdraw their garrisons from the Lucanian towns. waT^Juh Tarentum. 
The Roman party in Lucania, upon this, regained its ascendency, cieonyinu r ™ihe 3 sp!u> 
and the foreign relations of the country were so changed, that, ""'"" eira ' f ' 
from having been in alliance with the Samnites and Tarentines against Rome, the 

4 Livy, IX. 45. in the Cornelian tribe (Livy, XXXVIII. 36) : 

5 Livy, IX. 45. Diodorus, XX. 101. and we cannot always conclude that a tribe con- 

6 " Majores nostri," says Cicero, " JEquos in tained only the people of one particular district, 
civitatem aeceperunt." De Officiis, 1. 11. That The origin of the name Terentina is quite un- 
til ey were admitted into the tribes Aniensis and known. We know of no town Terentum which 
Terentina is not expressly stated by any ancient could have given it its name, nor of any river 
writer ; but the date of the creation of these Terens. What was the ancient name of the 
tribes connects them with the ^Cquians, and the Turano, which, as it runs near to the site of 
tribe Aniensis must have included the upper Carseoli, must have flowed through the iEquian 
valley of the Anio, which was iEquian. The territory ? Bunsen has shown that it is a mere 
tribe Terentina contained at a later period, as mistake to suppose that the Tolenns or Telo- 
we know, the people *of the Volscian city of nius was the Turano. (Annali dell' Institute, 
Atina (Cicero pro Flancio, 8, 16, 22) ; and Nie- &c. torn. VI. p. 104.) Could the Turano have 
buhr thinks that they were included in it, be- been anciently called Terens, or Terentus, and 
cause it was in their neighborhood. But the could the tribe Terentina have been named from 
Arpinatians, who lived nearer to the iEquian this river, as the Aniensis was from the Anio ? 
country than the people of Atina, were included 



330 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXI1T 

Lucanians now took part with Rome against Tarentum. During the Samnite 
war, the Tarentines, covered as they were by the territory of their allies, had 
nothing to fear from the Roman armies ; and by sea, as the Roman navy was 
very inconsiderable, they carried on the contest with advantage. But now a con- 
sular army, 1 supported by their old enemies, the Lucanians, might, at any moment, 
appear under their very walls ; and they looked out, therefore, for some foreign 
aid. They sent to Greece, and to their own mother-city, Sparta, imploring that 
an army might be sent to help them, and that Cleonymus might be its general. 
Cleonymus was the younger son of Cleomenes, 8 king of Sparta, and the grand- 
son of Cleombrotus, who fell at Leuctra. His nephew Areus, Cleomenes' grand- 
son by his elder son Acrotatus, had been now for about six years on the throne ; 
and Cleonymus, like Dorieus of old, not liking to remain in Sparta as a private 
citizen, was eager for any opportunity of distinguishing himself abroad. Areus 
was no less ready to let him go ; and accordingly he complied at once with the 
invitation of the Tarentines, and having levied at their expense about 5000 Greek 
mercenaries, he crossed over into Italy. There he raised 5000 mercenaries more, 
and the native forces of Tarentum are reckoned at 20,000 foot and 2000 horse. 9 
Most of the Italian Greeks, together with the Sallentines, who had already been 
engaged in hostilities with Rome, joined his standard; and had Cleonymus pos- 
sessed the ability of Pyrrhus, he might have rallied around him the Samnites and 
Etruscans, and, after the exhaustion of a twenty years' war, the Romans would 
have found it no easy matter to withstand him. 

As it was, the display of his force terrified the Lucanians, and they made heir 
Peace between Rome peace with Tarentum. 10 It is remarkable that Diodorus, who states 
and Tarentum. ^jg j n ex p ress terms, and who had just before named the Romans 

as being also at war with the Tarentines, yet makes no mention of any peace 
between Tarentum and Rome. A treaty, however, must have been concluded, 
for the attack made by the Tarentines on a Roman fleet, eleven years afterwards, 
is said 11 to have been occasioned by a violation of the conditions of the peace 
between the two nations ; and had it not been made at this time, we cannot con- 
ceive that Cleonymus could so immediately have engaged in other enterprises. 
It seems probable that no other terms were required on either side than the re- 
newal of a preceding treaty ; and this treaty was originally concluded at a period 
when the only conceivable intercourse between Rome and Tarentum could have 
been by sea. It stipulated 1 ' 2 in the usual language that no Roman ships, mean- 
ing, probably, ships of war, were to advance along the south coast of Italy nearer 
to Tarentum than the headland of Lacinium, which forms the southern extremity 
of the Tarentine gulf. There was, no doubt, a similar stipulation, restraining the 
Tarentines from advancing with their ships of war nearer to Rome than the head- 
land of Circeii. 

Cleonymus, being thus no longer needed by the Tarentines, employed his 
arms with various success in plundering operations along the eastern coast of 
Italy, till at last he was beaten off by the inhabitants and obliged to return to 
Greece. He is not heard of again till he invited Pyrrhus to assist him in his 
attempt to seize the throne of Sparta. 

Two years after the end of the Samnite war, the Marsians, who had then, as 
short »ar with ti.o we have seen, made peace with Rome like the other allies of the 
MareuinB. Samnites, were again engaged in hostilities. The Roman account 13 

1 Diodorus says expressly, TapavTTiot miXc/toi/ a Ai;/iayu>ydf . . 7rnAai<3i< robs Tapavrtvovf 

exovres irpbs AsVKavois *■'«< 'TwpatoVf. XX. 104. ai'f//fynr;<T« avvOtixtov, pi) -rrhetv 'Vw/iaiovs irpdaw 

* Pausanias, III. 6. Plutarch, Agis, 8, and A.anivlaf iicpas. — Appian,J5amnitic. VIL 

Pyn-hus, 26. Compare the article on the Kings u LAvy, X. 8. At this point we lose the con- 

oi Sparta in the Appendix to the second volume nected history of Diodorus. The last consul- 

of Mr. Fynes Clinton's Fasti HellenioL Bhip noticed in his twentieth booi is that of M. 

B Diodorus, XX. 104. Liviua and M. JSmilius, which was the second 

10 Diodorus, XX. 104. year after the end of the Samnite war, and, ac 

u Appian, Samnitic. VII. cording to Diodorus, the third year of the hun- 



Chap. XXXIIL] THE VESTINIAKS AND PICEKTIANS. 331 

states that they resisted the settlement of a Roman colony at Carseoli, one of the 
^Equian towns lately conquered, and themselves maintained the place by force. 
This is scarcely credible, for they had made no opposition to the colonizing of 
Alba, a more important position, and one much nearer to their own country. 
However, the war, whatever was the cause, was short, and ended in the speedy 
submission of the Marsians, who were obliged to cede a portion of their domain. 
The same penalty had been paid in the preceding year by the Hernicans of Fru- 
sino, for an alleged attempt to excite their countrymen to revolt ; and these ac- 
quisitions of land by the Romans are memorable, not so much as increasing their 
power against foreign enemies, but for their effect on their own state of society 
at home. We must remember that the land thus gained was mostly held in 
occupation by the Roman nobility, and often to a much larger extent than the 
Licinian law allowed ; and that this great increase of their wealth, and accumu- 
lation of extensive domains, " Latifundia," led gradually to a system of slave 
cultivation, and contributed, more than any other cause, to the great diminution 
of the free population throughout Italy. 

In the same year the Vestinians, 14 of whom we have heard nothing since their 
unfortunate war with Rome in 429, are said to have sought the , „ . . 

• /*it-> i i 111*11 T ^ e Vestiiiians and Fi- 

inendship of the Romans, and to have concluded with them a centians in alliance with 
treaty of alliance. Since the conquest of the ^Equians the Ro- 
man frontier had become contiguous to theirs ; so that relations with Rome, 
either friendly or hostile, were become inevitable. Through this treaty, Rome 
completely separated the Samnites from the Etruscans ; as her own territory or 
that of her allies reached now across the whole width of Italy from the mouth 
of the Tiber to that of the Aternus, on the Adriatic. Two or three years 15 after- 
wards the Picentians, whose country stretched along the coast of the Adriatic- 
northward of the Vestinians, lapping, as it were, round Umbria on the east, and 
reaching as far as the settlements of the Senonian Gauls on the Metaurus and the 
iEsis, became also the allies of Rome. Their friendship was of importance ; for 
not only were the Etruscans and Umbrians already at war with Rome, but it 
was known that the Gauls had been solicited to take part in the contest ; and the 
situation of Picenum was most favorable for carrying the war into the Gauls' own 
country, if they should attempt to stir, or for threatening the flank and rear of 
the Etruscans and Umbrians, if they should move either on Rome or towards 
Samnium. 

Meanwhile the Etruscan war, which was so soon to kindle a new war with the 
Samnites, broke out partially in the year 453. Its origin is ascribed 
to the internal factions of the Etruscan city of Arretium ; 16 the siege of Neouimu^ £ 
powerful house of the Cilnians, of which Meceenas was a descend- 
ant, was at variance with the people or commons of Arretium, and was suspected 
also, by some of the neighboring cities, as likely to endanger their independence. 

dred and nineteenth Olympiad. Although we only hy a dictatorship. Thus the chronology 
have numerous fragments of his later hooks, becomes more and more confused, for these 
yet these can ill supply the place of a regular dictatorships, if real, couM not have lasted more 
narrative, which, with all its faults, has cer- than six months, and the next consuls would 
tainly preserved to us some very valuable and therefore come into office half a year after their 
probable accounts of many events in the Eoman predecessors' term was expired. In this man- 
history. We miss also his notices of the several ner the beginning of the consular year was con- 
writers from whom his work was compiled, and tinually varying, and these portions of years 
his occasional mention of obscure nations and being reckoned as whole years, the reckoning 
cities, of which we have scarcely any other fell more and more in disorder. How con- 
knowledge. Thus, for the third Samnite war stantly do the perplexities of the Eoman Fasti 
Livy is almost our sole authority. remind one of the truth of Thucydides' remark, 

14 Livy, X. 3. that the natural chronology of the seasons of 

15 Livy, X. 10. Another year is inserted by the year was the only sure guide ; the civD 
the ehroiiologers between the consulship of M. chronology, he says, was a perpetual source of, 
Livius and M. ^milius, and that of M. Valerius mistakes : oh yap aKpi/Sis eanv oTs xai apxopivots 
and Q. Appuleius. Like two or three other Kai ixeaovai, Kal bnws ervxiv rep, ltstyivn6 ti. — 
years in the fifth century of Eome, it is said to V. 20. 

nave been a year without consuls, and marked 1B Livy, X. 3. 



332 HISTORY OF SOME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

The Cilnians applied for aid to Rome, already known as the natural supporter of 
the high aristocratical party throughout Italy, and thus, we are "told, a Roman 
army was sent into Etruria. The details, as is so often the case, are utterly con- 
flicting ; but it is said that the Cilnians were reconciled to the popular party, and 
hostilities ended for the present. In the next year, 454, we find one of the con- 
suls besieging the Umbrian town of Nequinum, 17 on the Nar, on what provoca- 
tion we know not. The siege, however, was protracted till the year following ; 
for the inhabitants well availed themselves of the strong site of their town, built 
on a narrow ledge in the mountain side, with an almost abrupt ascent above, and 
a descent no less steep down into the narrow gorge of the Nar below. At last 
the town was betrayed to the Romans ; and they immediately sent a colony to 
occupy the spot, 18 which from henceforth took the name of Nainia. It commands 
the defile which leads from the valley of the Tiber into the plain of Interamna or 
Terni, one of the richest tracts of central Italy. 

Some accounts 19 related that the Samnites had supported the people of Ne- 
The samnitca exert quinum in their obstinate resistance, and had sent troops to their 
It is manifest that the Samnite government was at this 
period making the greatest exertions, in the hope, probably, that 
the Etruscans would create a diversion in their favor, by drawing off a part of the 
forces of Rome to her northern frontier. The Samnite plans were, moreover, 
unexpectedly furthered by a new inroad of the Gauls ; new hordes had lately 
arrived from beyond the Alps, 20 and their countrymen in the plains of the Po, 
having no room for them, were anxious to speed them on their way southwards ; 
they encouraged them to cross the Apennines, and even joined themselves in the 
enterprise. The Etruscans had already, perhaps, engaged their services against 
the Romans ; so that the Gauls marched through Etruria still onwards, and with 
an Etruscan force co-operating with them, they poured into the Roman dominions. 21 
It is probable that they followed their old line by the valley of the Glanis into 
Umbria, and that their ravages were carried on rather in the territory of the 
allies of Rome than in that of Rome itself. But the invaders won a great spoil 
without any opposition, and the Gauls recrossed the Apennines to carry it home 
in safety. They would have been tempted, probably, by their success, to renew 
their inroad in the next year ; but, fortunatety for the Romans, they quarrelled 
with one another about the division of their plunder, 22 and the greatest part of 
their multitude were destroyed by each other's swords. Whilst the Gauls, how- 
ever, were on the left bank of the Tiber, the whole force of Rome was watching 
their movements ; and the Samnites seized the opportunity to march into Luca- 
nia. 23 The appearance of a Samnite army revived the Samnite party in Lucania ; 
the Roman party was everywhere overpowered ; town after town was recovered 
to the Samnite alliance ; and the partisans of Rome sent an embassy in all haste 
to the senate, praying for instant succor. But the Samnite government did not 
stop here ; their ambassadors endeavored to rouse all the nations of Italy to arms, 

17 Livv, X. 9. 21 Ik fjifv Tijs 'Pw/ia/oiv t-xapYlas aafyaKtis firavrjA- 

18 Livv, X. 10. Bov.— Polvb. II. 19. 

19 " lit. Pulviua Cn : F. Cn. N. Psetinus Cos. w Polybius, II. 19. 

Dc Samnitibus Nequinatibusque. Ann: CD 23 Livv. X. 11. Dionysius, XVI. 11. For 

. . . VII. K. Oct."— Fasti Capitol. these sudden revolutions in the condition of 

20 Polybius, II. 19. This account is again Lucania, we may compare the conquest of IWo- 
differenl from thai of Livv, who represents the tin by Myronides, and its less a few years after- 
Gauls as quarrelling with the Etruscans about ward's through the event of the battle of Coro- 
the terms of their service, and thus as not in- nea; and also the accession of Achaia to the 
vading the Roman dominion at all. There can Athenian alliance, a little before the* thirty years' 
be no doubt that Polybius has preserved the peace, andits loss again, through the stipula- 
truer version of these events. He fixes also this tions of that treaty. It is manifest that the Ro- 
Gaulish invasion at about eighty-seven years man and Samnite parties in Lueanta, or, in 
after the first invasion, when Koine was taken, other words, the aristocratical and popular par- 
that is, according to his reckoning, Olym. 120-1, tics, each as they gained the ascendency, took 
or b. c. 300. The common reckoning places it to themselves the name of the Lucanian nation, 
in 299, a ditferenco not worth dwelling upon. and spoke of the foreign supporters of the op- 
posite party as the national enemies. 



Chap. XXXIIL] THIRD SAMNITE WAR. 333 

and to form one great coalition against Rome. They solicited the Picentians to 
join them ; 84 but there the influence of the Roman party was predominant ; and 
the Picentian government made a merit of communicating instantly to the Ro- 
mans the attempt of the Samnites to shake their faith. Old jealousies probably 
influenced the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Pelignians ; they had often found the 
Samnites restless neighbors, and dreaded the restoration of their former power. 
But the Sabines 25 seem to have listened to the Samnite overtures ; there the ties 
of blood drew the two people towards one another ; and the new Roman tribes, 
lately created in the iEquian territory, brought the Romans into too close neigh- 
borhood to Reate and the valley of the Velinus. Etruria was already engaged 
in a quarrel of her own with Rome ; so far as the endless party revolutions in 
the Etruscan cities might allow any dependence on the stability of her counsels. 
The weakness of Umbria might yield to fear, if Etruria on one side and the Sa- 
bines on the other, and the Gauls hanging on her northern frontier, should to- 
gether call upon her to join the confederacy. Nor were the Samnites neglectful 
of the nations of the south: they had already, as we have seen, recovered the 
greatest part of Lucania, and their arms, giving timely aid to their party within the 
country, must at this period have won also the majority of the Apulian nation 
to desert the Roman alliance, and -to acknowledge once again the supremacy of 
Samnium. 26 The indefatigable Samnite government, after all these efforts, min-ht 
have well remonstrated, like the Homeric goddess, with that hard destiny which 
was to render them all fruitless — 

ttuj tSfXcif IxXiov Suvai itivov })& ariXcaTov, 
lipui &' ov 'iSfiuxra l*6yu> : Knjiir.iv Si /tot 'irmoi 
Xabv aytipuvar), IIf>id//Cf) Kaxa to16 ts Ttaiaiv. 

The Romans, as might have been expected, readily listened to the prayer of 
their friends in Lucania. An alliance 21 was concluded with the Beginning of the thM 
Lucanian people, and hostages, taken probably from some of the Sammte war - 
families of the Samnite party, were given to the Romans as a pledge of their 
allies' fidelity. Ambassadors were sent into Samnium to require the Samnites to 
withdraw their troops from Lucania, and with a threat of instant war if the de- 
mand were not complied with. The Samnites ordered the ambassadors to leave 
Samnium without an audience ; and the general council of the Samnite nation 
resolved that each separate state of their union should make its preparations for 
the support of the common cause. On the other side, the Romans made a for- 
mal declaration of war ; and thus the desperate struggle began again with in- 
creased animosity. 

When we read of the Samnites, Etruscans, and Gauls, with the Lucaniansand 
Apulians, some of the Sabines, and most of the Umbrian states, superior strength of the 
engaged in one great confederacy against Rome, we are first in- Roman confederac y- 
clined to wonder how the Romans could have escaped destruction. But when 
we consider that under the name of Rome were included all those nations which 
were in her alliance, and of whose forces she had the supreme disposal, we find 
that it was but a weaker and far worse organized confederacy opposed to one 
stronger in itself, and much more firmly united. From the Ciminian Hills to the 
bay of Naples, the territory of the Romans, Latins, and Campanians presented a 
compact mass of states and people, far superior in population, in resources, 
and in union, to the long and ill-organized line of its enemies ; whilst, in the cen- 

84 Livy, X. 11. liis consulship, namely, in the year 458. See 

26 Amiternum, a Sahine town in the upper Orelli, Inscript. Latin. Collectio, No. 539. 

valley of the Aternus, was taken from the Sam- 26 Because m the year 457 we find an Apulian 

nites by the Eomans in 461. Livy, X. 39. This army in the field in aid of the Samnites ; and 

implies a previous occupation of it by the Sam- P. Decius is said to have defeated it at Maleven- 

nites, and an alliance therefore between the two turn, when on its march to join the Samnite 

countries. And an inscription relating to Ap- army. Livy, X. 15. 

pius Claudius the blind states, that he "de- ^ 'Livy, X. 11, 12. Dionysius, XVI. 11, 12. 
feated an army of Sabines and Etruscans" in 



334 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

tre of Italy, and reaching to the coast of the Adriatic, the Marsians, Pelignians, 
Marrucinians, Frentanians, Vestinians, and Picentians, formed a separate mass of 
Roman allies, who, by their position, might either obstruct the enemies' commu- 
nication, or threaten their rear. In fact, it was only the desperate resolution of 
the Samnite people, and the great energy and ability of their leaders, which could 
afford any chance of success, where the resources of the contending parties were 
so unequal. The Gauls were, like all barbarians, uncertain and unmanageable ; 
and the repeated vacillations of the Etruscan counsels made the alliance of Etru- 
ria as unsafe a support as that of Egypt to the kings of Juda : to lean on the 
Etruscans was indeed to lean on a broken reed. 

No combined plan of operations on the part of the enemies of Rome can be 

First campaign of the traced in the first campaign of the war. The Gauls could not be 

prevailed on as yet to take the field ; and the Roman party in Lu- 

cania was not entirely put down, so that the Samnites were still employed in that 

quarter, and could not send an army into Etruria. 

The Roman consuls of the year 456, the first year of the renewed Samnite 
war, were L. Cornelius Scipio and Cn. Fulvius Centumalus. 28 L. 

Uncertain and varying .-, . . . i r i r 

accounts of the cam- bcipio was the great-grandfather ot the conqueror of Hannibal ; 
he is the first Roman of whom a contemporary record has reached 
our times ; the famous epitaph 29 on his tomb, which declares him to have been 
" a brave man and a wise, whose form well matched his nobleness." Yet such 
are the perplexities of the uncertain history of these times, that no one action 
recorded in Scipio's epitaph is noticed by Livy, while no action which Livy 
ascribes to him is mentioned in his epitaph. The accounts of his colleague's ex- 
ploits are no less varied ; some making him win a great battle in northern Sam- 
nium, 30 and saying that he afterwards besieged and took Bovianum and Aufidena ; 
while others placed the seat of his campaign on the Lucanian frontier, and ex- 
tolled 31 the ability with which he had conducted his operations against a superior 
enemy. A third account is followed by the Fasti Capitolini, that Fulvius tri- 
umphed over the Samnites and Etruscans ; which seems to contradict the story 
followed by Livy, that Scipio invaded Etruria, advanced as far as Volaterrse, and 
gained a hardly won victory under the walls of that city. It "is only certain that 
this year was really marked by no great successes on the part of the Romans ; 
on the contrary, they looked forward to the next campaign with great anxiety, 
and therefore 32 they pressed Q. Fabius to accept the consulship, notwithstanding 
his advanced age, and although he was not legally eligible, as ten years had not 
elapsed since he was consul before. It was in vain that he remonstrated ; a dis- 
pensation, 33 according to a practice afterwards so frequent, was passed in his favor ; 
and the people proceeded to elect him. He then entreated of them that he 

28 Livy, X. 11. so L ivy, X. 12. 

29 The sarcophagus which contained the bones sl Sec'the stories in Frontinus, Strategem, T. 
of L. Cornelius Scinio was discovered in 1780, 6, § 1, 2, and I. 11, § 2, already referred to by 
and is now in the Vatican Museum. The epi- Niebuhr. But the authority of the particular 
taph is as follows, written in the old Saturnian anecdotes contained in such' collections as that 
verse: of Frontinus is but small, and it is. not in itself 

« Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus Gnaivod to H Set iu f ™?*™ * wit ^ th f °*' »»>" ™ d ~ 

Patre prognatus fortis vir sapiensque erately caretul historian. In the present ,n- 

Quoiu' forma virtntei parisuma fuit, * tance the ^dotes are curious, as slrow.ng 

Consol censor aidilia quei fail apud vob, how ,n:1,1 ' V dferent versions of the same events 

Taurasia ( Ssauna Samnio cepit W °™ m eireula ton, as Ion? as no real h,st„nan 

Subigit omne Loucana opsideaque abdoucit." cxi f, tcd t0S1 " th ? m , i ft w « T" I' * 

1 v or the most probable ; but they do not appear 

"Gnaivod" in the first line would, in modern to me to be entitled to any peculiar credit. 

Latin, be "Cna:o," and "quoins'' in the third w Livy, X. 13. 

line is u onjnB." 1 have copied the inscription 33 "Tribuni plebis . . . aicbant.se ad popu- 

from Bunsen and Planner's " BeschreilmiH' him laturos ut le^Ums solverettir.''— Livy, X. 

Roma," Vol. III. p. 616. It may be found also 13. Lcgibus solvi is the rejAlar expression 

in Orelli's Colleotion of Inscriptions, No. 550, used when any one has a dispensation granted 

and an engravmg of the sarcophagus, exhibiting him, to release him from complying with the 

also the epitaph, is given in the Gentleman's enactments of some particular law. 

Magazine tor April, 1787. 



Chap. XXXIII.] INVASION OF SAMNIUM. 335 

might recommend to them P. Decius as his colleague : Decius and himself, he 
said, had been censors together, and there was no man with whom he could act 
so well as consul. Accordingly, Q. Fabius and P. Decius were elected together : 
L. Scipio, the consul of the preceding year, served 34 under Fabius as his lieu- 
tenant, and a Fulvius 35 and a Valerius are named amongst his military tribunes. 

At this moment, when the Romans expected to be assailed by the whole force 
of the enemies' confederacy, they found it suddenly paralyzed, second campaign. d^ 
Etruria for some reason or other was not ready to act, 36 and the Omnium by oTiSuS 
Roman frontier on that side might be safely left without an army. and p- Deciu8- 
Accordingly, both consuls marched into Samnium, 31 . Fabius by Sora and the 
upper Liris, Decius by the country of the Sidicinians and the line of the Vul- 
turnus. Fabius was met by the main Samnite army, which he defeated after a 
most obstinate battle ; while Decius had encountered the Apulians near Bene- 
ventum on their march to join their allies, and defeated them also. The Samnites 
then acted on the defensive, and were obliged to suffer their country to be laid 
waste without opposition. Both of the Roman armies remained in Samnium, it 
is said, for five months, 38 moving about from one part of it to another, and carry- 
ing on their ravages so systematically, that Decius was recorded to have en- 
camped his legions in forty-five several places, and Fabius in as many as eighty- 
six. But the Samnites must have driven their cattle to their mountain pastures, 
and many of these were so surrounded by forests, and so fenced round with 
precipitous cliffs, that a small force could have defended them with success 
against an arm}-. The low country, 39 however, was no doubt grievously wasted, 
and the Romans must have found plunder enough to encourage them to continue 
their invasion. Towards the end of the year Fabius returned to Rome to hold 
the comitia ; after which he resumed his command, and both he and his colleague 
were ordered to remain in Samnium 40 for six months longer, with the title and 
power of proconsul. 

It was probably in this winter that the Samnite influence in Lucania and Apu- 
lia was completely overthrown, and both those countries returned 
to the Roman alliance. In both the aristocratical party was of covered 1 to the P Rom T M 
itself eager to re-eStablish this connection ; and the presence of * ance ' 
two Roman armies, and the inability of the Samnites to keep the field against 
them, destroyed the ascendency of the popular party, 41 and changed accordingly 
the foreign relations of the whole people. It was now too, it seems, that 
L. Scipio, as lieutenant of the proconsul, Q. Fabius, had so great a share in 
effecting the revolution in Lucania, as to be able to boast, in the words of his 

34 Livy, X. 14. " Fabius . . . Scipionem 37 Livy, X. 14. 

legatum hastatos primse legionis subtrahere ... ** Livy, X. 15. The circumstantial statement 

jubet." of the number of encampments in this campaign 

35 Livy, X. 14. The reading in the modern deserves credit ; and the account of Fabius' 
editions of Livy is " M. Fulvmm et M. Vale- victory is moderate and probable. 

rium," but most of the MSS. read " Maximum 39 In the former war the consuls of the year 

Fulvium," and Niebuhr observes that Maximus 448 had ravaged Samnium during five months, 

was a surname of the Fulvian family, as appears burning all the scattered houses, and destroy- 

from the Fasti Capitolini. It is probable that ing the fruit-trees. Diodorus, XX. 80. But ho 

the military tribunes here spoken of were the enemy could have penetrated within the rocky 

sons respectively of Cn. Fulvius and of M. Va- walls of the Matese, and many other spots must 

lerius, who had been consuls in 454 and 456. have been equally secure. 

36 "Ab Sutrio et Nepete et Faleriis legati, 40 Livy, X. 16. 

auctores concilia Etrurise populorum de petenda 41 " Lucanorum seditiones a plebeiis et agen- 

pace haberi."— Livy, X. 14. This perpetual tibus ducibus ortas summa optimatium volun- 

vacillation in the Etruscan counsels arose no tate per Q. Eabium proconsulem, missum eo 

doubt from the balanced state of their domestic cum vetere exercitu, compresserat."— Livy, X. 

parties. If any difficulty arose in obtaining the 18. Nothing is mentioned of the Apulians 

expected aid from the Gauls, the Cilnii of Arre- after their defeat at Beneventum ; but as they 

faum, and other friends of the Roman connec- do not appear again as the allies of the Samnites, 

tion, would urge the danger of opposing Eome it is probable that they followed the example of 

'^mgle-handed r and would advise delay; and the Lucanians, and returned in this winter to 

fear and weakness, counterfeiting prudence, their old connection with Eome. 
would easily be tempted to listen to them. 



'• 



336 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

epitaph, that he had " subdued all Lucania and carried off hostages." The hos- 
tages would be demanded from the principal families of the popular or Samnite 
party, as a security that they should not again excite their countrymen to revolt 
from Rome. 

Thus having recovered Lucania and Apulia, having overrun Samnium without 
Revive of tie «•« in resistance during several months, and having succeeded apparent- 
Etruria - ly, through the influence of their party in the Etruscan cities, in 

separating Etruria from the coalition, the Romans thought that their work was 
done ; the two proconsular armies marched home and were disbanded, and the 
consuls of the year, L. Volumnius and App. Claudius, after having hitherto re- 
mained quiet at Rome, were ordered to march with their newly raised legions 42 
into Samnium, as if to receive the final submission of their exhausted enemy. But 
scarcely had the consuls left the city, when tidings came that the cities of Etru- 
ria were in arms, 43 that several of the TJmbrian states had joined them, that they 
were engaging the services of a large force of Gaulish auxiliaries ; and that a 
Samnite general, with a Samnite army, was in the midst of this mass of enemies, 
to cement their union, and to breathe into their counsels a new spirit of decision 
and energy. 

There is no finer scene in history than the embassy of Demosthenes to Thebes, 
March of GeiHusEpm- when Philip had occupied Elatea. Triumphing alike over all old 
Etr^toorganSe'the prejudices and all present fears, the great orator, almost in 
war agabst Rome. ^ e vei .y p resence f the Macedonian army, and in spite of the in- 
fluence of a strong Macedonian party in Thebes itself, prevailed upon the Thebans 
to throw themselves into the arms of Athens, and to share her fortune for life or 
for death in her contest against the common enemy of independent Greece. 
Most unlike to this action of Demosthenes in glory, yet not inferior to it in vig- 
orous resolution, was the march of the Samnite general, Gellius Egnatius, into 
Etruria, in order by his presence to determine the wavering counsels of the Etrus- 
cans to a zealous co-operation against Rome. Seizing the moment when the 
proconsuls had left Samnium, and the new consuls had not yet taken the field, he 
fearlessly abandoned his own country to the attacks of the enemy, and with a 
select army, marched through the land of the Sabines into Umbria, and from 
thence crossing the Tiber, arrived in the heart of Etruria. His sudden appear- 
ance raised the spirits of the friends of the Samnite alliance, and struck terror 
into the Gilnii and the party attached to Rome. The Etruscans resolved to 
enew the war, and, as we have seen, many of the Umbrian states and an army 
of Gauls were expected to join them. 

On the first tidings of this march of the Samnite general, the senate sent 
Tiiini campaign. Both orders to Appius Claudius to follow him without delay. Appius, 
salnnfti' SnvaJe'cTm- with the first and fourth Roman legions and 12,000 allies, was 
|u " ia ' probably on his march towards the northern parts of Samnium, 

by the Latin road and the upper valley of the Liris, and thus could be sent into 
Etruria more readily than his colleague, who, we may suppose, had marched by 
the Appian Road to attack the southern frontier of Samnium from Campania. 
Appius hastened into Etruria, 44 and the appearance of a Roman army at first 
revived the hopes of the partisans of Rome: but one consul was unequal to the 
combined forces of the enemy, and L. Volumnius was obliged to evacuate Sam- 
nium also, and hasten to join his colleague. No sooner was the whole force of 

" The accounts which Livy followed repre- ported that Appius Claudius and Volumnius 

sent the proconsuls as being stall in Samnium both carried on war in Samnium (Livy,X. 17, ad 

when the new consuls took the field, X. is. finem) ; and it is not likely, as Niebuhr remarks, 

I'm Niebuhr observes that bis narrative con- that Four armies Bhould have been employed 

tradicts itself, for the legions raised bj the con- before the war broke out in Etruria, and that 

buIs are expressly said to have been the 1st, two of them should then have been disbanded, 

2d, 3d, and 4th. as usual; whereas, bad two just when their services were xnofit needful 

consular armies been under arms at that time, M l,i\\, X. is. 

tlu- new legions must have been the 5th> 6th, " Livy, X. 18. 

7tli, and 8th. Besides, some of the annals re- 



Chap. XXXIIL] DISPOSITION OF THE ROMAN ARMIES. 337 

Rome thus employed in Etruria, than the Samnites took the field with the forces 
which had been left to defend their own county, and burst info Campania. 45 
There they laid waste not only the lands of the allies of Rome, but of all those 
Roman citizens who had obtained settlements in the Falernian district, and com- 
posed the Falerian tribe. 

The march of Gellius Egnatius had thus completely attained its object ; Sani- 
irium was wholly relieved, and the war was carried into the .actual A]armat Rome. ti.» 
territory of Rome. Even the mere suddenness of this change was c™ri!al'k 1 from iU EtraS 
enough to increase its terrors; the Roman government ordered t0 deliver Cam P ania - 
all legal business to be suspended, 46 and troops to be raised for the defence of 
the city ; nor were the levies confined to the military age, or to free-born com- 
mons of the country tribes, but citizens above five-and-forty, and even freedmen 
of the four city tribes, were enrolled in the legions raised to meet the emergency. 
All these measures were directed in the absence of the consuls by P. Sempronius 
Sophus, the prsetor. Meanwhile L. Volumnius had received intelligence of the 
invasion of Campania, and was hastening back from Etruria to his. own province. 
It is apparent from the stories which have been preserved of the meeting of the 
two consuls in Etruria, that there was no harmony between them ; and thus the 
public service was likely to suffer the less from the division of their forces. We 
may believe also, that their junction for a time had revived the Roman interest 
in the Etruscan cities ; and we may admit, not indeed the account given by Livy 
of a complete victory won over the Etruscan and Samnite armies, but that some 
advantages were gained 47 which saved Appius from his perilous situation, and 
enabled his colleague to leave him when a still more pressing danger called him 
into Campania. Volumnius marched with the utmost rapidity, and on his reach- 
ing the scene of action, he obliged the Samnites instantly to retreat into their own 
country, and overtaking a party of them on their way, he defeated them with 
considerable loss, 48 and recovered a great portion of the spoil which they were 
carrying with them. This gleam of success was most welcome to the Romans; 
the usual course of business was resumed, after having been suspended for 
eighteen days, and a thanksgiving was ordered in the name of the consul for the 
favor which the gods had shown to the commonwealth under his auspices. 

Still, however, the aspect of affairs was most critical. In order to protect the 
Falernian district from the ravages of the Samnites, it was re- 
solved that two Roman colonies should be planted there ; one at th™%^gM»SgS 
Minturnae 49 at the mouth of the Liris, and the other at Sinuessa, cius agaiH tSo 8 ™ cou- 
on the hills which divide the waters running to the Liris from 
those that feed the Savone. But settlements in this quarter were considered so 
insecure, and so exposed to perpetual ravages from the Samnites, that few were 
willing to accept a grant of land on such terms. As the consular elections drew 
near, L. Volumnius was recalled from Campania to hold the comitia ; and the 
unanimous voice of the people again called upon Q. Fabius to accept the office 
of consul. He again yielded to the general wish, but begged, as before, that 
P. Decius might be his colleague ; and Decius was accordingly elected consul 
with him. 50 Appius Claudius, who was still with his army in Etruria, was ap- 
pointed preetor, and L. Volumnius had his command prolonged for another year 
as proconsul. L. Cornelius Scipio, who had 'served under Fabius in his last con- 
sulship, Cn. Fulvius, who had been consul in the year 456, and had conducted 
the first campaign of this war in Samnium, together Avith L. Postumius Megel- 

46 Livy, X. 20. that Appius repulsed the enemy and saved his 

46 Livy, X. 21. own army, but it by no means proves that he 

47 In the midst of the battle, Appius vowed won a decided victory. "We have only to re- 
to build a temple to Bellona, if the goddess member Corufia and Albuhera. 

would grant him victory ; and this temple was 4B Livy, X. 20, 21. 

afterwards built. See Orelli, Inscript. Latinar. 49 Livy, X. 21. 

Collect. No. 539. This may be taken as evidence K Livy, X. 22-26. 
22 



338 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

lus, were appointed also to commands in this great campaign, with the title of 
proprsetors. 

The anxiety occasioned by the impending contest may be measured by the 
particular accounts of prodigies and their expiations which were 
295. B«ported cm?™ to be'found in the annals of this year. From the altar 51 of the 
temple of the Capitoline Jupiter there flowed for three successive 
days, so said the annals, first blood, then honey, and on the third day milk. The 
blood was interpreted as a sign that the blood of thank-offerings for victory 
should soon stream on the altar of Jupiter, but the favors of the gods would not 
be unmixed ; for honey was the medicine of the sick, and foreshowed a heavy 
visitation of sickness : milk was the food of those whose corn had failed them, and 
was the sign of a coming famine. To avert the threatened anger of the gods, 
and to confirm them in their promised favor, solemn prayers 52 were ordered to be 
offered during two whole days ; and frankincense and wine were furnished to 
every one at the public expense, that the prayers might be universal and un- 
ceasing. 

The consuls at this time came into office about the beginning of the year ; and 
as the snow was still thick on the Apennines, the Gauls could 
m?' w?nter ra iiiarcii of not yet take the field to march into Etruria, and the campaign 
would not be opened till the spring. But the position of Appius 
Claudius in the enemy's country was exceedingly perilous ; and he himself, in 
the opinion of Fabius, was scarcely equal to the difficulties of his situation. Ac- 
cordingly, Fabius himself, having raised 53 a small force of 4000 foot and 600 
horse, out of a great multitude who were eager to serve under so renowned a 
general, set out at once for Etruria. He found Appius Claudius busily employed 
in strengthening the fortifications of his camp, and the soldiers from thus acting 
solely on the defensive were dispirited, and mistrusted both themselves and their 
general. Fabius ordered them to level their fortifications ; and having sent Ap- 
pius home, he took the command of the army in person, and kept it continually 
in movement, marching rapidly from place to place, and restoring to the men 
their accustomed feeling of confidence. He then stationed one division 54 in the 
country of the Camertian Umbrians, the allies of the Romans, to observe the 
pass by which the Gauls were likely to cross the Apennines, apparently that 
of La Scheggia on the Flaminian road, descending on Nocera and Foligno. This 
was placed under the command of L. Scipio ; while Fabius himself returned to 
Rome to concert measures with his colleague for the operations of the approach- 
ing spring. 

Two consular armies 55 were destined to take the field, consisting each of two 
Roman legions, and an unusually large force of Roman cavalry; 
uidtbewsiiisneniDioy- together with 500 Campanian cavalry, and a force of allies still 
larger than that of the Romans themselves. Amongst the allies 
were undoubtedly the Lucanians 56 and Campanians, and in all probability the 
Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, and Vestinians, as well as the contingents of 
the colonies founded in the late war, and those of the still independent cities of 
the Latins. All the forces of the Picentians which could be spared from the 
defence of their own country, as well as those of the Camertians, were employed, 
we may suppose, with the army of L. Scipio, watching the movements of the 
enemy in Umbria. 

Whilst this large force, consisting at least of between fifty and sixty thousand 
men, was to take the field in the north, two more Roman legions, 
with a proportionate number of allies, were to invade Samnium 57 

81 Zonnrns, VIII. 1. M The Lucanians nre mentioned as amo^g 

82 Livy, X. 23. the regular allies of the Romans, and quartered 
" Livy, X. 25. within the consuls' camp, in the year iinme- 
84 Livy, X. 25. diately following.— See Livv, X. 38. 

88 Livy, X. 26. " Livy, X. 27. 



Chap. XXXIIL] THE TWO ARMIES MEET AT SENTINUM. 339 

under L. Volumnius as proconsul. A third array, under Cn. Fulvius as pro- 
praetor, 58 was to be stationed as a reserve in the Faliscan territory, at once to de- 
fend the passage of the Tiber, and preserve the communications of the main army 
with Rome ; and also to create a diversion, if opportunity should offer, by acting 
on the offensive against Etruria. And lastly, a fourth army, commanded by L. 
Postumius Megellus, 59 also propraetor, was to be encamped in the Vatican dis- 
trict, on the right bank of the Tiber, to cover Rome itself. 

This account of the dispositions of the Romans is clear and perfectly credible ; 
but, unfortunately, we are left in total ignorance as to the num- ■■-.,„... . 

7 J ' . ° TTTi l -1-1 k- Scipio's division 13 

bers, movements, and position of the enemy. Why the iLtruscans defeated by the Gauis 

, \~ ■ i- 1 1 r-. • • j if .1 -l and Samnites. 

and Samnites did not crush Scipio s army, even before the arrival 
of the Gauls, we can scarcely understand, unless we suppose that party struggles 
again paralyzed the force of the Etruscans, and kept it in inactivity under a show 
of caution, till the whole army of the alliance should be assembled. At last the 
Gauls commenced their movement before the consuls had left Rome ; they has- 
tened to force the passage of the Apennines, and no sooner had they arrived on 
the scene of war than they began to act in earnest. L. Scipio's army 60 was at- 
tacked by the Gauls and Samnites, and completely defeated ; one legion, it is 
said, was cut to pieces ; the rest of his division took shelter, probably, within 

some of the neighboring towns, and the Gaulish horsemen overrunning the Conn- 
er o ' # o 

try, fell in suddenly with the two consular armies, which had now taken the 
field, and first acquainted them with the defeat of their countrymen, by exhibit- 
ing the heads of the slain Romans affixed to their long lances, or hanging round 
the necks of their horses. 

Exactly at this critical point of the campaign, Livy's narrative fails us, and all 
that passed between the destruction of the legion and the final 

, , A r>i« • liii-- it "The Etruscans and Um- 

battle at Sentinum is a total blank; it is as much loss to us as a brians leave their aiues. 

... , . . . , . „ The Gauls and Sam- 

country travelled over during the night; we were in one sort ol mtes retreat behind the 
scenery yesterday, and we find ourselves in another this morning ; peim 
each is distinct in itself, but we know not the connection between them. Ear- 
nestly must Gellius Egnatius have labored to bring on a decisive battle in the 
plains of Umbria ; the allies had begun the campaign with happy omens, their 
whole force was united, the ground was favorable ; nothing could be gained, 
and every thing would be hazarded by delay. But whether the fault rested 
once agah with the Etruscans, or whether the Picentians caused a timely diver- 
sion, by threatening to invade the country of the Gauls, or whether the consuls 
fell back upon Spoletum, and were able to avoid an action for the moment, we 
know not. But they sent orders to the propraetors, Cn. Fulvius and L. Postu- 
mius, to advance into the heart of Etruria, and no sooner did the tidings of this 
movement reach the enemy's army, than the Etruscans and Umbrians insisted on 
marching to the defence of the Etruscan territory, and the Gauls and Sam- 
nites, indignant at their desertion, and refusing to follow them, had no choice 
themselves but to fall back behind the Apennines, and to resign their hopes of a 
victorious march upon Rome. 

The Romans pursued them instantly, with two consular armies certainly, and 
with the wreck of L. Scipio's division ; perhaps also with the The Romans foiw 
two legions of L. Volumnius, which may have been recalled from me™ at slltmum?™ 
Samnium. They found the enemy in the country of Sentinum, an Umbrian 
town on the north side of the Apennines, 61 just under the central chain, in a 

08 Livy. X. 27. from Ancona to Eome crosses the Apennines 

69 Livy, X. 27. to descend upon Foligno. 

60 Livy, X. 26. Polybius, II. 19. We learn 61 The ancient Sentinum stood on or near the 

from Polybius, that the Samnites were engaged site of the modern town of Sassoferrato, as is 

in this action as well as the' Gauls, and that it known by inscriptions which have been dis- 

was not a surprise, but a regular battle, iraptTdZ- covered there. See Orelli, Nos. 3861 and 4949. 

avro 'Vui/iatois. It was fought in the country of But I have no good information as to the de- 

the Camertians, or people of Camerinum, per- tails of the topography, 
haps near the point where the modern road 



340 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIIL 

small valley which runs down into the larger valley of the iEsis or Esino, and 
not far on the right hand of the Flaminian road, at the point where it crosses 
the watershed of the mountains. It was of the utmost importance to the Ro- 
man generals to bring the contest to an issue whilst they had only the Gauls and 
Samnites to encounter, and in this they easily succeeded, for the Gauls had never 
yet fought the Romans without conquering them, and Gellius Egnatius knew 
enough of the inconstant humor of barbarians to be aware that they would soon 
be tired of a protracted war, and that if the Gauls too deserted him, his heroic march 
from Samnium would have been made in vain. So the two armies met by com- 
mon consent in fair field ; Q. Fabius was on the Roman right, opposed to Gellius 
Egnatius and his Samnites ; 62 P. Decius was on the left over against the Gauls. 
If L. Volumnius was present with the legions from Samnium, he probably, like 
Cn. Servilius at Cannae, who had also been consul in the year -before the battle, 
had his place in' the centre. The Samnites could not alone have contended with 
Q. Fabius, whose right wing was equal to a regular consular army ; and the 
Gauls must have been more than enough to overpower P. Decius. It is proba- 
ble, therefore, that the Gauls composed the greater part of the enemy's line of 
battle, and that only the extreme left was held by Gellius Egnatius and his Sam- 
nites. 

While the two armies fronted each other, and were on the very eve of battle, 
a fevorabie omen en. a hind, 63 said the Roman story, came running down from the 
courages the Romans. moun tains between the two opposing lines, with a wolf in chase 
of her. She ran in amongst the Gaulish ranks, and the Gauls transfixed her with 
their long javelins. The wolf ran towards the Romans, and they instantly gave 
free passage to the beast which had given suck to the founder of their city ; and 
whose image they had only in the preceding year 6 ' 1 set up beneath that very 
sacred fig-tree in the comitium, which tradition pointed out as the scene of the 
miracle. " See," cried out one of the soldiers, " Diana's sacred hind has been 
slain by the barbarians, and will bring down her wrath upon them ; while the 
Roman wolf, unhurt by sword or spear, gives us a fair omen of victory, and bids 
us think on Mars and on Quirinus, our divine founder." So the Roman soldiers, 
as encouraged by a sign from the gods, rushed cheerfully to the onset. 

This story, with some other circumstances related of the battle itself, are 
blended strangely with the perfectly historical substance of the 
general narrative. When the armies closed, 65 the Roman left 
wing struggled vigorously against the numbers, and strength, and courage of the 
Gauls. Twice, it is said, did the Roman and Campanian cavalry charge with 
effect the Gaulish horsemen ; but in their second charge they were encountered 
by a force wholly strange to them, the war chariots of the enemy, which broke 
in upon them at full speed, and with the rattling of their wheels, and their 
unwonted appearance, so startled the horses of the Romans, that they could not 
be brought to face them, and horses and men fled in confusion. Uncouth and 
almost ridiculous as these chariots may seem to 'our notions, yet a force which 
terrified Caesar's veterans, and which that great master of war speaks of as for- 
midable, could not have been ridiculous in reality ; and the undoubted effect of 
the British chariots against the legions of Caesar, may well convince us that the 
Gaulish chariots at Sentinum must have struck terror into the soldiers of Decius. 
The Roman cavalry were driven back upon their infantry ; the first line of the 
p. Decius aovotc. him- legions was broken, and the Gauls, following their advantage, 
niftodmth. pressed on with the masses of their infantry. Decius strove in 

vain to stop the flight of his soldiers ; one way alone was left by which he might 
yet serve his country ; he bethought him of his father at the battle by Vesuvius, 
and calling to M. Livius, one of the pontifices who attended him in the field, he 
desired him to dictate to him the fit words for self-devotion. Then, in the same 

M Livy, X. 27. M Livy, X. 23. 

w Livy, X. 27. * Livy, X. 27, 28. 



Chap. XXXIIL] DEFEAT OF THE SAMNITES. 341 

dress, and with all the same ceremonies, he pronounced also the same form of 
words which had been uttered by his father, and devoting himself and the host 
of the enemy with him to the grave and to the powers of the dead, he rode into 
the midst of the Gaulish ranks and was slain. 

His last act as consul had been to invest the pontifex M. Livius 66 with the 
command of his legions as propraetor, and -to order his lictors to The Gaul3 resist ob _ 
follow the new general. Fabius also, learning the danger of his stinatel y- 
colleague, had sent two of his own lieutenants, L. Scipio and C. Marcius, to his 
aid, with reinforcements drawn from his own reserve ; and thus the flight of the 
Romans was stayed, while the manner of Deems' death encouraged rather than 
dismayed his soldiers, as they believed that it was the price paid for their victory. 
But the Gauls, though checked, were yet neither beaten nor disheartened ; they 
gathered into thick masses, with their huge shields covering almost their whole 
bodies, and wielding their heavy broadswords, they stood unbroken and unas- 
sailed ; till the Romans picked up from the field of battle the javelins which had 
been discharged earlier in the action, and with these missiles endeavored to wear 
down the mass of their enemies. The pila pierced through the wooden shields 
of the Gauls, encumbering them, even when they inflicted no wound ; but the 
Gauls stood as firm as the " Scottish circle deep" under the hail of the English 
arrows at Flodden ; and no efforts of the le^t wing of the Romans could secure 
the victory. 

Meanwhile, Fabius, 61 on the right, after a long and arduous contest with the 
Samnites, and finding that his infantry could not break them, at 
last succeeded in charo-ino; their flank with his cavalry, and at the samnites, and at last 

. i . . S t ■ p ■ p , • j. .• 1 forces the Gauls to give 

same moment bringing all his reserves or infantry into action, ne way. complete victory 
assailed their line in front, and decided the victory. The Samnites 
fled to their camp, and thus left exposed the flank of the Gauls, who were still main- 
taining their ground. Fabius saw his opportunity, and detached the Campanian 
cavalry, with the principes of the third legion, to attack the Gauls in the rear ; 
while he himself closely pursued the Samnites, and vowed aloud that if he won 
the day, he would build a temple and offer all the spoils of the enemy to Jupiter 
the victorious. The Samnites rallied under the ramparts of their camp, and still 
disputed the victory ; but the Gauls, assailed on all sides, were now hopelessly 
broken, and the last hope of the Samnites vanished, when their commander, Gel- 
lius Egnatius, fell. Still, when the day was utterly lost, these brave men would 
neither surrender nor disperse ; they left the field in a body, and immediately 
began their retreat to their own country. 

The Roman accounts of this bloody battle 68 state the loss of their enemies at 
25,000 killed, and 8000 prisoners: their own they make to have 
amounted to 8200 killed; but they give no report of the num- 
ber of wounded. Of the total loss, only- 1200 are said to have fallen in the right 
wing, while in the army of Decius there were killed 7000. The great slaugh- 
ter in ancient warfare always took place when the line of battle was broken ; and 
the disparity of loss on the two wings of the Roman army is therefore such as 
might have been expected. 

Meanwhile, Cn. Fulvius 69 had, according to his instructions, penetrated into 
Etruria ; and had not only laid waste a lame tract of country, 

, iiic.i'ji/'ii i i ■ • Operations in Etruna. 

but had defeated in the held an army sent out by the two cities 
of Perusia and Clusium to check his ravages. 

66 Livy, X. 29. Diodorus, XXI. Frag. Hoeschel. p. 490. Duris 

67 Livy, X. 29. supposed that the Etruscans were engaged in 
88 Livy, X. 29. Duris of Samos, a contena- the battle; and some of the Eoman writers gave 

porary writer, but whose information of these the same account, and made the allied army to 

events could come only from common report, consist of a million of men. — See Niebuhr, Vol. 

and who delighted to exaggerate the disasters III., note 647. 

of the Gauls, related that in the Gaulish and 69 Livy, X. 30. 
Samnite army 100,000 men had fallen. — See 



342 HISTORY OP ROME. [Chap. XXXIIL 

It is quite plain that the Etruscans were at this time suffering the full evil o? 
distracted counsels, and that they were neither unanimous for peace nor for war. 
What was become of the forces of Arretium, of Volaterra?, of Russellae, of Cor- 
tona, and of Vulsinii, when Clusium and Perusia were left to resist the Roman 
invasion alone? 

The body of Decius 10 was found under a heap of slaughtered Gauls, and honor- 
ably buried. Fabius celebrated his funeral, and pronounced his 
funeral oration ; a fit tribute from one who had been twice his col- 
league in the consulship and once in the censorship ; nor had any man enjoyed 
better opportunities of knowing his excellence. He had proved his skill and cour- 
age in war, and his wisdom and moderation in peace ; and he had experienced also 
the noble frankness of his nature, which never allowed any selfish jealousy to 
stand in the way of his private friendship, and much less of his devotion to his 
country's service. 

Such Avas the great battle of Sentinum, the Austerlitz of 'the third Samnite 
war. But as more than eighteen months elapsed between the bat- 

The Gauls cannot be , - . .. -. . <-> . l 

induced to serve again tie of Austerhtz and the peace of lilsit, so neither was the coali- 

against Rome. . . -,-. i • i i -11 • . p o • 

tion against Home dissolved at once by the victory of feentinum. 
The Gauls, indeed, remained quiet after their defeat, for their interest in the war 
was only that of mercenary soldiers, and they were not tempted to a service 
which seemed likely to bring with it more loss than profit. But even Etruria 
would not yet submit to Rome, and the Samnites, hoping still to keep the war at 
a distance from their own country, were eager to renew the contest. 

Yet the Romans could not but feel great relief from their victory. The armies 

of the propraetors, Cn. Fulvius and L. Postumius, were recalled 

to Rome 71 and disbanded ; and Fabius marched into Etruria with 
his consular army, and was strong enough to obtain fresh advantages over the 
Perusians, who alone of all the Etruscan people ventured, it seems, to meet the 
Romans in the field. He then returned to Rome, and triumphed on the 4th of 
September over the three principal powers of the late coalition, the Etruscans, 
the Gauls, and the Samnites ; and the soldiers who followed his chariot, in the 
rude verses which they were accustomed to utter on such occasions, commemo- 
rated the death of Decius as fully equal in glory to their own general's safe and 
victorious return. It is mentioned 12 that each soldier received out of the spoil 
taken in the late battle, eighty-two ases, and a coat, and military cloak; "rewards," 
says Livy, sadly feeling how whole districts of Raly had in his days been por- 
tioned out amongst the legions of Augustus, " which the soldiers of those times 
did not think despicable." 

The wreck of the Samnite army, 13 still, it is said, amounting to 5000 men, made 

its way unhurt or unopposed through the countries of the Picen- 
forces its way back to tians and Vestinians, and from thence proceeded towards Sam- 

nium through the country of the Pelignians, by Sulmo and the 
Five-mile plain to the valley of the Sagrus or Sangro. The Pelignians, more 
zealous in the quarrel, because they were nearer neighbors to the Samnites, and 
their lands, no doubt, had often suffered from Samnite incursions, endeavored to 
cut off the retreating army. But the Samnites, with some loss, beat off this new 
enemy, and entered their own country in safety. 

10 Livy, X. 29. triumph, whereas Livy makes him march back 

71 This appears from the circumstance that to Etruria after his triumph. But, as Nicbuhr 

Fabius marched into Etruria and engaged the says, his army would be disbanded as a matter 

Perusians; which shows thatCn. Fulvius must of course after his triumph, and the Fasti Ca- 

have already been recalled, and also because pitolini say that lie triumphed over the Etrus- 

App. Claudius, the pretor, was ordered to sup- cans, as well as the Samnites and Gauls ; which 

port L. Volumnius in Samnium with the re- he could not have done had he only triumphed 

mains of the army of Decius: had the proline- lor his victory at Seutinum, as no Etruscans 

tor's armies been still embodied, one of them were engaged there. 

would probably have been employed on that M Livy, X. 30. 

service. I have followed Niebuhx in placing 13 Livy, X. 80. 
Fabius' victories over the Perusians belore his 



Chap. XXXIII] INDECISIVE CAMPAIGN. 343 

It is manifest that during this year Samnium enjoyed a complete respite from 
invasion ; and that L. Volumnius, even if we suppose that he was operations m samnt- 
not called away to the great seat of war in Umbria, was not a •!£ SL^S. 1 ! dur ' 
match for the Samnite forces opposed to him. 

His defeat of a Samnite army which had taken refuge in the Matese is en- 
titled to no credit whatever ; on the contrary, we find that the Samnites again 
invaded the Roman territory in two different directions; 74 that one army de- 
scended into the districts of Formise and Vescia, and another laid waste the banks 
of the Vulturnus apparently where it first issues out on the plain of Campania. 
After the battle of Sentinum, the legions of Decius were recalled from Etruria, 
and put under the command of Appius Claudius, the prsetor, and he and L. Vo-. 
lumnius, acting together with their two armies, obliged the Samnites to retreat 
within their frontier. But as the Etruscans had not yet made peace with Rome, 
the Samnites were not discouraged, and trusted that another year might enable 
them to retrieve their defeat at Sentinum. 

The events of the next year, however, are involved in such confusion that it 
is impossible to disentangle them. L. Postumius Megellus, one A . u. c . 460 . A . c 
of the propraetors of the year before, was now consul, and M. 2 T 94 ; R ™LTff£> 
Atilius Regulus was his colleague. The seat of war was again trans- ad ™ Dt *s es ^ iu 
ferred to Apulia, 15 where the'Samnites, well understanding the importance of act- 
ing on the offensive, laid siege to Luceria. Here there was fought a bloody and 
indecisive battle, in which the Romans were in such danger that the consul 
vowed to build a temple to Jove, the stayer of flight, if his army were saved from 
total rout. At the end of the campaign the Roman army wintered at Interam- 
na, 16 in the valley of the Liris, to save that country from the ravages of the enemy ; 
and the consul returned to Rome to hold the comitia. His colleague had been 
recalled from Samnium earlier in the season to carry on the war in Etruria; and 
this he did, according to the Roman accounts, with such success," that Vulsinii, 
Perusia, and Arretium sued for peace, and obtained a truce for forty years. But 
which consul it was who fought at Luceria, and which had marched into Etruria, 
the annalists did not know, and therefore guessed variously. 18 Some accounts 
went so far as to say that both consuls triumphed ; 19 but most said that only one 
obtained that honor, and again they did not agree in determining which consul 
it was. It is probable that neither of the consuls triumphed ; nor does it seem 
likely that the Romans obtained any advantages in this year, except, perhaps, 
over the ever-restless but ever-vacillating and divided Etruscans. The Samnites, 
therefore, resolved to try their fortune once again. 

The next year was' undoubtedly marked by great successes on the side of the 
Romans ; but its history is still uncertain in the details, and much A . u. c. 46i. a. c. 
of the geography of the campaign is wholly inexplicable. The Ssuishi^ofTpap^-' 
consuls were L. Papirius Cursor, son of that Papirius who had ius and Sp - CaivUiua - 

74 Livy, X. 31. He describes the scene of the narrative of this war seems to have_ depended 
Samnite inroad in these words, "in JEserninum chiefly on the memoirs of the Fabian family, 
qnaeque Vulturno adjacent flumini." The word and to have become uncertain where they failed 
which, in the modern editions of Livy, is printed him, did not venture to say which it was. — See 
as " TEserninum" varies, however, in the MSS. Livy, X. 37. 

greatly. iEsernia, in Samnium, seems out of ,9 Fasti Capitolini. — Livy says that Atilius 

the question, for it was only in the beginning did not triumph, but that Postumius did, by his 

of the first Punic war that the Eoinans planted own authority, without the sanction of the sen- 

a colony there ; unless we suppose that portions ate. But this 'story is referred by Dionysius to 

of its domain had already been ceded to the Ko- Postumius' third consulship three years after- 

mans in the second Samnite war, which, how- wards; and Claudius said that Postumius uevei 

ever, considering how deep the city lies in the triumphed at all. It does not appear that the 

heart of Samnium, seems improbable. narrative of Fabius gave a triumph to either of 

75 Livy, X. 35. them.— Livy, X. 37. 

70 Livy, X. 36. Orosius' description of the events of this 

77 Livy, X. 37. year is far nearer the truth, I think, than the 

78 Livy says that Atilius fought at Luceria, account of Livy. "Sequitur annus quo Bo- 
and Postumius marched into Etruria. Clau- mani instaurato a Samnitibus bello victi sunti, 
dius Quadrigarius, as quoted by Livy, main- atque in castra fugerunt." III. 22. 

tained exactly the contrary; and Fabius, whose 



344 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

been so famous in the second Samnite war, and Sp. Carvilius Maximus. Car- 
vilius took the command 80 of the army which had wintered near Interamna, on 
the Litis ; Papirius commanded two new legions, and both consuls were ordered 
to invade Samnium. 

The Samnites, on their part, are said to have raised an army with unusual 
Despemte resolution of care, and to have bound their soldiers by the most solemn oaths, 
the summits. taken amidst the most mysterious and horrid ceremonies, that 

they would either conquer or die. The men thus pledged were arrayed in a 
peculiar manner, with waving plumes on their helmets, and with coats of white 
linen, exactly as had been done fifteen years before, when the old Papirius, the 
.father of the present consul, was appointed dictator to encounter them ; and the 
repetition of these same ceremonies by the Samnites now made the Romans, for 
the omen's sake, appoint another Papirius Cursor to be consul ; as if the Pa- 
pirian family 81 was chosen by the gods to meet and to overcome the most desper- 
ate efforts of their Samnite enemies. 

It was no doubt the failure of all co-operation in Etruria, and the knowledge, 
therefore, that they would have to withstand the whole force of 

They retain their hold ,-, i • 1 1 1 1 o • ii t 

on the country of the Kome, which led the Samnites to appty these extraordinary excite- 
ments to the courage of their soldiers. Yet it seems as if they 
had not abandoned all hopes of Etruscan aid, and that they had learned from 
their enemies the wisdom of acting on the offensive ; for the first operations of 
the Roman armies were the capture of Amiternum, 82 and the ravaging of the 
country of Atina. This seat of war implies that the Samnites still obstinately 
retained their line of communication with Etruria amidst all the invasions of their 
own country, and with this view still held fast to their alliance those Sabine and 
Volscian cities which, at the beginning of the coalition, had been forced or per- 
suaded to espouse their cause. 

A Samnite army was also sent into Campania to ravage the territory 83 of the 

Romans and their allies on the Litis and Vulturnus, whilst another 

was kept in Samnium for home defence ; and it was, perhaps, to 

the soldiers of this last army, consisting of the oldest and youngest men capable 

of bearing aims, that the excitements of enthusiasm were applied, to make up 

for their inferiority in strength and in. experience. 

The Roman consuls" 1 having jointly laid waste the territory of Atina, proceeded 
Bon. the Roman con- to enter Samnium. The seat of war lay apparently in the country 
o,'erM^'«n S th"''nor'i'i; of tlie Pentrian Samnites on the north of the Matese : Carvilius 
ofthe Matese. \ A \^ siege to Cominium : Papirius, after having taken Duronia, 

marched against Aquilonia, where the Samnite army was stationed ; all these 
three places are quite unknown to us, and we can only conclude that the}' lay on 
the north side of the Matese, because two of them are described as being near to 
Bovianum, the site of which is known. The Samnites, attacked at once by two 
consular armies, were compelled to divide their forces ; and eight thousand men 
were detached from the army before Aquilonia to relieve Cominium. A deserter 
acquainted Papirius with this movement, and he instantly sent off a messenger 
to warn his colleague, while he himself attacked the enemy at the moment when 
he knew their force to be thus untimely weakened. The auspices had been 
reported to be most favorable ; " the fowls ate so eagerly," so said their keeper 
to the consul, " that some of the corn dropped from their mouths on the ground." 8 * 
This was the best possible omen ; but just as the consul was on the point of 
giving the signal for action, his nephew, Sp. Papirius, came to tell him that the 

80 Livy, X. 89. pnseuntur (aves) neoesse est illiquid ox ore oa 

81 Livy, X. 3s, 39. dere et terram pavire, terripaviuui primo, post 
ra Livy, X. 89. terripudinm dictum est: boo quidem jam tri- 
n Zouaras, Ylil. 1. pudium dicitur. Quum ieitur offia cecidit ex 
"' Livy. X. 89. ore pnlli, turn auspicanti-tripudium soustimum 
^ "Pullariua auspicium mentiri ausus tripu- nuntiant." — Cicero, do Divinat. II. 8-i. 

diiiin solistiuiuiu." — Livy, X. 40. " Quia quim 



Chap. XXXIIL] VICTORIES OF THE ROMANS. 345 

keeper had made a false report. " Some of his comrades have declared the truth," 
said the young man: "and far from eating eagerly, the fowls would not touch 
their food at all." "Thou hast done thy duty, nephew, in telling me this," re- 
plied his uncle, " but let the keeper see to it if he has belied the gods. His re- 
port to me is, that the omens are most favorable, and therefore I forthwith give 
the signal for battle. . But do you see," he added to some centurions who stood 
by, " that this keeper and his comrades be set in the front ranks of the legions." 
Ere the battle-cry was raised on either side, a chance javelin struck the guilty 
keeper, and he fell dead. His fate was instantly reported to the consul. "The 
gods," he exclaimed, " are amongst us ; their vengeance has fallen on the guilty." 
While he spoke, a crow was heard just in front of him to utter a full and loud 
cry. " Never did the gods more manifestly declare their presence anil favor," 
exclaimed the consul, and forthwith the signal was given, and the Roman battle- 
cry arose loud and joyful. 

The Samnites met their enemies bravely ; 86 but the awful rites under which 
they had been pledged gave them a gloomy rather than a cheer- Victory gained by L . 
ful courage ; they were more in the mood to die than to conquer. Pa P iriUB - 
On the Roman side, the consul's blunt humor, which he had inherited from his 
father, spread confidence all around him. In the heat of the battle, when other 
generals would have earnestly vowed to build a temple to the god whose aid they 
sought, if he would grant them victory, Papirius called aloud to Jupiter the vic- 
torious, " Ah, Jupiter, 67 if the enemy are beaten, I vow to offer to thee a cup of 
honeyed wine before I taste myself a drop of wine plain." Such irreverent jests 
do not necessarily imply a scoffing spirit ; they mark superstition or fanaticism 
quite as much as unbelief; nor would the consul's language shock those who 
heard it, but rather assure them that he spoke in the full confidence of being heard 
with favor by the gods, as a man in hours of festivity would smile at the famil- 
iarity of an indulged servant. Besides, Papirius performed well the part of a 
general ; he is said to have practised the trick which was so successful at Ban- 
nockburn ; 88 the camp servants were mounted on the baggage mules, and ap- 
peared in the midst of the action on the flank and rear of the Samnites ; the news 
ran through both armies, that Sp. Carvilius was come up to aid his colleague, 
and a general charge of the Roman cavalry and infantry at this moment broke 
the Samnite lines, and turned them to flight. The mass of the routed army fled 
either to their camp, or within the walls of Aquilonia; but the cavalry, contain- 
ing all the chiefs and the nobility of the nation, got clear from the press of the 
fugitives, and escaped to Bovianum. 

The Romans 89 followed up their victory, and stormed the Samnite camp, and 
scaled the walls of Aquilonia, which was abandoned by the enemy Succes8e8 f s P . c ar - 
duiing the night. Carvilius meanwhile had taken Cominium, viUus - 
while the detachment sent to relieve it had been recalled to the main army when 
Papirius began bis attack, and thus had wasted the day in marching backwards 
and forwards, without being present at either scene of action. These soldiers, 
however, having halted during the night in the neighborhood of Aquilonia, pur- 
sued their inarch the next day, and with a very trifling loss effected their retreat 
to Bovianum, which was now the common rallying point. 

Both Aquilonia 90 and Cominium were given up to be plundered by the con- 
querors, and were then set on fire. It was late in the season, (a 

, I'll i' n , /*i The consuls attack the 

circumstance which shows how imperfect are our accounts of these somite towns on the 
wars,) but the consuls having now no enemy in the field, wished 

86 Eivy, X. 41. the older Latin, was merely "wine." See Pliny, 

"_ " Voverat Jovi Victori, silegiones hostium Hist. Natur. XIV. 13, § 90, Ed. Sillig. 

fudisset, pocillum inulsi priusquarn temetum ** Livy, X. 40, 41. 

biberet sese facturuni." Livy, X. 42. Mul- fc0 Livy, X. 41-43. 

sum was " honeyed wine," a favorite beverage 90 Livy, X. 44. 45. 

of the Romans in the early times ; temetum, in 



346 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

to follow up their blow, and to attack the several Samnite cities ; a service most 
welcome to the soldiers, as it offered to them the prospect of plunder. Bovianum, 
however, was too strong to be attacked as yet ; so the consuls moved on further 
into the heart of the country, and fixed the seat of war on the eastern side of the 
Matese. Here Papirius laid siege to Ssepinum, a place not far from the sources 
of the Tamarus, near the modern road from Benevento to Campobasso, the capi- 
tal of Molise. Carvilius attacked a town, called variously in the MSS. of Livy, 
Vella, Velia, or Volana, but the position of which is altogether unknown. 

The tidings of these successes 91 were received at Rome with the greatest joy ; 
s P . carviims is recalled an d thanksgivings were offered for four days; the longest period 
and seat mto Etruna. f p U b]i c rejoicings for victory which has been hitherto mentioned 
in the R<aman annals. Just at this time, as Ave are told, there came complaints 
from the Roman allies on the Etruscan frontier, that is, we must suppose from 
the people of Sutrium, that the Etruscans were again in arms, and that the Fa- 
liscans, hitherto the allies of Rome, had now taken "part with the enemy. It is 
vain to attempt to explain all these movements in Etruria ; or to decide whether 
the Etruscans were tempted to renew the contest by the employment of both 
consuls in Samnium, or whether the Romans were encouraged by their victories 
there to take vengeance for past offences on the Etruscans. At any rate, the 
consuls were ordered to determine by lot which of them should march into Etru- 
ria ; and the lot fell upon Carvilius. His soldiers were glad to go, it is said, be- 
cause the cold of Samnium was becoming intolerable ; but they had other reasons 
besides the cold, for wishing to change their seat of war; for whatever might be 
the plunder of the Samnite towns, it was not always to be easily won ; and 
though Carvilius had taken three of them, yet it had been at the cost of two 
actions in the field, in which his own loss had exceeded that of the enemy. Pa- 
pirius, on his side, was detained for a long time before Ssepinum ; the Samnites 
made repeated sallies, and would not allow him even to form the siege of the 
place ; and their resistance was so protracted, that when at last they were 
overpowered, and the town was taken, the winter was so far advanced, that any 
further operations were impracticable, and Papirius having, as we may suppose, 
burnt Ssepinum, evacuated Samnium. 

The operations of Sp. Carvilius in Etruria 92 were short and successful ; Troil- 
Triumpha of both con- him and some small mountain fortresses were taken, and the Fa- 
6Uls- liscans purchased a truce for a year by the payment of 100,000 

ases, and a year's pay to the soldiers of the Roman army. Both consuls enjoyed 
a splendid triumph ; 93 and a very large treasure of copper and of silver was 
brought home by Papirius, and paid by him into the treasury, his victorious 
soldiers receiving nothing. Carvilius brought home also a large treasure ; but he 
divided a part of it amongst his troops, and their pay had already been provided 
to them out of the contribution paid by the Faliscans ; so that the ungracious 
conduct of Papirius was doubly odious, — for his soldiers received nothing from 
the plunder, and the war tax, or tributum, was made to furnish them with their 
pay; and thus his victories brought to the poorer citizens no relief from the 
burdens of war. The captured arms M were so numerous, that the allies and 
colonies of Rome received a large share to ornament their own cities ; and Sp. 
Carvilius 9 "' made out of those which fell to his portion a colossal statue of Jupiter, 
of such magnitude, that when it was set up on the Capitoline Hill at Rome, it 
could be seen from the temple of the Latin Jupiter on the summit of the mount- 
ain of Alba ; a distance in a straight line of not less than twelve English miles. 

01 Livy, X. 45. amounted to 1330 lbs. ; the copper money which 

w Livy, X. 46. had been obtained by the ransom or sale of the 

" Carvilius triumphed on the 18th of Jann- prisoners, amounted to 2,033,000 ases of full 

ary, and Papiriufl on the 18th of February, weight, that is, to so man] pounds' weight of 

Fasti CapitoEni. The weight of silver taken copper. 

from the temples and houses of the several " Livy, X. 16. 

cities of Samnium which had been captured e6 l'liiiy, Hist. Nat. XXXIV. § 43, Ed. SUlig. 



Chap. XXXIIL] Q. FABIUS GURGES. 347 

After such an issue of this campaign, we read with astonishment that Papirius 
led back his army to winter in the neighborhood of Vescia, 96 be- „ „ • . 

J . O . . C. Pontius again com- 

cause that country was still infested by the incursions 01 tne bam- mauds the sammteai- 
nites. And in the next year we find, after a long interval, C. 
Pontius of Telesia once more at the head of the Samnite armies ; we find him car- 
rying on war in Campania, and again victorious. Austria lost five armies in the 
campaign of 1796, before she would consent to treat for peace; and when the 
French were besieging Cadiz, and had won almost all the fortresses of the king- 
dom, Spain still continued to resist, and the Guerillas often inflicted defeat upon 
their triumphant enemy. But the Samnite victory obtained over Fabius Gurges 
in Campania in the year immediately following the triumphs of Papirius and Car- 
vilius, is more extraordinary than the fortitude either of Austria or Spain ; and 
so far as the circumstances are known to us, it can only be paralleled by the tri- 
umphant career of the Vendeans in Bretagne, when, after repeated defeats in 
their own country, they effected their desperate expedition beyond the Loire. 

We may ask why the Roman government, little apt to hold its hands till the 
work was fully done, and having nothing to fear on the side of 

_ . J . . ... . °. . ° . , . A. U. C. 462. A. C. 

Jbitruna, contented itself with sending a single consular army into 292. q. Fabius Gm-- 
the held in the year following the great victories ot rapinus and >s sent aw to invade 
Carvilius, instead of employing its whole force, and thus again 
overrunning the enemy's country. The reason, probably, is to be found in the 
severe visitation of pestilence which at this time fell upon Rome ; 91 and this may 
further explain why the legions of Papirius wintered in Campania; for as such 
disorders are generally more or less local, an army might be in perfect health on 
the hills by Vescia, while, had it remained in or near Rome, it would have been 
losing men daily. However, the new consul, Q. Fabius Gurges, 98 son of the 
great Fabius,' took the command of the army in Campania, and proceeded to- 
wards the frontiers of Samnium. C. Pontius Herennius, of whom nothing is 
known since the affair of the pass of Caudium, again commanded the Samnite 
army ; whether it was that he was now called upon in the extreme danger of 
his country, as the only man capable of saving it, or whether the southern Sam- 
nites, or Caudinians, had in fact taken no part in the war for many years, and 
only now, when the Pentrians were nearly exhausted, came forward to uphold 
their cause. 

The ravages which the pestilence was at this time making in Rome encouraged 
the enemy ;" and C. Pontius boldly invaded Campania. Q. Fa- 

-.. « J . -, » *iit*ii i/»it 1 Seventh campaign. The 

bius, forgetting how formidable is the last struggle of the hunted Romans are defeated by 

*-* ^ aO q Pontius. 

lion, thought that to meet the Samnites was to conquer them ; 

and when he fell in with some of their look-out parties, and they retired before 

him, he believed the whole Samnite army to be retreating, and leaving his bag- 

96 Livy, X. 46. paving of part of the Appian road, and of the 

97 Livy, X. 47. Zonaras, VIII. 1. building of several temples. But we might 

98 Livy, X. 47. In the last chapter of his cheerfully resign, not the second decade only, 
tenth book, Livy names the consuls who were but the first, third, and fourth, in short, every 
elected for the year 462, Q. Fabius Gurges, and line of Livy's history which we at present pos- 
D. Junius Brutus. And here the first decade sess, if we could so purchase the recovery of 
of Livy's history ends, and as the second de- the eighth and ninth decades, which contained 
cade is lost, we shall now be without his assist- the history of the Italian war, and of the civil 
ance for the remainder of this volume. We war of Marius and Sylla which followed it. For 
should be glad to possess the eleventh book, this period, of which we know, as it is, so little, 
which contained the account of the secession to Livy's history would have been invaluable. He 
the Janiculum and of the Hortensian laws : yet, would have been writing of times and events 
on the whole, a careful study of the ninth and sufficiently near to his own to have been per- 
tenth books will dispose us to be more patient fectly understood by him; his sources of infor- 
of the loss of those which followed them. How mation would have been more numerous and 
little does the tenth book tell us of the internal less doubtful, and then his fair and upright 
state of Borne, how uncertain are its accounts mind, and the beauty of his narrative, would 
of the several wars ! Its most valuable infor- have given us a picture at once faithful, lively, 
mation consists in the miscellaneous notices and noble. 

with which Livy generally concludes his ac- " Zonaras, VIII. 2. 
count of every year ; such as his notice of the 



348 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIII. 

gage behind him, he pushed on as to a certain victory. His men were already 
tired and disordered by the haste of their march, when they found the Samnite 
army in perfect order ready to receive them. They were presently defeated ; 
3000 men were killed on the place, 100 many were wounded, and night alone saved 
the army from destruction. But they could not retreat to their baggage, 101 and 
passed a miserable night in the open country, without any means of relieving 
their wounded, whose sufferings filled the whole army with horror and dismay. 
Day dawned, and the Romans expected to be attacked by the conquerors : but 
Pontius, it is said, heard that the old Fabius was close at hand, coming up with 
a second army to support his son, and therefore he allowed the beaten Romans 
to retreat unmolested. This is improbable, 102 but the truth is lost beyond re- 
covery, and it is vain to attempt to restore the details of this most important 
campaign. 

The defeat of Fabius excited great indignation at Rome ; and the political ad- 
versaries of his father, such as Appius Claudius and L. Papirius, 

The old Q. Fabiuo ., r . iir--i 

serves under his sod a 3 the latter ot whom was now praetor, would not tail to exaggerate 
his misconduct. It was moved in the senate that he should be re- 
called from the army, in other words, that his imperium or consular power should 
be taken from him ; a measure without example in Roman history, except in the 
case of L. Cinna. The simple course would have been to order the consul to 
name a dictator ; and he would in that case have named his father, who, by uni- 
versal consent, was the, man best fitted to meet the need. But the more violent 
course was preferred by the party opposed to Fabius, and would have been 
carried, had not the old Fabius 103 moved the senate by offering to go himself to 
the army, not in the majesty of the dictator's office, as most befitted his age and 
glory, but merely as lieutenant to his son. This could not be refused, and the 
old man followed his son to the field, leading with him, we may be sure, sufficient 
reinforcements ; for every Roman loved the old Q. Fabius, and felt confident that 
in marching under his command he was marching to victory. 

A second battle followed ; where fought, or how brought about, we know not. 
c. Pontius is defeated The old Fabius was the Talbot of the fifth century of Rome ; and 
and taken prisoner. j^jg p ersona i prowess, even in age, was no less celebrated than his 
skill as a general. When the consul was surrounded by the enemy in the heat 
of the battle, 104 his aged father led the charge to his rescue ; and the Romans, 
animated by such an example, could not be resisted, and won a complete victory. 
C. Pontius was taken prisoner, and 4000 Samnites shared his fate, while 20,000 
were slain on the field. 



100 Eutropius, II. Suidas, in <I>a'/3[05 Ma£(//oj. Rome before his father, and -was anxious to 
We should like to know from whom Suidas fight the Samnites. before he joined him. that 
borrowed this article; but who, except Nie- the glory of the action might be his own. Livy, 
buhr, has a sufficient power of divination to (Epitom. XL) Eutropius. and the writer from 
discover it '. whom Suidas copied his article, "Fabius Maxi- 

I owe my knowledge of the passage in Suidas inns," say that the old man was only made his 
to Freinsneim's supplement of the eleventh son*s lieutenant after his defeat, and upon his 
book ot' I, ivy; and as he lias consulted almost own request, in order to save him from being 
every passage in the ancient writers which re- deprived of his command. But if this be true, 
kites to these times, I have in other instances and it seems the more probable account, how 
been indebted to him in like manner. But it could Pontius expect the arrival of the oil l-'a- 
is right to stale, that 1 have always consulted bins on the instant after his son's defeat? 
3sages to which he refers, and have my- Perhaps the consul fought with only a part of 
Belf verified them: and of this the reader may his army, and his lieutenant brought up tho 
be assured, that no quotation has been made in other part to his rescue from the camp which 
these notes which I have not myself verified ; he had left so rashly; and something of this 
if it has ever happened that I have not had the sort is probable, for if Q. Fabius had been de- 
hook within my reach, the circumstance has feated by the enemy in a fair battle without any 
been and will be especially noticed. fault of his own, the senate, according to its 

101 Zonaras, VIII. '-'. usual practice, would not have treated his dc- 
103 Zonaras. who copies I Hon Cassius, reprc- feal so severely. 

Benta the old Fabius as having been appointed u ' 3 l.ivy, Kpii.XI. DionCass. Fragm. Peircsc, 

lieutenant to his son at the beginning of the XXXVI, 

campaign ; and he says that the consul left 1M Orosius, III. 22. 



Chap. XXXIII.] DEFEAT OF C. PONTIUS. 349 

What resources of hope or of despair could still be left to the Sammies after 
a disaster so irreparable? Yet they resisted for another year, A . u. c. 463. a. c. 
during which the war was carried on by two consular armies 105 in I^bmagaS"^ 
the heart of their country: many of their towns were taken; and b J h ""» M! »' a "" ,a 
amongst the rest, Venusia, a place on the frontiers of Lucania and Apulia, and 
important both from its strength and its position. So completely, indeed, was 
the power of Samnium broken, that now, for the first time, the Romans resolved 
to establish a colony in its territory. Venusia was the spot chosen for this pur- 
pose ; but it marks the sense still entertained of the Samnite spirit of resistance, 
that no fewer than 20,000 colonists were sent out to occupy and maintain the 
new settlement. 

After his victory, Q. Fabius, the consul, was continued in his command for 
some time as proconsul. It was not, therefore, till the summer of 
the year 463 that he returned to Rome, and triumphed. While he Gur™Z c. Pontius' b 
was borne along in his chariot, according to custom, his old father cessfoT and P ut pr to 
rode on horseback behind him as one of his lieutenants, 106 delight- 
ing himself with the honors of his son. But at the moment when the consul 
and his father having arrived at the end of the Sacred Way turned to the left to 
ascend the hill of the Capitol, C. Pontius, the Samnite general, who, with the 
other prisoners of rank, had thus far followed the procession, was led aside to the 
right hand to the prison 107 beneath the Capitoline Hill, and there was thrust down 
into the underground dungeon of the prison, and beheaded. One year had 
passed since his last battle ; nearly thirty since he had spared the lives and lib- 
erty of two Roman armies, and, unprovoked by the treachery of his enemies, had 
afterwards set at liberty the generals who were given up into his power as a pre- 
tended expiation of their country's perfidy. Such a murder, committed or sanc- 
tioned by such a man as Q. Fabius, is peculiarly a national crime, and proves 
but too clearly that in their dealings with foreigners the Romans had neither 
magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice. 

In the year 464, P. Cornelius Rufinus and M'. Curius Dentatus were chosen 
consuls, Both entered Samnium with their armies, 108 but it was 
rather to entitle themselves to the honor of a triumph, than to 290. 'Ninth campaign.' 

1 -1 ... -r-, /. ;1 o ., The Samnites lay down 

overbear any real opposition, hverj resource 01 the Samnites their acms and submit 
was exhausted, and they again submitted. They were again re- 
ceived as dependent allies of Rome ; what territory was taken from them besides 
that of Venusia, we are not told, or what other sacrifices were required of them. 
Such was the end of the third Samnite war. 

105 By L. Postumius, the consul, with his 107 So the well-known passage in Cicero, Ver- 
own army, and by Q. Fabius, the consul of the res, Act. II. v. 30, where he describes and even 
former year, as proconsul. — Dionysius, XVI. approves of this atrocious practice. " Supplicia, 
16. quae dehentur hostibus victis." 

106 Plutarch in Fab. Maxim, c. 24. 108 Eutropius, II. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

INTERNAL HISTORY, FROM THE PASSING OF THE OGULNIAN LAW TO THE 
LANDING OF PYEEIIUS IN ITALY— SECESSION TO THE JANICULUM— DICTA- 
TORSHIP OF Q. HORTENSIUS— HORTENSIAN AND M^NIAN LAWS. — FROM 
A. U. C. 454 TO 474. 



"Clearly a difficult point for government, that of dealing with these masses; — if indeed it 
he not rather the sole point and problem of government, and all other points mere accidental 
crotchets, superficialities, and beatings of the wind." — Carlyle, Hist, of French Revolution, 
Vol. I. p. 48. 

There is often in well-contrived works of fiction a point in the middle of the 
story, at which all its circumstances seem tending towards a happy 
in the internal state of catastrophe ; and it is only because the reader knows that there is 
much of the story yet to come, and that something therefore must 
occur to spoil the fair prospect, that he doubts the stability of the hero's or 
heroine's good fortune. So promising was the domestic state of Rome in the 
year 454, when the censorship of Fabius and Decius on the one hand, followed 
by the Ogulnian and Valerian laws on the other, seemed to announce that society 
had arrived at its perfect settlement ; in which every member of it had found his 
proper place, and the artificial institutions of man seemed to correspond faith- 
fully to the model, existing in truth, though not in fact, which our reason declares 
to be the will of God. 

But it should ever be borne in mind, that history looks generally at the politi- 
cal state of a nation ; its social state, which is infinitely more ira- 
oiarra'ther^tna^pont portant, and in which lie the seeds of all the greatest revolutions, 
is too commonly neglected or unknown. What is called the con- 
stitution of Rome, as far as regards the relations of patricians and plebeians to 
each other, was, in fact, perfected by the Ogulnian law, and remained for cen- 
turies without undergoing any material change. By that law the commons were 
placed in all respects on a level with the patricians ; and the contests between 
these two orders were brought to an end forever. The comitia, too, had assumed 
that form, whatever it was, which they retained to the end of the commonwealth ; 
the powers of the magistrate as affecting the liberty of the citizen underwent 
but little subsequent alteration. But however stationary political institutions may 
remain, the social state of a nation is forever changing; peace affects this no less 
than war, and many times even more : nay, seasons of profound political quiet 
may be working far more extensive alteration than periods of faction, or even of 
civil war. And so it was with the years which followed the passing of the Ogul- 
nian law. Politically they are almost a blank; they present no new law, 
nothing that deserves the name of a contest between orders in common- 
wealth, scarcely between indivdiuals ; the public attention seems to have been 
fixed exclusively on the events of the war with Etruria and Samnium. Yet we 
know that they must have wrought great social changes ; for so violent a meas- 
ure as a secession could never have been so much as contemplated, had it not 
been preceded by long and general distress, producing social irritation first, and 
then political. 

In the seven years which followed immediately after the passing of the Ogul- 
nian law, we find mention made of a season of great scarcity 1 (a. 
se^nTof scarcity and u. c. 454), and of two years' of pestilence (459 and 461). We 
pc»uionco. a j sQ rea ^ Q £ prosecutions Dv tne ggdiles in three several years for 

1 Livy, X. II. 11. ' Livy, X. 81, 47. 



Chap. XXXIV.] ENCROACHMENTS OF THE ETCH. 35 1 

violations of the Licinian law 3 (456, 458, 461); and also of prosecutions by the 
same magistrates for a breach of the law which forbade the taking of interest 
upon a debt 4 (358). Now, although there may be some caprice in Livy's notice 
or omission of such particulars, yet it is at least remarkable that he has re- 
corded so many of them at this period ; while in the twenty-three years previous 
to the Ogulnian law, a term which includes the whole of the second Samnite war, we 
have no mention of any one of them, with the exception of an uncertain report of a 
pestilence in the year 44 1. 5 . And the argument is the stronger, because we do 
find notices before the second Samnite war of prosecutions both for the breach 
of the Licinian law, and for taking illegal interest 6 (398 and 411); so that Ave 
may fairly conclude that the second Samnite war itself was a period compara- 
tively exempt, at any rate, from offences of this nature, as also from the visitations 
of pestilence and famine. The causes of these last evils belong, indeed, to a law 
of God's providence which is to us unknown ; but the occurrence of particular 
crimes at particular periods may in general be explained, if we are fully acquainted 
with the history of the time ; and even in the fifth century of Rome, meagre as 
our knowledge of it is, we may in some measure account for the facts presented 
to us. 

The close of the second Samnite war in 450, the conquest of the ^Equians in 
the same year, that of the Hernican state of Frusino in the year 
following, and of the Marsians in 452, must have added greatly m»nts oi the rich d, tho 
to the domain land of the Romans. It was but a small proportion 
of this which was assigned to the 14,000 colonists of Alba, Carseoli, and Sora ; 
the remainder would be either let to the old inhabitants on payment of a rent or 
vectigal to Rome, or would be occupied or beneficially enjoyed by individual 
citizens of Rome or of her allies. Now, as slaves were not yet numerous, there 
would be a difficulty in procuring laborers to cultivate tracts of lands lying 
mostly at a distance from Rome, and, in many instances, liable to the incursions 
of an enemy in time of Avar. It would be more convenient, therefore, to the 
occupiers to throw their land into pasture wherever it was practicable ; and large 
tracts of domain Avould be fit for nothing but pasture, such as the higher valleys, 
and the sides and summits of the mountains ; and these Avould not be occupied 
by any one particular person, but would be common land, on Avhich any one 
Avould have a right to turn out a certain number of sheep and oxen, limited by 
the Licinian laAv. Now, the acts of violence which were practised, even under 
the emperors, by poAverful men against the property of their weaker neighbors, 
and the alfysion to forcible ejectment, as to a thing of no unusual occurrence, in 
the language of the piEetor's interdict, may warrant our believing that the cattle 
of a small proprietor, Avhen turned ou on the mountain pastures at a distance 
from Rome, would be liable to continual injuries, and that the common land 
would be exclusively enjoyed by wealthy men, who would little scruple to ex- 
ceed the legal number of sheep and oxen which they were permitted to feed. 
These Avere the pecuarii whom Livy twice notices as impeached by the sediles 
and heavily fined ; but the temptation to violate the law was perpetually recur- 
ring ; and the chances of a prosecution must have been very uncertain ; nor was 
it always impossible for a poAverful man 1 of fair military reputation to escape 
from his prosecutors, by getting the consul to name him as one of his lieu- 
tenants. 

Thus, on the one hand, the years which immediately followed the second Sam- 
nite Avar, furnished the rich with many opportunities of becoming p art i y by the continued 
richer. On the other hand, there were many causes at work which wars - 
made the poor yet poorer. A season of extreme scarcity, such as that of the 
year 455, must have obliged many of the small tradesmen and artificers of the 

3 Livy, X. 13, 23, 47. 6 Livy, VII. 16, 28. 

4 Livy, X. 23. T As in the case of L. Postuinius, which will 
6 Livy, IX. 28. be noticed hereafter.— See Livy, X. 46. 



352 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIV. 

city to incur debts. Two or three years of pestilence following closely upon one 
another, as in 459, 461, and 462, must have created great distress not only 
amongst the town population, but also amongst the agricultural commons : where 
the father was carried off by the disorder, his wife and family, who were solely 
dependent on his labor, would be at once reduced to poverty, or again would be 
forced to relieve their immediate necessity by borrowing. If the pestilence was 
local, and raged most in Rome and its immediate neighborhood, yet the more 
distant tribes suffered from evils of another sort. The tribes on the Etruscan 
frontier suffered perhaps something in 455 from an inroad of the Gauls, which 
no doubt aggravated the scarcity of that year ; the Falerian tribe in Campania 
was repeatedly, as we have seen, exposed to the invasions of the Samnites. The 
extraordinary military exertions of the Romans in the third Samnite war must 
have rendered necessary a heavy amount of taxation. In the great campaign of 
459, six legions were raised, besides two armies of reserve ; and in the preceding 
year there had been a levy 8 of the whole population of the city, which had been 
kept under arms for nearly three weeks, whilst the two consular armies were at 
the same time employed in the field. Nor were the services of the soldier re- 
quired only for a few weeks in the summer or autumn ; the legions were more 
than once 9 kept abroad during the whole winter ; which in itself must have been 
a great hardship to the small landed proprietor, whose land coidd ill spare his 
presence and his labor. Besides, even in the unfair accounts which remain to us 
of the events of the war, it is confessed that the Roman loss in battle was often 
very severe ; and although their writers do not acknowledge it, the Romans must 
have lost also many prisoners, whose ransom, if they were not left in hopeless 
captivity, was an additional burden upon their families. And when, after all 
this, the most valuable part of the spoil won in a successful campaign was wholly 
put into the treasury, as was done by L. Papirius in 461, 10 and the soldier re- 
ceived nothing but what he might have gained for himself in sacking one or more 
of the Samnite cities, the mass of the population would feel, that while the bur- 
dens of war were mostly borne by them, they had scarcely any share of its occa- 
sional advantage. 

Thus it is conceivable that, within three or four years after the end of the 
obscurity of the history third Samnite war, a large portion of the Roman people should 
ald'oppmienis of'The bave been again involved in debt, and thus should have been irri- 
popuiarwn.se. tated against their richer countrymen, and ready to catch fire on 

the smallest provocation. But the deepest obscurity involves this part of the 
Roman history : for Livy's tenth book ends with the consulship of £. Papirius 
and Sp. Carvilius, and from that time to the war with Pyrrhus, we have no other 
record of events than the meagre epitomes of Zonaras, Orosius, and Eutropius, 
and a few fragments and incidental notices from other writers. Even the Fasti 
Capitolini are wanting for this period ; so that the very lists of consuls can only 
be made out from recent authorities." Thus, we neither know the immediate 
causes, nor the leaders, nor the principal opponents, nor even the exact date of 
the great popular movement which was finally appeased by Q. Hortensius as 
dictator. We may conjecture that Appius Claudius, so far as his infirmities might 

B Livy, X. 21. "Senatus — delectum omnis edition of Eusebius ; from the anonymous Fasti, 

generis hominum haberijussit, nee ingenai mo- first published by Cardinal Noria from a manu- 

do aul juniores Sacramento adacti, Bed seniorum script in the imperial library at Vienna, and re- 

ctiam eohortea factse, libertiniqne centuriati." printed by Gravida in bis great collection of 

u Aj>)>. Claudius' army was kept in Etruria Roman antiquities. Vol. XI. p. 855, and, lastly, 

daring the winter of 458. — Livy, X. 25. The from the Fasti, which go by the name of the 

army ofM. A.tiliun wintered aearInteramna,on Fasti of Idatius, published also by Grseviua in 

the l.iris, in 160, and thai of L. Papirius was the same volume, p. -J47. The two last, Fasti 

kept out in the country of Vesoia through the give only the cognomina of the consuls, and this 

winter of 461. — Livy, X. 39, 46. is too often the ease with Ihe Sicilian Fasti also; 

"' Livy, X. 4<). they arc also often corrupt, but such as they 

11 From CassiodoruSj from what arc called arc," they are ahnost our sole authority for the 

the Fasti Siculi, published by Sculiger in his consuls of this dark period. 



Chap. XXXIV.] M'. CURIITS DENTATUS. 353 

permit him, was most zealous in his opposition to the demands of the people ; 
and that L. Papirius Cursor took the same side. On the other hand, the claims 
of the popular party were supported, as is most probable, by one of the most 
eminent Romans of this period, M'. Curius Dentatus. 

This is a name familiar to every ear, and associated with our highest ideas of 
ancient Roman virtue. Yet there is not a single great man within 
the historical period of Rome of whose life less is known to us. opposes A PP ius ciau- 
Like the Fulvii, and like Ti. Coruncanius, and C. Fabricius, he 
was not of Roman extraction ; he came from one of the Latin towns which had 
received the full Roman franchise, 12 and he was a man of no inherited fortune. 
His merit as a soldier must have first brought him into notice ; and the plain 
resoluteness of his character, not unlike that of Marius, and perhaps combined, 
as in his case, with a marked abhorrence of the wealthy aristocracy, caused him 
to be elected tribune of the commons. In his tribuneship 13 he resisted the most 
eloquent and overbearing of the patricians, Appius Claudius, who, when holding 
the comitia as interrex, refused to allow the election of a plebeian consul. Cu- 
rius compelled the curiae to ratify the choice of the centuries beforehand, on 
whomsoever it might fall ; and thus the candidate, when elected by the. comitia, 
needed no further confirmation of his. title ; he was at once consul. Such is the 
anecdote as related by Cicero ; but we cannot with certainty fix the date of it. 14 
It must, however, have occurred before the year 464, when Curius was consul, 
and, as we have seen, put an end to the Samnite war. 

His consulship was rendered further memorable by the beginning and end of 
another war, 15 that with the Sabines. Some aid given by them to hu conquest of the sa- 
their kinsmen, the Samnites, afforded the Romans a pretext for bines - 
attacking them, after the peace between the two nations had lasted since the year 
after the expulsion of the decemvirs ; that is, during a period of a century and a 
half. The Sabines dwelt in the heart of Italy, in the valley of the Velinus, on 
the south of the central Apennines, and along the upper part of the course of 
the Aternus, which runs into the Adriatic. It was an extensive and populous 
country, for it came down to the left bank of the Tiber at Cures, only nineteen 
miles from Rome, and it stretched beyond the Apennines as far as the confines 
of the Vestinians and Picentians. It was rich in oil 16 and wine, and the acorns 
of its forests fattened innumerable herds of swine. But the long peace which 
had increased its wealth, had also made its people un warlike ; they fell almost 
without a struggle ; and their conquest, according to the old historian, Fabius 
Pictor, 11 first made the Romans acquainted with riches. For his double victory 
over the Samnites and Sabines, Curius triumphed twice in the same year ; and 
he declared of himself in the assembly of the people, on his return to Rome : " I 

12 This appears from the speech of Cicero, pro 16 Livy, Epitom. XI. Auctor, de Viris Illustr. 
Sulla, 7, § 23 ; but we have no information, I be- in M'. Cur. Dentat. 

lieve, as to the particular town from which he 16 Strabo, V. 3, § 1, p. 228. 

came. 17 Strabo, V. 3, § 1, p. 228. This contrasts 

13 Cicero, Brutus, 14, § 55. strangely with our notions of Sabine simplicity 

14 We find from Livy, X. 11, that Appius and frugality: " hanc vitam veteres olim te- 
Claudras was interrex in the year 455, at the nuere Sabini," &c. But, possibly, Strabo did 
breaking out of the third Samnite war. But, not give Fabius' meaning correctly ; and the 
as Nicbuhr observes, Appius Claudius was in- old historian may have spoken not of the Sa- 
terrex three several times, as appears from the bines only, but of them and the Samnites to- 
inseription recording the principal dignities and gether, calling them both, perhaps, by the corn- 
actions of his life, Orelli, No. 529, so that we mon name of " Sabellians," a term by which 
cannot tell in which of his three interregna the the Samnites are called in Livy, X. 19. Fabius 
circumstance noticed by Cicero took place, meant, probably, to speak of the period of Cu- 
"VVhen he was a candidate for his second con- rius' consulship,' when he conquered both the 
sulship in 457, he earnestly endeavored to get Samnites and Sabines, and made the speech 
Q. Fabius elected with himself, in order to ex- reported in the text. But that speech is espe- 
clude a plebeian, Livy, X. 15 ; but this must not cially referred by the author of the work " de 
be confounded with Cicero's story; it only Viris lllustribus" to the Samnite conquests of 
shows the habitual temper of the man, and that Curius, and not to his successes against the Sa- 
ne never lost sight of his object, of restoring bines. 

the old ascendency of the patricians. 
23 



354 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chat. XXXIT. 

have conquered such an extent of country that it must have heen left a wilder- 
ness, had the men whom I have made our subjects been fewer : I have subjected 
such a multitude of men, that they must have starved if the territory conquered 
with them had been smaller." The Sabines were obliged 18 to become subjects 
of Rome ; that is, to receive the citizenship without the right of voting. 

For his double victory over the Samnites and Sabines, Curius, it is recorded, 19 
He brings forward an triumphed twice in the course of the year of his consulship. But 
Bgrarianiaw. a f ar h arc l er contest, and one in which no triumphs could be 

gained, awaited him at Rome. He saw on the one hand the extreme distress of 
the poorer citizens, whom war and pestilence together had overwhelmed with 
misery ; on the other hand, he had conquered large tracts of lands, which, if 
granted out under an agrarian law, might go far towards the relief of their suf- 
ferings ; and, further, the grasping and insolent spirit of some of the nobility dis- 
gusted him with the system of the occupation of the domain lands by individuals. 
It was only in the preceding year that L. Postumius had employed a Roman 
army as his slaves,' 20 and had made his soldiers clear a wide extent of public land 
won from the enemy, which he had been allowed to occupy for himself. The 
actual colleague of Curius in the consulship was P. Cornelius Rufinus, 51 a man 
already notorious for his rapacity and corruption, and who, doubtless, was turn- 
ing his Samnite conquests to his own account, and appropriating to himself, at 
this very moment, the spoil won by the valor of his soldiers. So Curius thought 
that justice and the public good required that the conquests of the nation should 
be made available for the relief of the national distress ; and he proposed an 
agrarian law which should allot to every citizen a portion of seven jugera. 22 

He arrayed at once against him, not the patricians only, but many families, no 
wio were Ms principal doubt, of the new nobility, who, having attained to wealth and 
opponents. honors, felt entirely as the older members of the aristocracy. The 

ancestors of Lucullus, and of the Metelli, and of the orator Hortensius, already, 
we may believe, had joined that party which their descendants so constantly up- 
held. They made common cause with Appius Claudius, the uncompromising 
enemy of their whole order, who despised the richest of the Licinii as heartily 
as the poorest citizen of one of the city tribes. L. Scipio was likely to entertain 
the same spirit of resistance to the agrarian law of Curius, which Scipio Masica, 
nearly two hundred years afterwards, displayed so fiercely against the measures 
of Ti. Gracchus ; and L. Papirius Cursor, with all his father's inflexible temper 
and unyielding courage, would be slow to comply with the demands of a ple- 
beian multitude. The old Q. Fabius was respected and loved by all orders of 
his countrymen, and he had been opposed to the party of the high aristocracy ; 
but perhaps his civil courage was not equal to his courage in the field ; he had 

18 Paterculus, 1. 14. "Sabinis sine suffragio from destruction, which is the meaning of Fa- 
data civitas." bricius' words; and therefore Niebuhr thinks 

18 Livy, Epitom. XT. that the story may refer to the time of Buttons' 

90 A more detailed account of the mad con- dictatorship just after the defeat of Lsevinus by 

duet of Postumius in his consulship is given in Pyrrhus. 

a subsequent part of this chapter. His trial '-"- " Quaterna dena igri jugera viritim populo 

and fine took place, probably, in the very year divisit." Auotor de Viris lllustribus. — M\ 

when Curius and P. Cornelius Kuiinus were Curius. But these fourteen jugera must be un- 

consuls. derstood of two separate agrarian laws, theone 

' n Dion Caseins seems to have placed the passed or proposed in the first consulship of 
■well-known Btory of Fabricius voting for Bun- Curius, the other in his Becbnd consulship, af- 
nus al the consular comitia. because "he would terthe final defeat of Pyrrhus. It is not ex- 
rather be robbed than sold as a slave," in the presslj stated that this first allotment was ve- 
onsulship of Euflnus, that is, in the year hemently opposed; hut the fragment from Ap- 
464. Bee the mutilated fragment in Mai's Scrip- pian, preserved bySuidas, and quoted below, 
tor. Veter. Collect. Dion. M.I., which, when proves that Curius was in a state of violent op- 
compared with the entire story as given by position to the senate, and tbiB is likely to have 
i, de Oratore, 11. 66, clearly relates to the been on account of his agrarian law. It may be, 
bane- eiivumstaiiee. Yet it is difficult to under- however, that lie also brought forward some of 
stand how, in either of Kuiinus' consulships, those measures which were afterwards conceded 
the republic WB8 in such perilous circumstances by the aristocracy, and which were contained 
that great military skill was needed to save her hi the liortcnsian laws. 



Chap. XXXIV.] THE AGRARIAN LAW IS PASSED. 355 

shown on a former occasion 23 that he might be moved by the reproaches of his 
order, and if he took no part against Curius, yet we cannot believe that he sup- 
ported him. 

I have tried to recall the individual actors in these troubles, in order to give to 
them something more of reality than can belong to a mere account 

Tumults End violent 

of actions apart from the men who performed them. And the state of parties. The 
contest, no doubt, was violent; as it is said that Curius was fol- &i 
lowed by a band of eight hundred picked young men, 24 the soldiers, we may 
suppose, who had so lately conquered under his auspices, andVho were ready 
to decide the quarrel, if needful, by the sword. They saved Curius from the 
fate of Ti. Gracchus, but it does not appear that they committed any acts of out- 
rage themselves. But an impenetrable veil conceals from our view the particu- 
lars of all these disturbances ; the law of Curius was finally passed, but we know 
not at what time, nor whether it was obtained by any other than peaceful and legal 
means. 

Between the consulship of Curius -and Cornelius Rufinus, and that of P. Dola- 
bella and Cn. Domitius, when the Gaulish war broke out, there i, a ws proposed for other 
intervened a period of seven years, all the records of which have ffo? th e b p^ie S to c the 
so utterly perished that not a single event can be fixed with cer- Janiculum - 
tainty in any one particular year. But with all the chronology of these years 
we have lost also the history ; we cannot ascertain the real character of the 
events which followed, nor the relations of parties to each other, nor the conduct 
of particular persons. 25 Some of the tribunes 26 proposed a law for the abolition 
of all debts ; whether before or after the passing of Curius' agrarian law we know 
not. Nor can we tell whether Curius held on with the popular party till the end 
of the contest ; or whether, as often happens with the leaders of the beginnings 
of civil dissensions, he thought that the popular cause was advancing too far, and 
either left it, or even joined the party of its opponents. We only know that the 
demands of the people 27 rose with the continuance of the struggle ; that political 
questions were added to those of debtor and ci-editor ; that points which, if 
yielded in time, would have satisfied all the wishes of the popular party, were 
contested inch by inch, till, when gained, they were only regarded as a step to 
something further ; and that at last the mass of the people left Rome, and estab- 
lished themselves on the Janiculum. 28 Even then, if Zonaras may be trusted, the 

23 When he only refused to violate the Li- fers the speech to Curius' second consulship, 
cinian law, and to return two patrician consuls, and makes it accompany his refusal of an un- 
because he himself would have been one of them, usually large portion of land which the sen- 
Otherwise he is represented as saying that he ate proposed to allot to himself — IV. 3, § 5. 
would have complied with the wishes of the Frontinus also makes it accompany his refusal 
patricians, and have broken the law.— Livy, X. of an offer made to himself; but he places it in 
15. his first consulship, after the Sabine war. Stra- 

24 AevraTU) Kara IfiXov apzrriq c'lirtro viwv \oyd&u>v tegemat. IV. 3, § 12. It might also have been 
5T>fj9«? dKTaKomoiv, km -ndvTa ra epya etoi^oi. ical spoken against the occupiers of large tracts of 
fiapus rjv rfi f^niXfj irapa raq eKKKriaiag. domain land, who would not be contented with 

This is a quotation made from Appian by Sui- an allotment of seven jugera as property, but 

das, and is to be found in Suidas' lexicon, in iJijAoy, wished to occupy whole districts. So impossi- 

or in Schweighauser's Appian, Samnitic. Ex- ble is it to see our way in the history of a pe- 

tract. \ . riod where the accounts are not only so mea- 

25 For example, a speech of Curius has been gre, but also at variance with one another, 
recorded, in which he said, " that the man must 26 Stjjidpx^v tlvwv xp £S >" axoKom)i> uarjynaa^iivwv., 
be a mischievous citizen who was not contented — Zonaras, VIII. 2.' The words elanyovfihm 
with seven jugera of land." — Pliny, Hist. Na- tSv Z,rnidpx<»v are legible in a mutilated fragment 
tur. XVItl. § 18. Ed. Sillig. But the applica- of Dion Cassius relating to these times, which 
tion of this speech is most uncertain. Accord- Mai has printed in such a state as to be in many 
ing to Plutarch, it was spoken to reprove some parts absolutely unintelligible. — Fragm. XLIL 
violent supporters of the popular party, who 27 This appears from the legible part of the 
thought that Curius' agrarian law did not go fragment of Dion Cassius just noticed: ts\svtS>v- 
far enough, and that the whole of the state's res ovv ovi' iBeXdvTiav tu>v ivvarw 7roXA<3 w\eui> 
domains ought to be allotted to separate pro- tS>v kut' dpx&s eXirt<rdcvTojv a<plaiv a<petvai, awt]\- 
prietors, without allowing any portion to be \dyriaav. 

occupied, in great masses as at present. — Apo- 2e Livy, Epitom. XL 
thegm. p. 194. E. But Valerius Maximus trans- 



356 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIV 

aristocracy would not yield, and it was only the alarm of a foreign enemy, 29 per- 
haps some gathering of the forces of Etruria, which at this time was meditating 
on a real and decisive trial of strength with Rome, which induced the senate to 
put an end at any price to the existing dissensions. 

Accordingly, Q. Hortensius 30 was appointed dictator. He was a man of an old 
They are brought back plebeian family, for we find an Hortensius amongst the tribunes of 
pLea a? HorteMtaS the year 332 ; 31 but, individually, he is unknown to us, and we 

cannot tell what recommended him to the choice of the consuls on 
this occasion. Me assembled the people, including under that name the whole 
nation, those who had stayed in Rome no less than those who had withdrawn to 
the Janiculum, in a place called " the Oak Grove," 32 probably without the walls 
of the city ; and in that sacred grove were passed, and ratified probably by 
solemn oaths, the famous Hortensian laws. 

These contained, in the first place, an abolition, 33 or, at least, a great reduction 

of debts ; 2d, an agrarian law on an extensive scale, allotting seven 

Their provisions. . pii-ii •• ii 

jugera of the domain land to every citizen ; and 3d, one or more 
laws affecting the constitution ; of which the most important was that which de- 
prived the senate of its veto, and declared the people assembled 34 in their tribes 
to be a supreme legislative power. Accidental mention has been preserved to 
us of another law, or possibly of a particular clause in the former law, by which 
the nundinae 35 or weekly market days which had hitherto been days of business 
for the commons only, and sacred or holy days for the patricians, were now made 
days of business for the whole nation alike. Was the object of this merely to 
abolish a marked distinction between the two orders; or was it to enable the 
patricians to take part in the meeting of the tribes in the Forum, which were 
held on the nundinae, and had they hitherto belonged only to the tribes in that 
other, but to us undiscoverable form, in which they voted at the comitia of cen- 
turies on the field of Mars ? 

Thus the sovereign legislative power of the assembly of the tribes in the Forum 
The legislative power of wa s fully established ; and consequently, when C. Flaminius 
the tribes established, brought forward another agrarian bill, about fifty years afterwards, 
for a division of the recently conquered country of the Senones, the senate, how- 

29 Zonaras, VIII. 2. M The statement in the text follows Niebuhr, 

30 Livv, Epitoin. XL Pliny, Histor. Natur. -who, as is well known, supposed that the Hor- 
XVI. § 37. Ed. Sillig. tensian laws differed from the Publilian, inas- 

81 Livy, IV.-42. _ much as the Publilian abolished the veto of the 

3 - " li. Hortensius, dictator, cum plebs seees- curia?, and the Hortensian did away the veto ot 

sisset in Janiculum, legem in esculeto tulit, ut the senate. The tribes in the Forum and the 

quod ea jussisset omnes Quirites teneret." — senate were thus placed on a footing of equality; 

Pliny, Hist Nat. XVI. §37. Ed. Sillig. neither had a veto on the enactments of the 

33 This is not stated in direct terms in the other ; and the tribunes had a veto upon both 

scanty notices of these events, which alone have alike. Both also were considered as equal to 

been preserved to us. But as the abolition of laws; for "senatus consultum legis vicem ob- 

debte was the main thing required by the peo- tinet" (Gaius, Institut. I. § 4) ; and by the Hor- 

ple, and as the fragment of Dion Cassius, above tensian law, " plebiscitalegibusexffiquatasunt." 

referred to, speaks of the people having their (Gaius, Instit. I. § 3.) It may be doubted 

first demands granted, and then going on to in- whether the limits of these two" powers were 

Bistupon others, and as we have seen an aim- ever very definitely settled; although one point 

lition of debts carried once before in the dis- is mentioned as lying exclusively in the power 

turbances of U8, it does not Beem too much to ofthe tribes, namely, the right or admitting any 

conclude that a similar measure was carried on strangers bo the franchise of Roman citizens. — 

on the present occasion also. With regard to Livv, XXXVIII. 36. 

the agrarian law, it may haw been passed two * Macrobius, Satnrnal. 1.16. The reason as- 

ot three yearn earlier; but from the statement signed by Macrobius for this enactment of the 

already quoted (Auctor de Viris Illustribus, in Hortensian law may also be admitted; that it 

M'. I !urio), " thatl lurius granted fourteen juge- was made to suit the convenience ofthe citizens 

ach citizen," it is clear that an agrarian law from the country, who, coming up to Borne on 

proposed by himmust have been carried at Home the market days, wished to Be able to settle 

time or other in the period I" t ween his consul- their legal business at the same time ; but this 

ship and the dictatorship of Hortensius. It may could not be done, at least in the praetor's court, 

thus hi- numbered amongst the Bortension laws, :i s there, according to the patrician usage, the 

as belonging to the measures whi.-h the people market davs were holydays, and consequently 

at this period forced the aristocracy to concede the court did not sit. 
to them. 



Chap. XXXIV.] THE M^NIAN LAW. 357 

ever strongly averse to it, could not prevent it from becoming a law. The only 
check, therefore, which now remained on the absolute legislative power of the 
tribes, consisted in the veto of their own tribunes ; and to secure the negative of 
a tribune became accordingly the ordinary resource of the aristocracy in the con- 
tests of the seventh century. 

Another important law is supposed to have been passed at the same period 
with the law of Hortensius, though our knowledge of all particu- 
lars respecting it is still more scanty. A law bearing the name of 
Meenian, 3 *and proposed, therefore, either by the good dictator C. Msenius him- 
self, or, as is more probable, by one of his family, took away the veto which the 
curise had hitherto enjoyed in the election of curule magistrates. They were 
now to sanction beforehand the choice of the centuries, on whomsoever it might 
happen to fall. And thus their share in the elections being reduced to an empty 
form, they soon ceased to be assembled at all ; and in later times of the com- 
monwealth they were represented merely by thirty lictors, who were accustomed 
for form's sake to confirm the suffrages of the centuries, and to confer the im- 
perium on the magistrates whom the centuries had elected. 

But although supreme legislative power was now bestowed on the assembly 
of the tribes, and although the elections were freed from all direct 
legal control on the part of the aristocracy, yet we know full well make the constitution 
that the Roman constitution was very far from becoming hence- 
forward a democracy. To us, indeed, who are accustomed to enact more than 
five hundred new laws every year, and who see the minutest concerns of common 
life regulated by act of parliament, the possession of an independent legislative 
power by a popular assembly must seem equivalent to absolute sovereignty. But 
our own early history may teach us not to apply our present notions to other 
times and other countries. The legislative power, even in the days of the Tu- 
dors and Stuarts, was of small importance when compared with the executive and 
judicial. Now, the Hortensian law enabled the Roman people to carry any point 
on which they considered their welfare to depend ; it removed all impediments, 
which after all do but irritate rather than hinder, out of the way of the strongly 
declared expression of the public will. But the public will was in the ordinary 
state of things quiescent, and allowed itself to be represented by the senate and 
the magistrates. It resigned to these even the power of taxation, and except in 
some rare or comparatively trifling cases, the whole judical power also : those 
judges who were appointed by the praetor to try questions of fact, in all the most 
important civil and criminal cases, were taken exclusively from the order of sen- 
ators. All the ordinary administration was conducted by the senate ; and its 
decrees on all particular points, like the •^(piff'^a-ra of the Athenian popular assem- 
bly, had undoubtedly the force of laws. 

According to Theophilus, 31 this was a concession made by the people to the 

36 What wo know of the Maenian law comes ceased to be exclusively a patrician assembly, 

chiefly from a passage of Cicero (Brutus, c. This view would coincide with Niebuhr's dis- 

14, § 55), in which he says of M'. Curius, tinction between the Publilian and Hortensian 

that he "patres ante auctores fieri coegerit, laws. When the former were passed, the curise 

quod fuit permagnum, nondum lege Maenia were still an efficient body, and the term " pa- 

lata." Livy must allude also to this law, when tres" therefore applied to them much more than 

he says, "hodie— priusquam populus suffra- to the senate. But in the fifty years that fol- 

gium ineat, in incertum comitiorum eventum lowed, the curise had dwindled away so much 

patres auctores fiunt." I. 17. It must be ob- that the senate was become the principal assern- 

served that the power taken away by the Mag- bly of the patres ; and therefore the Hortensian 

nian law from the "patres" was taken away law extended to the senate what had before 

from the senate no less than from the curiae ; been enacted by the Publilian law with respect 

for the senate in its original form was only a se- to the curiae. 

lect. assembly of the patres, whose great assem- 37 See Huso, Geschichte des Bom. Eechts, p. 

bly was the comitia curiata. And gradually the 339. (9th Edit.) The passage in Theophilus is 

senate drew to itself both the name and the one which I have not verified, as I have not had 

power of the greater patrician assembly, so that an opportunity of consulting the book. But 

what is said of the patres or patricians is com- Hugo professes to quote it fully, and I have no 

monly to be understood of the senate, and not of doubt of his correctness, 
the curiae, even although the senate had long 



358 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIV. 

Their effects we™ ia«t- aristocracy, and embodied in the laws of Hortensius, that the de- 
mand beneficial. crees f t | ie sena t e should be binding on the people, as the decrees 
or resolutions of the tribes were to be binding on the senate. At any rate, it is 
certain that the senate retained high and independent powers of its own, which 
were no less sovereign than those possessed by the assembly of the tribes ; and 
in practice each of these two bodies kept up for a hundred and fifty years a 
healthy and vigorous life in itself, without interfering with the functions of the 
other. Mutual good sense and good feeling, and the continual moderating influ- 
ence of the college of tribunes, whose peculiar position as having a v%to on the 
proceedings both of the senate and people disposed them to regulate the action 
of each, prevented any serious collision, and gave to the Roman constitution that 
mixed character, partly aristocratic and partly popular, which Polybius recog- 
nized and so greatly admired. And thus the event seems to have given the 
highest sanction to the wisdom of the Hortensian laws : nor can we regard them 
as mischievous or revolutionary, when we find that from the time of their enact- 
ment the internal dissensions of the Romans were at an end for a hundred and 
fifty years, and that during this period the several parts of the constitution were 
all active ; it was a calm not produced by the extinction of either of the con- 
tending forces, but by their perfect union. 

It may be conjectured that the sickness which had visited Rome during three 
Prospect of a new coaii- or f° ur successive years at the close of the Samnite war returned, 
tion againat Rome. partially at least, in the concluding year of these domestic troubles, 
for Q. Hortensius died before the expiration of his dictatorship : an event hitherto 
unexampled in the Roman annals, and regarded as of evil omen ; so that Augus- 
tine 33 makes it a reproach to the impotence of the god ^Esculapius, that although 
he had been so lately brought from Greece with the utmost solemnity, and had 
been received at Rome with due honors, that his presence might stay the pesti- 
lence, he yet suffered the very dictator of the Roman people to fall its victim. 
Nearly about the same time also, if Ave can judge from the place and apparent 
drift of one of the fragments of Dionysius, 39 Rome suffered from an earthquake. 
And scarcely were the Hortensian laws passed, when the prospect of foreign war 
on a most extensive scale presented itself. Tarentum, it is said, was busily or- 
ganizing a new coalition, in which the Lucanians, Samnites, and Bruttians in the 
south were to unite with the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and 
were again to try their combined strength against Rome. 

In the mean time, before we trace the events of this great contest, we 
Miscellaneous notices of ma y bring together some few scattered notices of domestic af- 
domestic events. f a i rs re lating to the state of Rome in the middle of the fifth cen- 

tury. 

A new magistracy had its origin 40 somewhere between the years 461 and 466 ; 
institution of the tri- that of the triumviri capitales, or commissioners of police. These 
omviri capitaies. officers were elected by the people, the comitia being held by the 
praetor. Their business was to enforce the payment of fines due to the state ;"" 

88 Dc Civitate Dei, III. 17. Augustine's no- 41 Festus, in " Sacramentum." The appoint- 

tice of the secession to the Janiculum is proba- mentofthe "triumviri capitales" was proposed, 

bly taken from Livy, and may be given here, as according to Festus. by L. Papuans, whom he 

it contains one or two particulars not mentioned calls " tribune of the commons." One cannot 

in any other existing record. "Post graves et but suspect with Niebnhr, that the person meant 

longas Romse Beditiones ad ultimum plebs in was L. Papirius Cursor, who was prcetor in the 

Jamcxxlnxahostilt dvrem/ptAoru secesserat: cujus year 462 (Livy, X.i7t; and then theappoint- 

niali tarn dira calaniitas erat, ul ejus rei causa meiit would coincide with the year when the 

quod in extremis periculis fieri BOlebat, dictator plague was at its height, and when the depnta- 

crearetur Bortensius: qui plebe revocata in tion was sent to Epidauras to invite .Ksculanius 

eodem magistratu expiravit, quod nulli dicta- to Rome. Varro, do L. L. V. 81. Ed. Mullcr. 

tori anto contigerat." Pomponius. de Origine Juris, Digest I. Tit. 

39 Ch. 89. Pragm. Dionys. apnd Malum. [I. § 89. Livy,- XX V. 1. XXXII. 26. Valerius 
Seriptor. Voter, "Vatcian. Collect. Vol. II. p. Maximus, V. I. * 7. 

501. Etymologicon Magn. in tvStxa. See Herman, 

40 Livy Epitome, XI. Pol. Aiitiq'; of Greece, § 137. 



Chap. XXXIV.] STORY OF L. POSTUMIUS MEGELLUS. 359 

to try by summary process all offenders against the public peace who might be 
taken in the fact ; to have the care of the state prison, and to carry into effect 
the sentence of the law upon criminals. They resembled exactly in all these points 
the well-known magistracy of the eleven at Athens. 

The creation of this office seems to mark an increase of ordinary crimes against 
person and property ; and such an increase was the natural conse- The probable occasion 
quence of the distress which prevailed about this time, and partic- oflt8m3titution - 
ularly of the severe visitations of pestilence which occurred at this period. It is 
well known that such seasons are marked by the greatest outbreaks of all sorts 
of crime ; and that never is a strong police more needed than when the prospect 
of impending death makes men reckless, and eager only to indulge their passions 
while they may. 

The census of the year 461 gave a return of 262,322 Roman citizens ; 42 that of 
the year 466, notwithstanding the havoc caused in the interval by Retim)8 of th0 oensu8 
the double scourge of pestilence and war, exhibited an increase of at this pM ' iod - 
10,000 43 upon the preceding return. This was owing to the conquest of the Sa- 
bines, and their consequent admission to the Roman franchise in tbe year 464 : 
for the census included, as is well known, not only those citizens wiic were en- 
rolled in the tribes, but those also who enjoyed the private rights- of citizenship 
without as yet partaking in the right of suffrage. 

.Amongst other traits of resemblance between the Spartan and the Roman 

aristocracies, we may notice the extreme moderation shown by story of L . p 03tum ius 
each of them- towards the faults of their distinguished citizens. It Me s ellus - 
was not till after repeated proofs of his treasonable designs that the Spartan gov- 
ernment would take any serious steps against Pausanias ; and the forbearance of 
the Romans towards Appius Claudius was no less remarkable. Another memo- 
rable example of the same spirit occurred in the case of L. Postumius Megellus. 
He belonged to a family whose pride and hatred of the commons had been noto- 
rious in the political contests of the beginning of the fourth century ; 44 and as 
Niebuhr has truly observed, the peculiar character of a Roman family was pre- 
served from generation to generation, and it was rarely found that any of its 
members departed from it. He had been consul in 449, and again in 460, and 
had acquired in each of his commands the reputation of a brave and skilful sol- 
dier. But his conduct as a citizen was far less meritorious ; and it was probably 
for some overbearing or oppressive behavior in his second consulship that he 
was threatened with impeachment by one of the tribunes as soon as he went out 
of office. In the crisis of the Samnite war, however, military merit atoned for -all 
other defects ; the consul Sp. Carvilius named him one of his lieutenants, 45 and the 
trial was delayed till the campaign should be over ; but when it had ended tri- 
umphantly, the popularity and brilliant victories of Sp. Carvilius pleaded strongly 
in favor of his lieutenant, and the trial never was brought forward. Two years 
afterwards, in 463, Postumius was again chosen consul, when the great victory 
obtained in the preceding year by Q. Fabius made it probable that the war might 
soon be brought to a triumphant issue. 

His proud and bad nature was more irritated by having been threatened at 
first with impeachment, than softened by the favor shown to him 
afterwards ; so that his conduct in his third consulship was that coUe»g£"ia hu to" 
of a mischievous madman. His first act 45 was to insist on having cousul8lup " 
Samnium assigned to him as his province, without referring the decision as usual 
to lot ; and though his colleague, C. Junius Bubulcus, remonstrated against this 
arrogance, yet the nobility and powerful interest of Postumius prevailed, and C. 
Junius forbore to dispute what he perceived he could not resist with success. 

Then followed, as usual, the levying of the legions for the service of the year ; 

42 Livy, X. 47. « Livy, X. 46. 

43 Livy, Epitom. XI. « Dionysius, XVI. 15. 

44 See Chap. XIII. of his history, note 48. 



360 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIV. 

but the Samnites were so humbled that nothing more was to be 
diers 7a clearing his feared from them, and Q.. Fabius Guro-es still commanded an army 

own land. . .-- . 1T -ippi 

in bamnmm as proconsul. It was not necessary, therefore, for the 
consul to begin active operations immediately ; but he, notwithstanding, took the 
field with his army, and advanced towards the enemy's frontier. In the course 
of the late campaigns, he had become the occupier of a large tract of the terri- 
tory conquered from the Samnites ; but much of it was uncleared land, and as 
slaves at Rome were yet but few, laborers were not easily to be procured in these 
remote possessions in sufficient numbers. Postumius did not scruple to employ 
his soldiers as though they had been his slaves : he set two thousand 41 men to 
work in felling his woods, and in this manner he engaged for a considerable time 
a large portion of a Roman army. 

When, at last, he was ready to commence active operations against the ene- 
hu behavior towards m y> his pride displayed itself in a new form. Q. Fabius Gurges 
q. Fabius Gurges. wag gj-jj^ ag we nave seeilj commanding an army in Samnium as 

proconsul ; and he was now laying siege to Cominium, which, though taken and 
burnt by the Romans two years before, appears to have been again occupied by 
the Samnites as a fortress ; for the massy walls of their towns could not easily 
be destroyed, and these exist in many instances to this day, encircling nothing 
but desolation within them. The consul wrote to Fabius, 48 ordering him to with- 
draw from Samnium : Fabius pleaded the authority of the senate, by which he 
had been continued in his command ; and the senate itself sent a deputation to 
Postumius, requiring him not to oppose their decree. But he replied to the 
deputies, that so long as he was consul it was for him to command the senate, 
not for the senate to dictate to him ; and he marched directly towards Cominium, 
to compel Fabius to obedience by actual force. Fabius did not attempt to resist 
him ; and the consul, having taken the command of both armies, immediately 
sent Fabius home. 

In actual war Postumius again proved himself an able soldier : he took Co- 
minium, 49 and several other places, and he conquered the important 

Ho triumphs in spite of - TT - . . ... J . . » .* r . l . 

the prohibition of tho post ot V enusia, and, well appreciating the advantages ot its situa- 
tion, he recommended that it should be made a Roman colony. 
The senate followed his advice, but would not appoint him one of the commis- 
sioners 50 for assigning the lands to the colonists, and superintending the founda- 
tion of the new settlement. He in his turn distributed all the plunder of the 
campaign amongst his soldiers, that he might not enrich the treasury ; and he 
marched home and gave his soldiers leave of absence from their standards, with- 
out waiting for the arrival of his successor. Finally, when the senate refused 
to allow him to triumph, 51 he, having secured the protection of three of the trib- 
unes, celebrated his triumph in defiance of the prohibition of the other seven, 
and in contempt of the senate's refusal. 

For such a course of outrageous conduct, he was prosecuted as soon as he 
Ho is tried ond heavily went out of office, by two of the tribunes, and was condemned by 
flBed - all the three-and -thirty tribes unanimously. But his accusers did 

not prosecute him capitally, they only sued him for a tine; and although the 
fine was the heaviest to which any Roman had been hitherto sentenced, for it 
amounted to 500,000 uses, 5 - yet it was but small in comparison of the penalties im- 
posed with far less provocation by the governments of Greece. It amounted, in 
Greek money, to no more than fifty thousand drachmae, whereas A'gis, the king 
of Sparta, had been condemned, even by the Spartans, to pay a fine of one hun- 
dred thousand 53 for a mere want of judgment in his military operations. Postu- 

<7 Dionysius, XVI. L5. Livy, Epitome. of Postumius' second consulship, X. 87. But 

'" Dionysius, XVI, 16. it agrees on every account better with his third 

*'•' Dionysius, XVI. 17. consulship, ofwhioh it is related bj Dionysius. 

onysius, XVI. 17. ■- Dionysius, XVI. 18. 

61 Dionys. XVI. 18. Livy relates this story t3 Thuoydides, V. 63. 



Chap. XXXIV.] ^ESCULAPIUS INVITED TO ROME. 361 

mius, in addition to his own large possessions, would probably have many wealthy 
clients, who were bound to pay their patron's fine. His family, at any rate, was 
not ruined or disgraced by his sentence, for his son was elected consul a few years 
afterwards, in the third year of the first Punic war. 

Of the miscellaneous particulars recorded of this period one of the most re- 
markable is the embassy sent to Greece in the year 462, to invite 
the god .iEsculapius to Rome, in order that he might put a stop to aaurustomvHethegoa 
the plague which had then been raging for three years. The head 
of the embassy was Q. Ogulnius, 51 the proposer of the law by which the com- 
mons had been admitted to the sacred offices of pontifex and augur, and who 
more recently, as curule sedile, had caused the famous group of the she-wolf 
suckling Romulus and Remus to be placed by the sacred Ig-tree in the comitium. 
The deputation arrived at Epidaurus, the peculiar seat of ^Esculapius, and en- 
treated permission to invite the god to Rome, and that they might be instructed 
how to offer him acceptable worship. This was no unusual request ; for many 
cities had, in like manner, received his worship from Epidaurus ; Sicyon, 55 Athens, 
Pergamus, and Cyrene. Accordingly, one of the snakes which were sacred to 
the god crawled from his temple to the city of Epidaurus, and from thence made 
its way to the sea-shore, and climbed up into the trireme of the Roman ambassa- 
dors, which was as usual drawn up on the beach. It was under the form of a 
snake that JEsculapius was said to have gone to Sicyon, 56 when his worship was 
introduced there ; and the Romans, instructed by the Epidaurians, considered that 
he was now going to visit Rome in the same form, and they immediately sailed 
away with the sacred snake to Italy. But when they stopped at Antium, on 
their way home, the snake, so said the story, 57 left the ship, and crawled out into 
the precinct of the temple of ^Esculapius, for the god it seems was worshipped 
at Antium also, and coiled himself round a tall palm-tree, where he remained for 
three days. The Romans anxiously Avaited for his return to the ship ; and at 
last he went back, and did not move again till the ship entered the Tiber. Then 
when she came to Rome, he again crawled forth, but instead of landing with the 
ambassadors, he swam to the island in the middle of the Tiber, and there went 
on shore and remained quiet. A temple was built, therefore, to the god in the 
spot which he had himself chosen ; and the island to this day preserves the 
memory of the story, for the travertino, which was brought there to form the 
foundation of the temple of the god, has been cut into a rude resemblance of a 
trireme, because it was on ship-board that ^Esculapius had first visited the Ro- 
mans, and received their worship. 

There is no reason to doubt that the Romans did bring back with them a 
snake from Epidaurus, for there was a breed of snakes there, said The story not imp03 _ 
to be peculiar to that country, 58 and perfectly harmless, which were Elble " 
accounted sacred to ^Esculapius. And so complete is the ascendency which 
man's art has obtained over the brute creation, that it is very possible that they 
may have been trained to perform various feats at the bidding of their keepers ; 
and if one of these, as is likely, went with the sacred snake to Rome, wonders 
may have really been exhibited to the Roman people, which they would have 
certainly supposed to be supernatural. 

This, if we except the doubtful story of the embassy to Athens immediately 
before the decemvirate, and one or two deputations to consult the Mutual ^ n(nvle<ige of 
oracle of Delphi, is the earliest instance recorded by the Roman thfsVnX^Grlks 
annalists of any direct communication between their country and andRonmns - 
Greece since the beginning of the commonwealth. Greek writers, as we have 
seen, mentioned an embassy sent to Alexander at Babylon, and a remonstrance 

64 Valerius Maximus, I. 8. Auctor " de Viris E7 As given by Valerius Maximus, I. 8, by the 
Illustribus," in " ^Esculap. Kom. advect." author " de Viris Illustribus," and above all by 

65 Pausanias, II. 10, 26. Ovid, Metamorphos. XV. 622, &c. 

66 Pausanias, II. 10. « Pausanias, II. 28. 



362 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

made by Demetrius Poliorcetes against the piracies of the Antiatians, at a time 
when they were subject to the Romans. We may be sure, at any rate, that in 
the middle of the fifth century the two people were no strangers to each other ; 
and whether it be true or not that Demetrius acknowledged the Romans to be 
the kinsmen of the Greeks, yet when the Epidaurians gave them their god JEscu- 
lapius, they would feel that they were not giving him to a people utterly barba- 
rian, but to one which had for centuries paid divine honors to Greek heroes, 
which worshipped Hercules, and the twin gods Castor and Pollux ; and which, 
within the memory of the existing generation, had erected statues in the comi- 
tium to the wisest and bravest of the men of Greece, 59 Pythagoras and Alcibiades. 
Nor can we doubt that Q. Ogulnius was sufficiently acquainted with the Greek 
language to address the Epidaurians, as L. Postumius a few years later addressed 
the Tarentines, without the help of an interpreter. 

We are now arrived, however, at the period when the histories of Greece and 
Rome unavoidably intermix with one another ; when the greatest 

It becomes here nece9- . ■. % r ■, ,~. , , . ^° T . 

sary to describe the prince and general ot the Greek nation crossed over into Italy, 
Lternai condition o* and became the head of the last coalition of the Italian states 
against Rome. We must here then pause, and before we enter 
upon the new Samnite and Tarentine war, in which Pyrrhus so soon interfered, 
and before we notice those renewed hostilities with the Gauls, which owed their 
origin, in part at least, to the intrigues of the Tarentines, we. must once more 
cross the sea, after an interval of more than a hundred years, and observe what 
was now the state of Greece and of the eastern world ; what new powers had suc- 
ceeded to Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and the great king who had inherited the 
fragments of the empire of Alexander, and what was the condition of the various 
states of the Grecian name in Greece itself and in Sicily. We must endeavor, 
too, to obtain some more lively notion of Rome and the Roman people at this 
same period, than could be gained from the imperfect record of political and 
military events ; to conceive what that city was which Cineas likened to a tem- 
ple ; what was the real character of that people whose senate he described as an 
assembly of kings. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

STATE OF THE EAST— KINGDOMS OF ALEXANDER'S SUCCESSORS— SICILY- 
GREECE— KINGDOM OF EPIRUS, AND EARLY FORTUNES OF Pl'RRIIUS. 



"When he was strong the groat horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones 
towards the four winds of heaven."— Daniel VIII. 8. 



The hundred and twenty-fourth Olympiad witnessed, says Polybius, 1 the first 
revival of the Achaean league, and the deaths of Ptolemy, the son 
ai^nnrkabie^enodu! of Lagus, of Lysimachus, of Seleucus Nicator, and of Ptolemy 
Ceraunus. The same period was also marked by the Italian ex- 
pedition of Pyrrhus, and immediately afterwards followed the great inroad of 

60 Pliny, Ilistor. Natural. XXXIV. § 26. I'M. bly consulted after their disaster at the pass of 

Silli?. These Btatnes were set up "hello Sam- Caudium, as tiheydid afterwards afterthede- 

niti," probably in the second war; ami were feat at Cannse. Livy, XXII. 57. 

erected in consequence of the command of the ' Polybius, II. 41. Some explanation may 

Delphian oraole, which the Romans had proba- perhaps be required of the length of this chap- 



Chap. XXXV.] ALEXANDER'S SUCCESSORS.— SELEUCUS. 363 

the Gauls into Greece and Asia, their celebrated attack upon Delphi, and their 
establishment in the heart of Asia Minor, in the country which afterwards was 
called from them Galatia. This coincidence of remarkable events is enough of 
itself to attract attention ; and the names which I have just mentioned contain, 
in a manner, the germ of the whole history of the eastern world ; all its interests 
and all its most striking points may be fully comprehended, when these names 
have been rendered significant, and we have formed a distinct notion of the per- 
sons and people which they designate. 

Forty years 2 had elapsed since the death of Alexander, when Seleucus Nica- 
tor, the last survivor of his generals, was assassinated at Lysima- sevens is assassinated 
chia 3 by Ptolemy Ceraunus. The old man, for Seleucus was more tL P S y th?X n one 
than seventy-five years old, had just before destroyed the king- "'Macedonia, 
dom of Lysimachus, the last survivor except himself of the immediate successors 
and former generals of Alexander ; and after fifty years' absence, was returning 
as the sovereign of Asia to that country which he had left as an unknown officer 
in Alexander's army. But an oracle, it is said, had bidden him beware of 
Europe ; 4 for that the appointed seat of his fortunes was Asia. And scarcely 
had he landed on the Thracian Chersonesus, when he was assassinated by one of 
his own followers, by Ptolemy Ceraunus, 5 the half brother of Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus, the reigning king of Egypt, Avho had first been a refugee at the court of 
Lysimachus, and, after his death, had been taken into the service of Seleucus, 
and had been treated by him with the greatest kindness and confidence. Seleu- 
cus' vast kingdom, which reached from the Hellespont to the Indus, was in- 
herited by his son Antiochus ; 9 but his murderer seized upon the throne of 
Macedonia, which having been in rapid succession filled by various competitors, 
and having lastly been occupied by Lysimachus, now, in consequence of his over- 
throw and death, and of the murder of his conqueror, seemed to lie open to the 
first pretender. 

Seleucus outlived by about two years 1 his old ally and his protector in his ut- 
most need, Ptolemy the son of Lagus, king of Egypt. With more . . , 

in i e 1 1 • • T>i 1 Ptolemy the sonofLa- 

unbroken good fortune than any other ot his contemporaries, rtol- g™ reigns in Egypt, 
emy had remained master of Egypt, first as satrap and afterwards 
as king, from the first division of Alexander's empire down to the period of his 
own death. The distinct and almost unassailable position of Egypt saved it from 
the sudden conquests which often changed the fortune of other countries ; the 
deserts of the Nile formed a barrier not easily to be overcome. To Egypt, Ptol- 
emy had added the old commonwealth of Cyrene, 8 where the domestic factions, 
according to the frequent fate of the Greek cities, had at last sacrificed their 
common independence to a foreign enemy, He was also master of the rich island 
of Cyprus, 9 and, after the defeat of Antigonus at Ipsus, he had extended his 

ter, devoted as it is to matters not directly con- and immortal names, on which we can scarcely 

nected with the Roman history of the fifth cen- dwell too long or too often. 

tury of Rome. But it is impossible to forget 2 Alexander died Olymp. 114-1-2, b. c. 323. 

that all the countries here spoken of will sue- Seleucus was murdered Olymp. 124-4, b. c. 280. 

ccssively become parts of the Roman empire; See Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici. 

the wars in which they were engaged with 3 Appian, Syriac. 62. Porphyry, apud Euse- 

Rome will hereafter claim our attention, and bium, Chronic, p. 63. Ed. Scaliger. 

therefore their condition immediately before * Appian, Syriac. 63. 

those wars cannot be considered foreign to my 5 Ptolemy Ceraunus was the son of Ptolemy 

subject. Besides, the distinctness of the east- Soter, by Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater ; 

ern' empire from the western was productive of Ptolemy Philadelphus was his son by Berenice. 

the most important consequences; and this dis- Porphyry, apud Euseb. p. 63. Pausanias, I. 6. 

tinctness arose from the spread of the Greek 6 Memnon apud Photium, p. 226, Ed. Bek- 

language and manners over Asia Minor, Syria, ker. 

and Egypt, by Alexander's conquests, and" the 7 Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus, died just 

establishment of his successive kingdoms. As forty years after the death of Alexander, of 

for the notices of Greece itself, of Sparta, of whose actions he and Aristobulus_ were the 

Thebes, and of Athens, they cannot plead quite earliest and most authentic historians. His 

the same justification; but I trust that they death took place Olymp. 124-2, b. c. 283. 

may be forgiven, as an almost involuntary trib- 8 Diodorus, XVIII. 21* 

ute of respect and affection to old associations 9 Ptolemy reduced the several petty kings of 



364 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

dominion in Syria, as far as the valley of the Orontes, the country known by the 
name of Coele-Syria,' or the vale of Syria. His dominion, next to that of Seleu- 
cus, was by far the most extensive, as it was, without any exception, the most 
compact and secure of all the kingdoms formed out of Alexander's empire. 
When Alexander died at Babylon, only seven years had elapsed since his con- 
quest of Persia, and not more than four since his victory over 

The Greek dominion ' 1 i ■ • t J • mi l ■ l i 

was not shaken by Jrorus and his campaign in India, lhat his conquests could not 

Alexander's death. , , i i v i 1 • i^ i , i • 

have been completely consolidated within so short a period is evi- 
dent ; but it affords a wonderful proof of the ascendency of the Greek race over 
the Asiatics, that the sudden death of the great conqueror did not destroj r his 
unfinished work ; that not a single native chief ventured to assert the independ- 
ence of his country, but every province continued in the unity of the Macedonian 
empire, and obeyed without dispute a Macedonian satrap. 11 Nor did the subse- 
quent wars between the Macedonian generals destroy the spell of their superior- 
ity. Eumenes and Antigonus carried on their contest in Susiana and Media, and 
disposed at their will of all the resources of those countries ; and, after the mur- 
der of the last of Alexander's children, fourteen years after his own death, when 
obedience was no longer claimed even nominally for the blood and name of the 
great conqueror, still the Greek dominion was unshaken ; and Seleucus, by birth 
a simple Macedonian subject, sat undisturbed in Babylon, on the throne of Neb- 
uchadnezzar, and held the country of Cyrus as one amongst his numerous prov- 
inces. 

This continuance of the Macedonian power was owing, no doubt, in no small 

measure, to Alexander's comprehensive wisdom. He made a 
to us conciliatory policy Macedonian soldier of his guard, Peucestes, 12 satrap of Persia; 

but the simple soldier, unfettered by any literary or philosophical 
pride, did not scruple to adopt the Persian dress, and to learn the Persian lan- 
guage ; confirming his own and his nation's dominion by those very compliances 
which many of his more cultivated but less wise countrymen regarded as an 
unworthy condescension to the barbarians. 13 The youth of the Asiatic provinces 14 
were enlisted in the Macedonian army, were taught the discipline of the phalanx, 
and the use of the Greek shield and pike ; the bravest of them were admitted 
into the more distinguished bodies of cavalry and infantry known by the name 
of the king's companions ; and the highest of the Persian nobility were made, 
together with the noblest of the Macedonians, officers of the king's body-guard. 
Thus, where the insulting displaj^ of superiority was avoided, its reality was felt 
and acknowledged without murmuring 1 ; and when the king's officers became in- 
dependent satraps, the Asiatics saw their Macedonian comrades preferred, almost 
without a single exception, to these dignities, and they themselves remained the 
subjects of men whom they had so lately seen nominally their equals. 

Thus there was spread over Asia, from the shores of the -^Egean to the Indus, 

spread .f the Greek ar >d over the whole of Egypt also, an outer covering at the least 

' : ; : \r""rJX of Greek civilization, however thinly it might have been laid on 

cities in as,;.. ] |rn , an( j t] iere> on t ) ie SQ \\d an d heterogeneous mass below. The 

native languages were not extirpated, they were not even driven, as afterwards 
in the western provinces of the Roman empire, to a few mountainous or remote 
districts; they remained probably in general use for all the common purposes 
of life : but Greek was everywhere the medium of communication between the 

the island, and made himself master of it, pointed to be satraps over each, in Justin, XIII. 

Olymp. 117-1. b. o. 812. [Diodorus, XIX. 4, and Diodorus, XVIII. 8, 89. There is soaree- 

T'.i. | II'- afterwards lost it, in consequence of ly a .single Asiatic name on the list; onlj Ox- 

his great naval defeat by Demetrius near Sala- vartes, the father ot'Roxana, Alexander's queen, 

mis. Olymp. 118-2 [Diodorus, XX. 58], and had the country of Paropamisadse ; and Porus 

finally recovered it after the victory of [psus. and Taxilas retained for a time their govern-: 

[Plutarch, Demeti ments on the Bydaspes and the Indus. 

10 Diodorus, Fragm. Vatican. XXI. 1. '-' Arrian, de Expedit Alexand. VI. 30. 

11 See the aeeount of the division of the u Arrian, VII. 6. 
provinces, and of the Macedonian general! ap- " Arrian, VII. 6, 11. 



Chap. XXXV.] RESTORATION OF NATIVE PRINCES IN ASIA. 365 

natives of different countries ; it was the language of the court, of the govern- 
ment, and of literature. Many new cities were also founded, where the pre- 
dominant element of the population was Greek from the beginning : such as An- 
tioch, Laodicea, Apamea, Seleucia in Syria, 15 Seleucia on the Tigris, and many 
other places built also by the same founder, Seleucus, in the several provinces of 
his empire. From these an influence was communicated to other cities in their 
neighborhood, which were older. than the Greek conquest ; and the Greek char- 
acter was revived in places which, like Tarsus, claimed to be originally Grecian 
settlements, 16 but in the lapse of years had become barbarized. 

In this manner Asia Minor <and Syria were pervaded in every part by the 
language and institutions of Grwee, and retained the impression 

.Ti ■ i , ., • -i i? j.i ci i Upper Asia was soon 

through many centuries down to the period ot the fearacen and i°?t.t° tbe Greek li .°- 
Turkish conquerors. Upper Asia, from the Euphrates to the In- governed by native 
dus, was effected much more slightly ; and the connection of these 
countries with Greece was finally broken about thirty years after the period at 
which we are now arrived; by the restoration of a native monarchy, in the line 
of the Arsacidae. 11 Seleucia on the Tigris then became the capital of a barbarian 
sovereign ; and although it, with some of the other Greek cities founded by Seleu- 
cus 18 in Media and Parthia, had not lost their national character even in the time 
of Strabo, yet it was enough if they could retain it themselves ; there was no 
possibility of communicating it in any degree to the nations around them. 

We may be excused, however, from extending our view beyond the Euphrates, 
and may return to a more minute examination of those countries 

,. f ,. i k r • i-i ii i _l- i j. i Kingdoms half Greek 

ot western Asia and Africa which were all destined to become half barbarian existing 
successively provinces of Rome. And here, although we at first 
sight see nothing but the two great monarchies of Syria and Egypt, yet a nearer 
view shows us some smaller kingdoms which had been overlooked by the strength 
of the first Macedonian kings, and established themselves boldly against the 
weakness of their successors : kingdoms ruled by a race of princes, partly or 
chiefly of barbarian descent, but where the Greek character notwithstanding gave 
the predominant color to their people, and even to themselves. Such were the 
kingdoms of Bithynia and Pontus on the northern side of Asia Minor. Another 
distinct state, if so it may be called, was formed in the 125th Olympiad by the 
settlement of the Gauls to the south of Bithynia, and to the northwest of 
Cappadocia : and the kingdom of Pergamus grew up not long afterwards on the 
coasts of the ^Egean and the Propontis ; but as yet it had not come into exist- 
ence. 

In the 124th Olympiad Zipsetes' 9 or Zibsetes was still, at the age of more than 

15 Appian, Syriac. 57. ici, Vol. III. under the year b. c. 250, a. r. c. 

16 KTitriiii t(Zv n£TaTpurTo)ilnov TrXavtidr/vTUv 'Ap- 404. 

ytiiav kutu ^firijaiv 'IoBs. Straho, XIV. p. 673. One 18 HspioiKUTai ()/ M.ri<)ca) ntiXtcriv 'EAAifiwi Kara 

should not pay much regard to such a story, T fiv vtpy'/ynaiv rnv 'AXcUuSpov, (pvhaKrjs ivtxev tu>v 

were there not other grounds for believing that ovyKvpovvruv avrfj fiaplSdpwv. Polybius, X. 27. 

the Greeks at a very early period had settled on 19 He reigned from 336 b. c. to 278, and was 

the coasts of Cilicia. See the remarkable state- born in 354. His father Bas was bom in 397 

ment preserved in the Armenian translation of b. o. Memnon apud Photium, p. 227, 228. Ed. 

Eusebius, and copied by Eusebius from Alex- Bekker. , 

arider Polyhistor or Abydenus, that Senna- This reference may perhaps require explana- 
cherib was called down from Nineveh by the tion for some readers. Photius, who was pat- 
news of a Greek descent on Cilicia, which he riarch of Constantinople in the latter half of the 
repelled after a very hard-fought battle. Com- ninth century, has left a sort of catalogue 
pare Niebuhr's Klcine Schriften, p. 203. Might raisonne, or rather an abstract of the various 
not the sons of Javan, to whom the Phoenicians books which he was in the habit of reading, 
sold Israelitish captives at a much earlier period In this work, which he called his library, there 
(Joel iii. 6), be the Greek settlers on the Cilician are preserved abridgments of many books which 
coast as_ well as the more remote inhabitants of would otherwise have been altogether lost to 
Greece itself? us ; and amongst the rest there is an abstract 

17 In Olymp. 132-3, b. c. 250. This was in the of a history of Heraclea on the Exuine sea, writ- 
reign of Antiochus Theos. See Justin. XLI. 4, ten by one' Memnon, who flourished at a period 
who makes a mistake, however, as to the reign, not certainly known, but which cannot be 
and Arrian, Parthic. apud Photium. p. 17. Ed. placed earlier than the times of the early Ro- 
Bekker. See also Eynes Clinton, Fasti Hellen- man emperors. In speaking of Heraclea, Mem- 



366 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

seventy, reigning over the Bithynians. His father had seen the 
rma ' torrent of Alexander's invasion pass by him without touching his 
dominions ; and whilst the conqueror was engaged in Upper Asia, the Bithynian 
prince had repelled with success the attack of one of his generals, who was left 
behind to complete the conquest of the countries which Alexander had merely 
overran. After Alexander's death, European Thrace and the southern coast of 
the Euxine were assigned in the general partition of the empire to Lysimachus ; 
but the Bithynian princes held their ground against him, and still continued to 
reign over a territory more or less extensive, till Lysimachus and his dominions 
were conquered by Seleucus in the battle on the plain of Corus in Phrygia. 
Zipaetes theft was as jealous of Seleucus as he had been before of Lysimachus ; 
and after Seleucus' death, he cherished the same feelings towards his son An- 
tiochus, and continued to resist him with success till the end of his life. 

In the geography of Herodotus 20 the name of Cappadocia is applied to the 

whole breadth of Asia Minor eastward of the Halvs, from the 

Ca;ij>H.lcuia :ind its di- , . /. rn , ,1 , c ±1 T< • 'mi 

visions. North™ cap- chain of Taurus to the snores ot the Jiiiixme. Ine govern- 
paaowaor ontius. ment f a ]j fjjjg coun t r y had been bestowed by Darius, 21 the son 
of Hvstaspes, on one of the Persian chiefs who had taken part with him in the 
conspiracy against Smerdis, and it had remained from that time forward with his 
posterity. But in the time of Xenophon, 22 the tribes along the Euxine were 
practically independent of any Persian satrap, and the name of Cappadocia was 
then, as afterwards, restricted to the southern and more inland part of the coun- 
try. The same state of things prevailed in the early part of the reign of Philip 
of Macedon ; Scylax, in his Periplus, notices a number of barbarian tribes between 
Colchis and Paphlagonia : yet immediately to the eastward of Paphlagonia he 
placed what he calls Assyria ; and Syria, as we know, was the name anciently 
given by the Greeks to that country which they afterwards learnt to call 
by its Persian name Cappadocia. 23 But while the southern part of their old 
satrapy passed into other hands, the descendants of Darius' fellow-conspirator 
strengthened their hold on the northern part of their original dominion ; and in 
the reign of Alexander, Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes, is called 24 by Diodorus, 
" kino-," and his kingdom extended along the coast of the Euxine from the con- 
fines of Bithynia to those of Colchis. Though a king, however, he was regarded 
as a vassal by Alexander's general, Antigonus, when he, after the death of 
Eumenes, became master of all Asia from the Euphrates to the Mge&a : and 
Antigonus suspecting his fidelity when he was on the eve of his derisive struggle 
against Cassander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus, caused him to be put to 
death. 85 His son, Mithridates, notwithstanding, succeeded to his father's domin- 
ions, retained them during the lifetime of Seleucus, and for a period of nearly 
eighteen years afterwards, and having lived to witness the irruption 26 of the Gauls 
and their settlements on the very borders of his kingdom, died, after a reign of 
thirty-six years, immediately before the beginning of the first Punic war, and was 
succeeded in his turn by his son Ariobarzanes. 

non wns often led to notice the neighboring r>ian, Mithridat. P, 112, makes Mithridates to 
kings of Bithynia, and thus we are enabled to have been descended from Darius himself. We 
give the succession and the dates of the reigns find no Mithridates or Ariobarzanes in either of 
■ ■■ obscure princes. So capricious is the the lists of the conspirators against Smerdis 
chance which has preserved Borne portions of given by Herodotus and. Ctesias. 
ancient history from oblivion, while it has nt- B Anabas. VII. S. In Ins time Mithridates 
terlv destroyed all record of others. But Pho- was satrap of Cappadocia and Lycaonia, 
tius* library, compiled in the ninth century, '" Herodot. I. 7--'. And in the Periplus of 
shows what treasures of Greek literature were the Euxine ascribed to Marcianus of Heraclea 
listing at Constantinople, which in the (Hudson, Geogr. Min. p. 78), it is said that the 
course of the six following centuries perished Cappadocians were called by some While Syr- 
irrecoverably, lathis respect the French and ians, and that the old geographers made Cap- 
Venetian conquest in the thirteenth century padocia extend as far as the coast of the Euxine 
was far more destructive than the Turkish eon- M Diodorus, XVI. 90. 
Quest iii the fifteenth. M Diodorus, XX. 111. 
20 Herodot 1. 72, 76, compared with V. 40. * oferanon, apud Photium, p. 220. Ed. Bek- 
« Polybius, V. 43. Diodorus, XIX. 40. Ap- kcr. Diodorus, XX. 111. 



Chap. XXXV.] THE GREEK CITIES OF ASIA. 357 

Southern Cappadocia meanwhile had passed before the conquest of Alexander 
into the hands of a satrap named Ariarathes, 27 to whom Diodorus 

. - ... r , . T'l ,1 ■ l • a • Southern Cappadocia. 

gives the title or king. Like every other prince and state in Asia, 
he had been unable to resist the power of the Macedonian invasion, but Alexan- 
der's death broke, as he supposed, the spell of the Greek dominion, and Aria- 
rathes ventured to dispute the decision of the council of generals which had as- 
signed Cappadocia to Eumenes, and to retain the possession of it himself. Such 
an example of resistance, if successful, might have at once dissolved the Mace- 
donian empire, and Perdiccas hastened to put it down. He encountered Aria- 
rathes, 28 defeated him, made him prisoner, and crucified him ; and then, accord- 
ing to the arrangement of the council, bestowed the government of Cappadocia 
on Eumenes. The nephew and heir of Ariarathes, who also bore his name, took 
refuge 29 in Armenia, and there waited for better times. He saw the Macedonian 
power divided against itself ; Perdiccas, his uncle's conqueror, had been killed by 
his own soldiers ; Eumenes, who had been made satrap of Cappadocia, had been 
put to death by Antigonus ; and Antigonus, who had become sovereign of all 
Asia Minor, was engaged in war with Seleucus the ruler of Mesopotamia and 
the eastern provinces. Amidst their quarrels Ariarathes, with the help of the 
prince of Armenia, made his way back to his country, drove out the Macedonian 
garrisons by which it was occupied, and made himself king of Cappadocia. 

The sovereignty of a native prince gratified the national feelings of the people, 
while from a Greek ruler they may have derived some improve- ah the Asiatic govern- 
ments in art and civilization. But from neither were they like to ^rtortarianl'were^iike 
receive the blessings of just and good government; and in this re- w> ressive and corrupt. 
spect, probably, the Greek and barbarian rulers were perfectly on a level with 
each other. From time immemorial, indeed, in Asia, government had seemed to 
have no other object than to exact from the people the largest possible amount 
of revenue, and the system of finance consisted merely in the unscrupulous prac- 
tice of oppression and fraud. Never was there a more disgraceful monument, of 
an unprincipled spirit in such matters, than that strange collection of cases of 
open robbery or fraudulent dealing, which was so long ascribed to Aristotle, and 
which still is to be found amongst his works, under the title of the second book 
of the Economics. Its real date and author are unknown ; 30 but it must have 
been written for the instruction of some prince or state in Asia, and it gives a 
curious picture of the ordinary ways and means of a satrap or dynast, as well as 
of the expedients by which they might supply their ordinary occasions. " A 
satrap's revenue," says the writer, 31 "arises from six sources : from his tithes of 
the produce of all the land in his satrapy; from his domains; from his cus- 
toms ; from his duties levied on goods within the country, and his market duties ; 
from his pastures ; and, sixthly, from his sundries," amongst which last are reck- 
oned a poll-tax, 32 and a tax on manufacturing labor. And amongst a king's ways 
and means is expressly mentioned, a tampering with the currency, and a raising 
or lowering the value of the coin 33 as it might suit his purposes. 

But far above the kingdoms of Asia, whether Greek or semi-barbarian, were 
those free Greek cities which lined the whole coast of Asia Minor, 
from Trapezus, at the south-eastern corner of the Euxine, to Soli thTcoStstf aITmu 
and Tarsus, with their Greek or half Greek population, at the 
mouth of the Gulf of Issus, and almost on the frontier of Syria. Of these Greek 
cities, Sinope and Heraclea were the most famous on the north coast ; the shore 

^ Diodorus, XXXI. Excerpt. Photii. ^ 31 l aTl l\ c'lSr; Sf rdv rrpoudSoiv • and yns, inb rSv 

Diodorus, XXXI. apud Photium, and iv rfj x">P a IMw ytvo\ikvu>v . airo £/j.nopiu)v, and tc- 

XVIII. 16. Xsiv, axu BocK-nudTiiiv, and ruiv a\Xu>v. (Economic. 

29 Diodorus, XXXI. apud Phot. II. 1 

30 _ Seethe article on this subject in Niebuhr's S2 cktij 6~e, f, and t&v aWuv, iniKt<pd\ai6v re nal 

Kleine Schriften, p. 412, and another by Mr. x^9^a^wv npoaayopEvonivri. 

Lewis, in the first volume of the Philological ss nepi rd v6p.wna \iyu>, ndlov teal ndre t'ijuov 3 

Museum. tvtavov nottjTtov. 



368 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

of the JEgean was covered with towns whose names had been famous from re- 
mote ages ; but the noblest state, not of Asia Minor only, but almost of the 
whole world, was the great and free and high-minded commonwealth of Rhodes. 

The island of Rhodes, till nearly the end of the Peloponnesian war, was divided 
Rhodes, its wise and between the three Dorian cities, Lindus, 34 Ialysus, and Camirus. 
CjJptaSjSS But in the 93d Olympiad, about three years before the battle of 
of iu citizens. ^Egospotami, the three states agreed to found a common capital, 35 

to which they gave the name of the island, and from that time forwards the citv 
of Rhodes became eminent amongst the cities of the Greek name. It was built 
on the northern side of the island, after a plan given by Hippodamus of Mile- 
tus, 36 the most famous architect of his age, and it stood partly on the low ground 
nearly at the level of the sea, and partly, like Genoa, on the side of the hill, 
which formed a semicircle round the lower part of the town. Rhodes was fa- 
mous alike in war and peace ; the great painter, Protogenes, enriched it with 
pictures of the highest excellence, and which were universally admired ; the 
famous colossal figure of the sun, more than a hundred feet in height, which 
bestrode the harbor's mouth, was reputed one of the wonders of the world ; and 
the heroic resistance of the Rhodians against Demetrius Poliorcetes was no less 
glorious than the defence of the same city against the Turks in later times bv the 
knights of St. John. But Rhodes could yet boast of a better and far rarer glory, 
in the justice and mutual kindness which distinguished her political institutions, 
and the social relations of her citizens ; 37 and, above all, in that virtue so rare in 
every age, and almost unknown to the nations of antiquity, a spirit of general 
benevolence, and of forbearance even towards enemies. The naval power of 
Rhodes was great, but it was employed, not for purposes of ambition, but to put 
down piracy. 38 And in the heat of the great siege of their city, when Demetrius 
did not scruple to employ against them the pirates 39 whose crimes they had re- 
pressed, and when a thousand ships, belonging to merchants of various nations, 
had come to the siege, like eagles to the carcass, to make their profit out of the 
expected plunder of the town, and out of the sale of its citizens as slaves, this 
noble people rejected with indignation the proposal of some ill-judging orators, 
to pull down the statues of Antigonus and Demetrius, 40 and resolved that their 
present hostility to those princes should not tempt them to destroy the memo- 
rials of their former friendship. The Rhodians, in the midst of a struggle for 
life and death, allowed the statues of their enemies to stand uninjured in the 
heart of their city. The Romans, after all danger to themselves was over, could 
murder in cold blood the Samnite general, C. Pontius, to whom they owed not 
only the respect due to a brave enemy, but gratitude for the generosity with 
which he had treated them in his day of victory. 

I have thus attempted to give a sketch of the state of Asia in the 125th Olym- 
piad ; but it should be remembered, that although the Greek lit- 

Tho literature of this * c , . ., .. P , .. 

period .baa almost whoi- erature ot this period was very voluminous, vet it has so entirely 
perished, that hardly a single writer has escaped the wreck. 
Thus we know scarcely more of Greece and Asia in the middle of the fifth cen- 
tury of Rome, than we know of Rome itself ; that is, we have in both cases the 
skeleton of political and military events, but we have no contemporary pictures 
of the real stale of either nation. Almost the sole remains of the Greek litera- 
ture of this period are, perhaps, that treatise on public economy or finance, which 
has been falsely ascribed to Aristotle, 41 and the corrupt fragments of Diccear- 

31 Thuevdidcs. YI1I. 44. *> DiodoruB, XX. 82, 83. 

:: ' DiodoruB, XIII. U. w Diodorns, XX. 98. 

36 Compare Strabo, X [V. p. 648, and Aristot. *' That it is Dot Aristotle's work seems to me 

Politic. II. 6, and Diodorns, XIX. 46. certain; bul [ do not think that it can be much 

m Strabo, XIV. p. 652, 668. voliTtvu^ixri Kd\- later than Aristotle's age, for the writer appears 

Xiom riov 'EAXfvuv, is the character given of to regard the dominion of Alexander as still 

Rhodes by Diodorns, XX. Bl. being one governed by the king, with his sa- 

38 Diodorus, XXI. 81. Strabo, XIV. p. 652. traps in the several provinces, a notion which 



Chap. XXXV.] SICILY— SYRACUSE.' 359 

chus, a scholar of Aristotle, and a friend of Theophrastus, on the topography of 
Greece. And not only the contemporary, but the later literature, which might 
have illustrated these times, has also for the most part perished ; the entire and 
connected history of Diodorus ends for us with the 119th Olympiad, and the 
history of the subsequent years can be gleaned only from scattered and meagre 
sources ; from one or two of the lives of Plutarch, from Justin's abridgment, from 
the mere sketches contained in Appian, and from the fragments of the chronolo- 
gers, which are exclusively chronological, preserved to us by Eusebius. 

The names of Sicily, of Syracuse, and of Agathocles, are never once mentioned 
in the ninth and tenth books of Livy, while he is giving the his- Sicny . The Roma™ 
tory of the second and third Samnite wars ; nor would any one "j^ JSety t™fgreat 
suspect, from his narrative, that there had existed during a period power of A s athocles - 
of twenty-eight years, from 436 to about 464 or 465, 42 separated from Italy only 
by a narrow strait, one of the greatest powers and one of the most remarkable 
men to be found at that time in the world. But this is merely one of the conse« 
quences of the absence of all Roman historians contemporary with the fifth cen- 
tury. Livy did and could only copy the annalists of the seventh, or of the mid- 
dle of the sixth century, and the very oldest of these, separated by an interval 
of a hundred years from the Samnite wars, .and having no original historian older 
than themselves, did but put together such memorials of the past as happened 
to be still floating on the stream of time, stories which had chanced to be pre- 
served in particular families, or which had lived in the remembrance of men 
generally. Thus, as I have before observed, the military history of the Samnite 
wars is often utterly inexplicable : the detail of marches, the objects aimed at in 
each campaign, the combinations of the generals, and the exact amount of their 
success, are lost in oblivion ; but particular events are sometimes given in great 
detail, and anecdotes of remarkable men have been preserved, while their con- 
nection with each other has perished. Agathocles never made war with th,e Ro- 
mans, and his name therefore did not occur in the triumphal Fasti of any great 
Roman family. What uneasiness his power gave to the senate ; how gladly they 
must have seen his arms employed in Africa ; 43 how anxiously they must have 
watched his movements when his fleet invaded and conquered the Liparsean 
islands, 44 or when he crossed the Ionian gulf, and defended Corcyra with suc- 
cess against the power of Cassander ; 45 above all, when he actually landed in 
Italy, with Etruscan and Ligurian soldiers in his service, and formed an alliance 
with the Apulians and Peucetians or Pediculans, 46 to assist him in his conquest of 
Bruttium : this no Roman tradition recorded, and therefore no later annalist has 
mentioned ; but they who can represent to themselves the necessary relations of 
events, can have no difficulty in conceiving its reality. 

It is mentioned also that Agathocles, 47 in his African wars, had many Samnite 
soldiers in his army as well as Etruscans, and in the year 446 or 447, an Etrus- 

certainly may have outlasted the life of Alexan- certainly. Agathocles reigned in all twenty- 

der himself, for his generals for several years eight years. See Diodorus, XXI. 12. Fragm. 

Erofessed to he the subjects of his infant son, Hoeschel. 

lit which must have passed away, at any rate 43 During four years, from Olymp. 117-3 tc 

within a few years, when the generals assumed 118-2 inclusive ; that is, during the Etruscan 

severally the kingly diadem. campaigns of Q. Fabius in the second Samnite 

42 The beginning of Agathocles' dominion is war. 

placed by Diodorus in Olymp. 115-4, which, ac- 4 * In Olymp. 119-1, the last year of the second 

cording to his synchronism, is the year of the Samnite war. Diodorus, XX. 101. 

consulship of M. Foslius and L. Plautius, and 45 In the 120th Olympiad, but the exact year 

the ninth year of the second Samnite war. His is not known, and therefore, somewhere aDout 

death cannot be determined exactly, because the beginning of the third Samnite war. Dio- 

of the confusions and different systems of the dorus, XXI. 2. Fragm. Hoeschel. Compare 

Soman chronology. It would fall in Olymp. also Fragm. Vatican, XXI. 2. 

122-4 ; or b. 0. 289 ; but whether that year would 46 About the same period, just after his expe- 

coincide with the consulship of M. Valerius dition to Corcyra. Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel, 

and Q. Csedicius, one year after the end of the XXI. 3, 4. 

third Samnite war, or with one of the two sue- 47 Diodorus, XX. 11, 64. 
ceeding consulships, it is impossible to fix 
24 



370 ' HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

can fleet of eighteen ships 48 came to his relief at Syracuse, when 
some of the nations' of he was blockaded by the Carthaginians, and enabled him to defeat 
the enemy and effect his passage once more to Africa. This "was 
three or four years before the end of the second Samnite war, and just after 
the submission of the principal Etruscan states to Rome, in consequence of the 
great successes of Q. Fabius. We are told, also, that at one time the Tarentines** 
applied to him to command their forces against the Messapians and Lucanians, 
and that he went over to Italy accordingly, which, though the date is not men- 
tioned, must have taken place in the latter part of his reign, when he was mak- 
ing war upon the Bruttians ; that is, as nearly as we can fix it, in the 120th or 
121st Olympiad, whilst the third Samnite war was raging. It is strange that 
neither the Samnites nor the Etruscans ever asked him to aid them against Rome, 
or, if they did, that he should not have been tempted to engage in so great a 
contest. But the nearer interest of humbling the Carthaginians, and of estab- 
lishing his power on the south coast of Italy, prevented him from penetrating 
through the straits of Messana, and sending a fleet to the mouth of the Tiber. 
And no doubt, if he had attacked the Romans, they would have formed a close 
alliance with Carthage against him, as they did shortly afterwards against Pyr- 
rhus ; nay, it is probable that the renewal of the old league between the two 
countries, which took place in 44S, 50 may have been caused in some degree by 
their common fear of Agathocles, who had at that period finally evacuated Africa, 
but had not yet made peace with Carthage. 

Agathocles died in the last year of the 122d Olympiad, about three years after 
Distracted state of si- the end of the third Samnite war. Had he lived fifty years earlier, 
^."^11^^™^ he, like Dionysius, would have been known by no other title than 
later years. ^^ f tyrant ; but now the successors of Alexander had accus- 

tomed men to tolerate the name of king, in persons who had no hereditary right 
to their - thrones ; and Agathocles certainly as well deserved the title as Lysima- 
chus, or the ruffian Cassander. Polybius accused Timseus of calumniating him ; 
but surely his own character of him must be no less exaggerated on the other 
side, when he says 51 that although in the beginning of his career he was most 
bloody, yet when he had once firmly established his power, he became the 
gentlest and mildest of men. Like Augustus, he was too wise to indulge in 
needless cruelty ; but his later life was not so peaceful as that of Augustus, and 
whenever either cruelty or treachery seemed likely to be useful, he indulged in 
both without scruple. The devastation and misery of Sicily during his reign 
must have been extreme. Dinocrates, a Syracusan exile, 52 was at the head of an 
army of 20,000 foot and 3000 horse, and had made himself master of several 
cities, and so well was he satisfied with his buccaneer condition, that he rejected 
Agathocles' offer of allowing him to return to Syracuse, and of abdicating his own 
dominion that the exiles might return freely. Then Agathocles called the Car- 
thaginians over to put Dinocrates down ; and gave up to them as the price of 
their aid all the cities which they had formerly possessed in Sicily. The exiles 
were afterwards defeated, and Dinocrates was now glad to make his submission ; 53 
and from this time, a. v. c. 449, we hear of no further civil wars or massacres 
in Sicily, till the period immediately preceding Agathocles' death, which took 
place sixteen or seventeen years later. But his last days were full of misery. 
His son, Agathocles/' 1 was murdered by his grandson Archagathus, and the old 
tyrant, who was now reduced almost to the brink of the grave by a painful and 
hopeless disorder, dreaded lest Archagathus should murder the rest of his family 
as soon as he should himself be no more. Accordingly, he resolved to send his 
wife, Texena/' 5 with his two young sons, and all his treasure, to Egypt, her na- 

48 Diodorus, XX. 01. In Olymp. 118-2. M Diodorus, XX. 77, 78. 

« Strabo, VI. p. 2S0. 6S Diodorus, XX. 89, 90. 

60 Livy, IX. 43. M Diodorus, XXI. 12. Fragm. Hocschel. 

n Polybius, IX. 23.. •» Justin, XXII I. 2. The account of the part- 



Chap. XXXV.] DEATH OF AGATHOCLES. 37 1 

tive country, whilst lie himself should be left alone to die. On his death, the 
old democracy 56 was restored without a struggle, his property was confiscated, 
and his statues thrown down. But it was a democracy in name only, for we 
find that the same man, Hicetas, was continued in the office of captain-general 
for the next nine years 57 successively ; and so long a term of military command 
in times of civil and foreign war was equivalent to a despotism or tyranny. . 

At the moment of Agathocles' death, there was a Syracusan army 58 in the 
field, consisting', as usual, chiefly of mercenaries, and commanded 

ln ,° , Ail -r»nr 1 ■ • J Excesses committed by 

by the tyrant s grandson, Archao-athus. cut Maenon, who is said the mercenary soldiers. 

■ -rv" 1 > 1 • iajii ii They occupy Messana. 

in Diodorus account to have poisoned Agathocles, and who was 
now with the army of Archagathus, contrived to murder Archagathus, and to get 
the army into his own hands. He then attempted to get possession of Syracuse, 
and to make himself tyrant, and finding himself resisted by the new government 
and the captain-general, Hicetas, he too called in the Carthaginians. Syracuse 
was quite unable to resist, and submitted to the terms which they imposed. 
They gave 400 hostages, and consented to receive back all the exiles, under which 
term all Msenon's army were included. What was become of Msenon himself 
we know not ; but the mercenaries, being mostly Samnite or Lucanian foreigners, 
were still looked upon as an inferior caste to the old Syracusan citizens ; and as 
these last formed the majority of the people, none of the new citizens could ever 
get access to any public office. This led to fresh disturbances, but at last the 
strangers agreed to sell their properties within a certain time, and to leave Sicily. 
They accordingly came to Messana, 59 in order to cross the strait and return to 
Italy ; but being admitted into the city, they rose by night and massacred the 
principal inhabitants, and kept the women and the city for themselves. From 
this time forwards the inhabitants of Messana were known by the name of. Ma- 
mertini, sons of Mamers or Mars, that being the name by which these Italian sol- 
diers of fortune had been used to call themselves. 

While Messana had thus fallen into the hands of a barbarian soldiery, the con- 
dition of the rest of Sicily was scarcely happier. Hicetas had the Tyrants in the several 
power of a tyrant in Syracuse, Phintias 60 was tyrant in Agrigen- ci "es of sicu y . 
turn, Tyndarion in Tauromenium, Heraclides in Leontini, and other men whose 
names have not reached posterity exercised the same dominion in the smaller 
cities. Hicetas and Phintias made war upon each other, made plundering inroads 
into each other's territories, and mutually reduced the frontier districts to a state 
of utter desolation. Gela was destroyed by Phintias, and its inhabitants removed 
to a new town which he founded on the coast near the mouth of the Himera, 
and called after his own name. And the Mamertines availed themselves of all 
this misery to extend their own power, even to the opposite side of the island ; 
they sacked Camarina and Gela, 61 which had been again partially inhabited after 
its destruction by Phintias, and obliged several of the Greek cities to pay them 
tribute. Thus the Greek power in Sicily, which had been so formidable under 
Agathocles, was now quite prostrated, and the whole island seemed likely to 
become the spoil of the Carthaginians and Mamertines. This course of events 
on one side of the strait, and the extension of the Roman dominion a few years 
later to the extreme coast of Bruttium on the other side, tended inevitably to 
bring about a collision between Rome and Carthage, such as Pyrrhus foretold 
when he found it impossible to revive and consolidate the Greek interest, and 
restore in a manner the dominion of Agathocles. 

ing between Agathocles and his family is given expressions are, 'Uiras hvia Irti ivvaartiaas — 

by Justin with much simplicity and good feel- tKfidWtTcu rrjs Tvpawido;. 

ing, and it is much to his credit that he pre- 68 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXI. 12, 13. 

ferred this story to the horrible and incredible 69 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXI. 13. Po- 

tales about the last days of Agathocles which lybius, I. 7. 

Diodorus has copied apparently from Timseus. 60 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXII. 2, 11. 

66 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXI. 12. 6I Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. 2. Po- 

67 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXII. 6. His lybius, I. 8. 



72 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 



And now, before I speak of Pyrrhus himself and the fortunes of his early years, 
it 8 degraded we must turn our eyes to Greece, the worn-out and cast-off skin 

Attempt of 
the Greeks to 



Atte Throw fr° m which the living serpent had gone forth to carry his youth 



-Vafter ^e ae de d a °th a o" an d vl g or to otner l ar >ds. Greek power, Greek energy, Greek 
s eWus - genius, might now be found indeed anywhere rather than in 

Greece. Drained of all its noblest spirits, for so hopeless was the prospect at 
home, that any foreign service 62 offered a temptation to the Greek youth to enter 
it ; yet exposed to the miseries of war, and eagerly contended for by rival sov- 
ereigns, because its possession was still thought the most glorious part of every 
dominion ; mocked by every despot in turn with offers of liberty, yet as soon as 
it was delivered from the yoke of one, condemned under some pretence to receive 
the garrison of another into its citadels ; Greece, in the middle of the fifth cen- 
tury of Rome, seemed utterly exhausted, and lay almost as dead. Demetrius 
Poliorcetes had retained his hold upon it after his Asiatic dominion had been lost 
by the event of the buttle of Ipsus ; and even when he himself engaged in his 
last desperate attempt upon Asia, and whilst he was passing the last years of his 
life as a prisoner in the hands of Seleucus, Greece was still, for the most part, 
under the power of his son, Antigonus Gonatas. But upon the death of Seleu- 
cus Nicator, when Antigonus was disputing the sovereignty of Macedonia with 
Ptolemy Ceraunus, Seleucus' murderer, the Greeks made 63 a feeble attempt to 
assert their liberty. Sparta once more appeared at the head of the national con- 
federacy, and Areus, the Spartan king, was intrusted with the conduct of the 
war. The Greeks attacked JEtolia, which appears at this time to have been in 
alliance with Antigonus, but they were repulsed with loss ; and then, as usual, 
jealousy broke out, and the confederacy was soon dissolved. Yet, almost imme- 
diately afterwards, there was formed the first germ of a new confederacy, which 
existed from this time forwards till the total extinction of Grecian independence, 
and in which there Avas revived a faint image of the ancient glory of Greece, the 
pale martinmas summer of her closing year. This confederacy was the famous 
Achaian or Achaean league. 

The Achaian name is conspicuous in the heroic ages of Greece, and in her last 
Formation of the Ach*- decline, but during the period of her greatness is scarcely ever 
an league. brought before our notice. The towns of Achaia were small and 

unimportant, and the people lived for many generations in happy obscurity ; but 
after the death of Ptolemy Ceraunus, when dread of a Gaulish invasion kindled 
a general spirit of exertion, and when Antigonus was likely to have sufficient 
employment on the side of Macedonia, four Achaean cities, 64 Dyme, Patrae, Tri- 
teea, and Pharae, formed a federal union for their mutual defence. According to 
the constitution of the league, each member was to appoint in succession, year 
by year, two captains-general, 65 and one secretary, or civil minister, to conduct 
the affairs of the union. These four states, like the forest cantons of Switzerland, 
were the original members, and in a manner the founders of the confederacy ; 
and at the period of Pyrrhus' invasion of Italy, it consisted of these alone. 

It is not possible to discover the condition of the several states of Greece, 
however much their ancient fame must excite an interest even for 
nesV'nu 9 s tiy heiTta their last decay. But generally they were subjected to the Ma- 
^ cedonian king, Antigonus, 66 either directly, by having a Macedo- 

nian garrison in their citadels, or indirectly, as being ruled by a tyrant from 
among their own people, who for his own sake upheld the Macedonian suprem- 
acy. Sicyon 61 had been governed by various tyrants ever since it had been 
taken by Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he destroyed the lower town, and removed 

m Diodorus, XX. 40. He says that when A rat us delivered Sicyon in 

63 Justin, XXIV. 1. 251 b.'o. some of the exiles whom he then re- 

M Polybius, II. 41. stored had been in banishment fifty years. And 

06 Polybius, 1 1. 5 ■;. Cieero, copying from the Bame source however, 

60 Polybius, II. 41. IX. 20. namely, Arattts' own memoirs, Bays the same 

" Diodorus, XX. 102. Plutarch, Aratus, 9. thing. De Offlciis, II. 23. 



Chap. XXXV.] NORTHERN GREECE. 373 

the whole population within the precincts of the old citadel. Megalopolis 68 about 
this time must have been under the dominion of its tyrant, Aristodemus, of Phi- 
galea, who owed his elevation to factions in the oligarchy by which the city had 
been before governed. In Argos 69 Aristippus had the ascendency, through the 
support of king Antigonus. The Acropolis of Corinth 10 was held by one Alex- 
ander (we know not when or by what means he won it), and the strength of the 
place enabled him to enjoy a certain degree of independence ; so that, after his 
death, Antigonus was obliged to employ stratagem in order to get it for himself 
out of the hands of Alexander's widow, Nicaea. Society was generally in a state 
of disorder, robbery and plundering forays were almost universal, and Greece 
could no longer boast that she had banished the practice of carrying arms in 
peace ; n for men now went armed so commonly, that conspirators could meet 
and arm themselves in open day without exciting any suspicion. 

Something more of life was to be seen in the states to the north of the isthmus 
of Corinth. When the Gauls invaded Greece in the second year 
of the 1 25th Olympiad, Athens, Megara, Bceotia-, Phocis, Locris, of Bceotia. Diaordera 
and JEtolia sent a confederate army to Thermopylae to oppose 
them ; and the Boeotian force 72 amounted to 10,000 heavy-armed infantry, and 
500 horse, a number equal to that which won the battle of Delium against the 
whole power of Athens in the Peloponnesian war. Thebes had twice revolted 
from Demetrius Poliorcetes, and had been twice reduced by him, ?3 and after his 
second conquest of it he had pulled down its walls 14 and left it defenceless. 
Antigonus Gonatas retained possession of it till he succeeded in establishing him- 
self in Macedonia ; then his hold upon southern Greece was relaxed, except on 
those cities where he still kept a garrison of his soldiers, or where a tyrant who 
looked to him for protection governed almost as his officer. But Bceotia seems 
to have been left to itself, with nearly its old constitution ; according to which 
Thebes enjoyed a certain supremacy over the other cities, but nothing like that 
dominion which she had claimed in the days of her greatness. The country was 
safe and flourishing when compared with Peloponnesus, and Tanagra is mentioned 13 
as a place at once prosperous and deserving its prosperity ; its citizens were 
wealthy yet simple in their manners, just, and hospitable. Thebes, on the con- 
trary, is described as a scene of utter anarchy ; acts of violence were constantly 
committed with impunity, and justice was so evaded or overborne by violence, 
that twenty-five or even thirty years 16 sometimes elapsed before the injured party 
could obtain a hearing for his cause before the magistrates. This was owing 
principally to the numerous societies or clubs which existed, avowedly for mere 
objects of convivial entertainments ; but which becoming extremely wealthy, for 
men without children, and even some who had children, often left all their prop- 
erty to their club, were enabled no doubt to corrupt justice, in order to screen 

68 Pausanias, VIII. 27. He puts Aristodemus, licve, in the older constitution. Bockh thinks 
however, too early, when he says that he be- that it was one of the prerogatives of Thebes, 
came tyrant soon after tbe Lamian war, and that this magistrate should be always a Theban. 
confounds Acrotatus, son of Areus, with Aero- Corpus Inscript. Vol. I. p. 729. 

tatus, son of Cleomenes. In 318 b. c. Megalopo- 76 Polybius, XX. 6. Dicsearchus, Stat. Grsec. 

lis was governed by a strict oligarchy. See Dio- p. 15, et seqq. Hudson. The text in these frag- 

dorus, XVIII. 68. Compare Polybius, X. 25. ments of Dicsearchus is often hopelessly cor- 

69 Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 80. rupt ; but they seem also, independently of 

70 Plutarch, Aratus, 16, 17. such faults, to have been interpolated by some 

71 Plutarch, Aratus, 6. more modern writer, or rather their substance 

72 Pausanias, X. 20. to have been given by him in his own language, 

73 Plutarch, Demetrius, 39, 40. not without many additions. We know the 

74 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXI. 10. manner in which old topographical accounts 

75 Dicsearchus, Stat. Grsec. p. 13. Ed. Hud- are copied by one writer after another, each of 
son. The inscriptions of this period show that whom adds something to them of his own ; and 
there was still a government for all Boeotia, thus the work of Dicsearchus seems to have 
Koivbv TltinftoiioTuiv uwiSpiov. and Boeotarchs, as in formed the groundwork of the existing frag- 
ancient times; there was also a magistrate ments, which have been wrought up by a later 
called ap%uiv h koivS) BuiutSi/, or ap%uv Boiuroij, writer, and altered both in their language and 
who seems to have been the head of the Bceo- matter. 

tarchs, and of whom there is no mention, I be- 



374 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

the outrages of their memhers. A strong but not improbable picture of the 
worst abuses of such clubs, which even in their best state, and in the healthiest 
condition of society, are always fraught with evil either politically or morally. 

Forty years had now passed since Athens had lost Demosthenes. His death, 
as was most fitting, coincided exactly with the period of his coun- 
ty overthrown ™£~. try's complete subjection ; within a month 17 after Antipater had 
established a Macedonian garrison in Munychia, Demosthenes es- 
caped his vengeance by a sudden and painless death 18 in the island of Calauria. 
The shade of Xerxes might have rejoiced to see that his own people had a share 
in the humiliation of his old enemy ; for in the army with which Antipater crushed 
the Greek confederates in the Lamian war there were Persian archers, slingers, 
and cavalry, 19 who had been brought to his aid from Asia by Craterus, and who 
thus strangely found, in their actual subjection to a Greek power, an opportunity 
of revenging the fatal days of Salamis and Plataea. That great democracy, with 
all its faults, by far the noblest example of free and just government which the 
world had then witnessed, was again destroyed by Antipater, after a duration of 
seventy-one years since its restoration by Thrasybulus. All citizens whose prop- 
erty fell short of 2000 drachmae were deprived of their political rights ; and 
more than half of the Athenian people were thus disfranchised. Lands in Thrace 
were offered to them, and they migrated thither in great numbers ; 8t> whilst the 
remnant, who were now exclusively the Athenian people, were left in mockery 
to the enjoyment of Solon's laws, while a Macedonian garrison occupied Munv- 
chia, and commanded the entrance into the harbor of Piraeus. 

Then followed a period of fifteen years, during which Athens remained sub- 
. „ , iect, first to Antipater and then to Cassander his son ; and al- 

Aad nominallv restored •" 1 , .J, . „ .. . - , ' 

by Demetrius Poiior- tliougn the qualification oi a citizen was reduced by Cassander 8 
to 1000 drachmas, only half of the sum fixed by his father, and 
thus the internal government became somewhat more popular, yet still, whilst 
Munychia and Piraeus were in the power of a foreign prince, Athens could have 
no independent national existence. In the year of Rome 447, three years before 
^he end of the second Samnite war, Cassander's garrisons were driven out by 
Demetrius Poliorcetes, 8 ' 2 the old democracy was restored, and the Athenians were 
declared to be free. But it was only a shadow of the " fierce democratic," and 
of the real freedom of the days of Pericles and Demosthenes. The utmost base- 
ness of flattery was lavished on Demetrius, such flattery as was incompatible with 
any self-respect, and which confessed that Athens was dependent 83 for the great- 
est national blessings not on itself, but on foreign aid. 

A few years afterwards, when his fortune was ruined by the event of the 
Demetrius himself «- battle of Ipsus, the Athenians refused to receive him into their 
aXT,,^u "ut Ills city; and this so stung him that when his affairs began to mend, 
he laid siege to Athens, and having obliged it to surrender, he not 
only occupied Piraeus and Munychia, but put a garrison into the city itself, con- 
verting the hill* 4 of the Museum into a Macedonian citadel. It was recovered 

77 Plutarch, in Demosth. 28. Sons of the brave who fought at Marathon ! 

18 Ibid. 30. The common story was that De- Your feehle spirits. Greece her bead hath 
mostheni's killed himself by a poison which he bowed 

carried about him ; but Ins nephew, Demo- As if the wreath of Liberty thereon 

chares, expressed bis belief that Ins death was Would fix itself as smoothly as a cloud, 

natural; or rather, in bis own language, " that Which, at Jove's will, descends on Pelion's 

ods, in their care for him, bad rescued top. 

him from the cruelty of the Macedonians by a 



and gentle death." 
■•' Diodorus, Will. L6. 



Ah ! that a conqueror's word should be so 
dear ! 
Hl Diodorus, Will. 18. Ah! that a boon could shed such rapturous 

•" Diodorus, Will. 74. joys! 

82 Diodorus, XX. 4.">, 46. A gift of that which is not to be given 

83 Who can help remembering Mr. Words- By all the blended powers of earth and heav- 
worth's beautiful fines i en." 

" So ye prop, M Plutarch, Demetr. 30, 34. Pausauias, 1. 25. 



Chap. XXXV.] ^TOLIA. 375 

again, when he had Deen driven out of Macedonia by Lysimachus and Pyrrhus, 
by one of the last successful efforts of Athenian valor. Olympiodorus, 85 who 
had already acquired the reputation of a soldier and a general, led the whole 
population of Athens into the field ; he defeated the Macedonians, stormed the 
Museum, and delivered Piraeus and Munychia. This was in the second year of 
the 123d Olympiad: so that when Pyrrhus sailed for Italy seven years after- 
wards, Athens was really independent, for she had gained her freedom, not by 
the gift of another, but by her own sword. 

This, however, was almost a solitary gleam of light amidst the prevailing 
darkness. In general there were neither soldiers, statesmen, nor 
orators now to be found in Athens. The great tragedians had Athens, "zeno and e p - 
long since become extinct ; and Thucydides has neither in his 
own country, whether free or in subjection, nor in any other country or age of 
the world, found a successor to rival him. Plato's divine voice was silent, and 
the " Master of the Wise" 8S had left none to inherit his acuteness, his boundless 
knowledge, and his manly judgment, at once so practical and so profound. The 
theatre, indeed, could boast of excellence, but it was only in the new comedy, the 
sickliest refinement of the drama, and a sure mark of a declining age. Still there 
was intellectual life of no common kind existing at this time in Athens. There 
were now living and teaching within her walls, two men whose doctrines in phi- 
losophy were destined to influence most widely and lastingly the characters and 
conduct of their fellow-creatures, the founders of the two great rival sects of the 
later age of the Roman republic, — Epicurus and Zeno. 

But Boeotia and Athens were no longer the principal powers of northern 
Greece ; the half-barbarous iEtolians had risen to such an emi- 
nence, that we find them able, at a somewhat later period, to con- adventurers or "Pi- 
tend single-handed with the kingdom of Macedon. Their country 
was still, as in the days of Thucydides, separated from Acarnania 81 by the Ache- 
lous, and was stretched in length from the shores of the Gulf of Corinth to 
those of the Malian Bay, at the back of Locris, Doris, and Phocis. But a sort 
of federal government succeeded, in later times, to the multitude of scattered and 
independent villages which formerly composed the ^Etolian nation ; a general 
assembly of deputies from all the JEtolian towns met every year at Thermum to 
elect a captain-general, 88 a master of the horse, and a secretary for the general 
government of the confederacy ; great fairs 89 and festivals, to which the people 
came up from all parts of the country, were held at the same place ; and Ther- 
mum thus grew in wealth and magnificence, and its houses became noted for the 
magnificence of their furniture, as the inhabitants, on these great occasions, 
opened their doors to receive all comers, with a hospitality not common in Greece 
since the heroic ages. But there were other points in which the ^Etolians equally 
retained the habits of an early state of society ; in the best days of Grecian civ- 

86 Plutarch, Demetr. 46. Pausanias, I. 26. in the year hefore the Gaulish invasion, the 

86 " Vidi '1 maestro di color che sanno £ tol ™ n ? obtained possession of Heraclea in 

Seder tra filosofica famiglia." rrachmia (Pausanias, X 20, § 9.) At a later 

Dante Inferno IV. P eno °-' JNaupactus was become an ^Etohan 

» ' town, but we do not know when it was eon- 

87 It had, however, acquired several towns quered. 

situated in its neighborhood which had former- m Polybius, V. 8, XXII. 15, § 10. The cap- 

ly been independent. The date of these several tain-general and secretary were officers also of 

acquisitions is diffiult to fix precisely. The the Achasan league. Whether the°^Etolian 

iEtolians had occupied the famous Cirrheean league was formed on the Achasan model, or 

plain just after the death of Seleucus ; a repe- whether it existed earlier, we cannot tell, 

tition of the old Phocian sacrilege, which was 89 iyopal K ai iravnyvpus. Polyb. V. 8. These 

the cause or pretence of a general attack upon fairs and religious festivals, heid along with the 

them by the Peloponnesian Greeks under the assemblies for political purposes, remind us of 

supremacy of Sparta. But in this new sacred the great Etruscan assemblies at the temple of 

war, the authors of the sacrilege were more Voltumna. The fairs seemed to imply that the 

fortunate than the Phocians of old, and the towns in JEtolia were still little better than vil- 

iEtolians repelled their assailants with great lages, so as to have but few shops for the regu- 

loss. Justin, XXIV. 1. About the same time, lar supply of commodities. 



376 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV 

ilization, when life and property were scarcely less secure at Athens than they 
are at this day in the best governed countries of Europe, the vEtolians went 
always armed ; 90 and the character of a robber was still deemed honorable 
amongst them, as it had been in all parts of Greece in the Homeric age. As 
the nation became more powerful, this spirit was displayed on a larger scale, and 
iEtolian adventurers, countenanced, but not paid or organized, by the national 
government, made plundering expeditions on their own account both by land 
and sea, and were not very scrupulous in their choice of the objects of their 
attack. These adventurers were called "pirates," ireigurct/i, a name 91 which occurs 
in the written language of Greece for the first time about this period, when the 
long wars between Alexander's successors and the general decline of good gov- 
ernment had multiplied the number of such marauders. 

The JEtolians will play an important part hereafter in this history, when their 
Political relations of quarrels with Macedon and the Achaean league led them to con- 
■ ffitolia - elude an alliance with Rome, and to array themselves with the 

Roman armies, on their first crossing the sea to carry on war in Greece. At 
present their place in the Greek political system seems not to have been defi- 
nitely fixed ; they were in alliance with Antigonus Gonatas 92 before he obtained 
possession of Macedon, at the time when their occupation of the Cirrhaean plain 
involved them in a sacred war with Peloponnesus, and they were also the allies 
of Pyrrbus and the Epirots ; but their peculiar hostility to Macedon and to the 
Acheeans had not as yet been called into existence. Polybius, from whom 
we derive most of our knowledge of them, was too much their enemy to do 
them full justice; and on the great occasion of the Gaulish invasion of Greece, 
they performed their duty nobly, and no state served the common cause more 
bravely or more effectually. Yet a people who made plunder their glory can 
have had little true greatness ; and it must have been an evil time for Greece, 
when the iEtolians became one of the most powerful and most famous of the 
Grecian states. 

Northward of the Ambracian gulf, and lying without the limits of ancient as 
Epims. its variou9 of modern Greece, the various Epirot tribes occupied the coast of 
T^ig, lad r e™y n hi S to- the Ionian sea as far as the Acroceraunian promontory, reaching 
ry and traditions. inland as far as the central mountains which turn the streams east- 
ward and westward, and from the western boundary of Thessaly and Macedonia. 
Within these limits the Molossians, Thesprotians, Chaonians, and many other 
obscurer people, had from the earliest times led the same life, and kept the 
same institutions. They lived mostly in villages 93 or in small village-like towns, 
scattered over the mountains, in green glades opening amidst the forests, or 
along the rich valleys by which the mountains are in many places intersected, 
going always armed, and, with the outward habits, retaining also much of the 
cruelty and faithlessness of barbarians, attended by their dogs, a breed of sur- 
passing excellence, 94 and maintaining themselves chiefly by pasturage, their ox- 

M Thuoydides, I. 5. ™ Justin. XXIV. 1. Dion Cassias. Fragm. 

01 Polybius, IV. 3. 6. Valckenaer says that Peiresc. XXXIX. 

the word imparls occurs, for the first time in 93 oUovtrt Kara *w/ias, is the character gives by 

the surviving Greek literature,in the Septua- isr\lax of the chaonians. Thesprotians, and 

gint translation ofthe Bible. There it is to be Molossians equally. Periplus, p. 11. 12, Ed. 

found in -loli XXV. 8, ami Hosea VI. 10; in Hudson. But we hear of some towns among 

both instances, 1 think, signifying a robber by them, although of none of any considerable size 

and rather than by sea. And bo wsiparfyiov is or importance. 

used in Genesis XLIX. 19. Thus the Scholiast M The ancient character of the Molossian 
on Pindar, Pyth. »'>•_', says that -rt.tpa.Tai properly dogs is well known. Mr. Hughes found them 
means of h 6<5<3 KaKuvpyovvrct. See Valckenaer as numerous and as fierce as they were in an- 
on Ammonius, p. 194. The Greek translators c/u-nt days; the breed, he thinks, has in no 
of the Bible could not havegot the word from respect degenerated. He describes them as 
old Greece, but the robber population of Isauria "varying in color through different shades 
and Cilicia, who made the name of pirate so from 'a dark brown to a bright dun, their long 
famous about two centuries afterwards, had fur being very soft, and thick and glossy; in 
probably already begun to be troublesome, and Bize thej are about equal to an English mastiff: 
to molest the Egyptian merchant vessels. they have u long nose, delicate ears finely point- 



Chap. XXXV.] FAMILY OF PYRRHUS. 377 

en 95 being amongst the best of which the Greeks had any knowledge. In the heart 
of their country stood the ancient temple of Dodona, a name famous for genera- 
tions before Delphi was yet in existence ; the earliest seat of the Grecian oracles, 
whose ministers, the Selli, a priesthood of austerest life, received the answers of 
the god through no human prophet, but from the rustling voice of the sacred 
oaks which sheltered the temple. These traditions ascend to the most remote 
antiquity : but Epirus had its share also in the glories of the heroic age, and 
Pyrrhus the son of Achilles was said to have settled in the country of the Molos- 
sians after his return from Troy, 96 and to have been the founder of the line of 
Molossian kings. The government, indeed, long bore the character of the heroic 
period ; the kings, on their accession, were wont, it is said, to meet their assem- 
bled people 91 at Passaron, and swore to govern according to the laws, while the 
people swore that they would maintain the monarchy according to the laws. In 
later times Epirus had become connected with Macedonia by the marriage of 
Olympias, an Epirot princess, with Philip the father of Alexander. Her brother, 
Alexander of Epirus, was killed, as we have seen, in Italy, where he had carried 
on war in defence of the Greek Italian cities against the Lucanians ; and on his 
death his first cousin 98 ^Eacides succeeded to tht throne. ^Eacides married Pthia, 
the daughter of Menon of Pharsalus, a distinguished leader in the last struggle 
between Greece and Macedon after the death of Alexander, and the children of 
this marriage were two daughters, Troias and Deidamia, and one son, Pyrrhus. 

^Eacides had taken part with his cousin Olympias, 99 when Cassander 
wanted to destroy all the family of Alexander in order to seat 

|. t n -i-i *■-»*- -i -r-» /^ ill J Early fortunes of Pyr- 

himself on the throne of Macedon. But Cassander had tampered rhu 8 . He is brought up 

. - < _, . . f, , « ,->. -, . in exile in Illyna. 

with some of the Epirot chiefs ; the cause ot Olympias was not 
popular, and the Epirots did not wish to be involved in a quarrel with the 
party which was likely to be the ruling power in Macedon. They accordingly 
met in a general assembly, and deposed and banished their king. ^Eacides him- 
self was out of their power, as he was still in the field on the frontiers of Mace- 
donia with the few soldiers who remained true to him, and his daughter Deida- 
mia was with Olympias. But Pyrrhus, then an infant, had been left at home, 
and the rebel chiefs 100 having murdered many of his father's friends, sought for 
him also to destroy him. He was hurried off in his nurse's arms by a few de- 
voted followers, and carried safely into Illyria, where Glaucias, one of the Illyrian 
kings, protected him, and as his father was killed in battle soon afterwards, 101 Pyr- 
rhus remained under Glaucius' care, and was brought up by him along with his 
own children. 

Ten or eleven years afterwards, when the power of Cassander in Greece 
seemed to be tottering, and Demetrius Poliorcetes had re-estab- _ „ x 

T-iii -. ° . , «, • in? i t"* • • l He recovers his father's 

hshed the democracy at Athens, u-iaucias entered Epirus with throne, loses it, ami re- 
an armed force, and restored Pyrrhus to the throne. But again 
the face of affairs changed ; the great league between Cassander, Ptolemy, Se- 
leucus, and Lysimachus was formed, and Demetrius was obliged to loosen his 
hold on Greece, that he might help his father in Asia ; thus Cassander's party 
recovered their influence in Epirus, and Pyrrhus, who was still only seventeen 
years old, was driven a second time into exile. He now joined Demetrius, who, 
besides their common enmity to Cassander, had married Deidamia his sister ; 

ed, magnificent tail, legs of a moderate length, might mislead ; as, for instance, he confounds 

with a body nicely rounded and compact." Tharyntas or Tharypus, the great grandfather 

Travels in Albania, &c, Vol. I. p. 483. of iEacides,. with Arybas his father, and makes 

95 See Kruse's Hellas, Vol. I. p. 368, and the iEacides and Alexander brothers instead of 
authorities there quoted. cousins, unless by the term "frater" he means 

96 Pausanias, I. 11. frater patruelis" and not " frater germanus." 

97 Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 56. " Diodorus, XIX. 36. 

98 For the family of Pyrrhus, see Plutarch, 10 ° Plutarch, Pyrrh. 2. 
Pyrrh. I. Pausanias, I. 11. Diodorus, XVI. m Diodorus, XIX. 74. 
72, and XIX. 51. See also Justin, XVII. 3 ; but m Plutarch, Pyrrh. 3. 
in his account there are some things which 



378 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV. 

and with him he crossed over into Asia, and was present at the battle of Ipsus. 
After that great defeat he still remained faithful to Demetrius, and went as a 
hostage for him 103 into Egypt, when Demetrius had concluded a separate peace 
with Ptolemy Soter. Here fortune first began to smile upon him ; he obtained 
the good opinion and regard of Ptolemy's queen, Berenice, and received in mar- 
riage Antigone, her daughter by a former husband. By Berenice's assistance he 
was supplied with men and money, and returned once more to Epirus. His 
kinsman, Neoptolemus, the son apparently of Alexander, who had died in Italy. 
had been placed on the throne, when he himself had been driven from it ; but 
Neoptolemus was become unpopular, and Pyrrhus found many partisans. Dread- 
ing, however, lest Neoptolemus should apply to some foreign prince for aid, he 
entered into a compromise with him, 104 and the two rivals agreed to share the 
regal power between them. The end of such an arrangement could not be 
doubtful ; suspicions arose, and Pyrrhus accusing Neoptolemus of forming de- 
signs against his life, did himself what he charged his rival with meditating, and 
having treacherously murdered him, after having invited him to his table as a 
guest, he remained the sole sovereign of Epirus. 

His old enemy Cassander died in the first year of the 121st Olympiad, five 
„ . , _, . , years after the battle of Ipsus. Not one of Alexander's succes- 

He interferes in the ....... \ . —, 

quarrels between the sors bad gamed his power by more or worse crimes than Cassan- 
der ; and as his house had been founded in blood, by the murder 
of Alexander's family, so now in its own blood was it to perish. His sons An- 
tipater and Alexander 105 quarrelled for his inheritance. Antipater murdered his 
own mother, Thessalonica, the daughter of the great Philip of Macedon, and half- 
sister of Alexander ; and now the last survivor of the old royal family of the race 
of Hercules. Alexander his brother applied to Pyrrhus for aid, and purchased 
it by ceding to him all that the Macedonian kings had possessed on the western 
side of Greece ; Tympha?a and Parausea, 106 just under the central ridge which 
turns the streams to the two opposite seas, and Ambracia, Acarnania, and Amphi- 
lodhia, on the northern and southern shores of the Ambracian gulf. These were 
added permanently to the kingdom of Pyrrhus, and he fixed his capital at Ambracia. 

The price was thus paid, and Alexander drove out his brother, by Pyrrhus' 
Extinction of Cassan- help, and became king of Macedonia, Antipater fled to Lysima- 
der'e family. chua for protection, and was afterwards put to death by hirn. , ° 7 

Alexander was in his turn murdered by Demetrius Poliorcetes, who, after all his 
reverses, thus established his family on the throne of Macedon ; and the bloody 
house of Cassander utterly perished. 

Six or seven years afterwards the restless ambition of Demetrius leagued his 

pyrrh.,8 wins Macedo- old enemies, Seleucus, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus, once more 

JSfgnfovifEpirai mi against him, and they encouraged Pyrrhus to invade Macedonia, 

';;;; Pyrrhus dethroned Demetrius, 108 and obtained possession of a part 

for about six yean. f ^jg dominions, the other part being claimed by Lysimachus. 

m Plutarch, Pyrrh. 4. 1M Ibid. 5. tribes by Thueydides, II. 80, and it appears 

108 Porphyry and Dexippus ; apud Euseb. that Alexander was bnt restoring to Pyrrhus 

tiger, p. 58, 68. Plutarch, countries which geographically belonged more 

Pyrrh. to Epirus than to Macedon, and some of which 

'" ( '' Plutarch, Pyrrh. 6. The present text had in earlier times been connected with it 

readfi nf» re Xvfitjiaiav *al ri)V irapaXlav riji tAaxeSo- politically. 

vtas. Palmer] ■IS7»u^«»orTti/ifi(av In Stephanus Byzant. in Xaovta, there is a 

I of Nii/i0.ii'ii\ and Niebuhrwith no less quotation from Proxenus (an historian who'< 

certainty has restored Uapavatav for irapaMav. wrote about Pyrrhus ; see Dionys. Halic. XIX. 

Geschichte, Vol. Il'l. p. 586. He ob- 11, Fragm. Mai. and Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hel- 

serves that irapaAfav could only mean the coast len. Vol III. 568) enumerating the people of 

ii Dium and the Strymon, which it is ab- Chaonia, It runs, Ti'/i^oToi, TaputiAioi, Api'ipoves, 

surd to suppose ceded to Pyrrhus. Tympheea where K. 0. Muller corrects Tvu^aioi, Uapavaiot. 

and Parausea, Niebuhr adds, are mentioned to- "TJber die Makedoner. X. 88.'' His correction 

gether by A.rrian. Exped. Alexand. 1. 7, as and Niebuhr's mutually confirm one another, 

countries which Alexander passed bj on Ids m Porphyryand DexippuB, apud Euseb. pp. 

march from Ulyria in! Pa 58-68. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 7. Demetrius, 86. 

ratueans are reokoned along rith the Ipirot "" Plutarch, Demetrius, 44, Pyrrh. 11. 



Chap. XXXV.] HE IS INVITED TO ITALY. 379 

But at the end of seven months 109 Lysimachus made himself master of the whole 
of Macedonia, and drove Pyrrhus across the mountains into his native kingdom 
of Epirus. There he reigned in peace for about six years, his dominions inclu- 
ding not Epirus only, but those other countries which had been the price of his 
first interference in the quarrels of Cassander's sons, Tympheea and Parauaea on 
the frontiers of Macedonia, and the coasts on both sides of the Ambracian gulf. 
He united himself in an alliance with his neighbors the iEtolians, which was re- 
newed in the reign of his son. And thus he had leisure to ornament his new 
capital, Ambracia, which he enlarged by adding to it a new quarter 110 called 
after his own name, and decorated it with an unusual number of statues and 
pictures. 

But although Pyrrhus himself was reigning peaceably in Epirus, yet the period 
which elapsed between his expulsion from Macedonia and his Ital- . 

,. . iii i" it t-*j_ i Revolutions during tnat 

ian expedition was marked by great revolutions elsewhere, .rtol- period in other coun- 
emy, the founder of the Macedonian dynasty in Egypt, died after 
a reign or dominion of forty years from the death of Alexander. Demetrius 
Poliorcetes ended his days about the same time after a two years' captivity in 
Syria. Lysimachus was killed soon afterwards, as has been already mentioned, 
in a battle with Seleucus, and Seleucus himself, the last survivor of Alexander's 
immediate successors, was murdered seven months after his victory by Ptolemy 
Ceraunus. The murderer, who was half brother to Ptolemy Philadelphus, the 
second of the Macedonian kings of Egypt, took possession of the vacant throne 
of Macedonia, and became immediately involved in war with Antiochus, son of 
Seleucus, and with Antigonus, the son of Demetrius ; m the first of whom wished 
to revenge his father's death, while the other was trying to recover Macedonia, 
which, as having been held by his father during six or seven years, he regarded 
as his lawful inheritance. In the mean time, he was actually the sovereign of 
Thessaly, and exercised a great power over all the states of Greece ; and was in 
alliance with Pyrrhus and the ^Etolians. The Greeks, as we have seen, made a 
fruitless attempt to assert their independence, by attacking his allies, the .iEto- 
lians ; but they were easily beaten, and Antigonus seems to have reigned with- 
out further molestation in Thessaly and Boeotia, whilst Ptolemy Ceraunus still 
held his ill-gotten power in Macedonia. 

Things were in this state when ambassadors 112 from Tarentum entreated Pyr- 
rhus to cross over into Italy, to protect both themselves and the 
other Greek cities of Italy from a barbarian enemy far more for- the Tarentines into 
midable than the Lucanians, the old enemies of his kinsman Alex- a J 
ander. Times were now so changed that the Lucanians and Samnites were 
leagued in one common cause with the Greeks, with whom they had been so 
long at enmity ; the Etruscans had taken part also in the confederacy ; yet the 
united efforts of so many states were too weak to resist the new power which 
had grown up in the centre of Italy, and was fast arriving at the dominion of the 
whole peninsula. To conquer these fierce barbarians, and to save so many Greek 
cities from slavery was a work that well became the kinsman of the great. Alex- 
ander, the descendant of Achilles and JEacus. 

The prayer of the Tarentines suited well with the temper and the circumstan- 
ces of Pyrrhus. He promised them his aid, and began forthwith to prepare for 
his passage to Italy, and for his war with the Romans. 

109 Porphyry and Dexippus, apud Euseb. pp. m Justin, XXIV. 1. Memnon, apud Pho 
58-63. tium, p. 226. Ed. Bekker. 

110 See Polybius, XXII. 10, 13. "» Plutarch, Pyrrh. 13. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

EOME AND THE ROMAN PEOPLE AT THE BEGINNING OP THE WAR WITH THE 
TARENTINES AND WITH PYERHUS. 



"Privates illis census erat brevis 
Commune magnum; nulla decempedis 
Metata privatis.opaeam 
Porticus excipiebat Areton, 
Nee fortuitum spernere cespitem 
Leges sinebant, oppida publico 
Sumtu jubentes et cleorum 
Templa novo decorare saxo." 

Hoeat. Carmin. II. 15. 



The preceding chapter lias been compiled from materials which in their actual 
sketch of the internal state are often fragmentary, and even when they are perfect, are 
state of Rome. not original. But yet they were derived from original sources; 

for although the contemporary histories of Alexander's successors have long 
since perished, yet they did once exist, and were accessible to the writers whom 
we read and copy now. We cross the Adriatic to inquire into the state of Italy, 
and not only are our existing materials the merest wreck of a lost history, not only 
would they tell their story to us at second hand, if they had been preserved en- 
tire ; but even these very accounts could have been taken from no contemporary 
historians, for none such ever existed. In this absolute dearth of direct informa- 
tion, it is impossible that the" following sketch should be other than meagre, and 
it must also rest partly on conjecture. Unsatisfactory as this is, yet the nature 
of the case will allow of nothing better ; and I can but encourage myself, while 
painfully feeling my way amid such thick darkness, with the hope of arriving at 
length at the light, and enjoying all the freshness and fulness of a detailed con- 
temporary history. 

In the middle of the fifth century, the Roman people was divided into three- 
The divisions of the Ko- and-thirty tribes ; ] and the total number of citizens, which included, 
man people. besides those enrolled in the tribes, the eerarians, and the people 

of those foreign states, which had been obliged to receive the civitas sine suf- 
frao-io, amounted to 272, 000. 2 What proportion of these were enrolled in the 
tribes, or, in other words, enjoyed the full rights of citizenship, we cannot tell, 
nor have we any means of estimating the number of the agrarians ; nor again, 
can we draw any inference as to the population of the city of Rome, as dis- 
tinguished from the country tribes ; nor can we at all compute the proportion of 
slaves ;it this time to freemen. The class of serarians, however, must have been 
greatly diminished, since freedmen and persons engaged in retail trade or manu- 
factures had been enrolled in the tribes ; and it could have only contained those 

1 '1" .t is to say, twenty tribes arc known to tribes were created, which included the Priver- 

I in the earliesl period ofthe com- natians, and the settlers in the Falernian plain. 

ilth, and another was added soon after- And, lastly, after the .Equina war. two more 

wards. The Dumber of twenty-one continued were added in 455, the Aniensian andthi l>- 

<:ill after the Gaulish invasion, when four more renline, in which were enrolled the jEquians. 

wereaddedon the righl bank of the Tiber, in All these are olearlj local tribes, and their 

Lamely, the Btellatine, the Tromentme, situation is well known. The same may be 

e, and the Arniensian. Two more said of the four city tribes, the Colline, the Es- 

were a Ided in 897 for the inhabitants of the old quiline, the Palatine, and the tribe of Bubura. 

Volsciau lowlands near the Pomptine marshes, But to the remaining seventeen, which arc 

the Pomptine and the Pnblilian. Twomorewere mostly named after some noble B an family, 

the Latin war in 422, the Meeoian as the JSmman, the Cornelian, the Fabian, &c, 

Scaptian, tor the Lanuvians and some it is extremely diflioult to assign their proper 

Other people of Latium. In the s< ad Sain- locality. 

nite war, in 43G-7, the Ulcntinc and Falerian - Livy, Epit. XI. 



Chap. XXXVI] MANNER OF LIFE OF THE COUNTRY TRIBES. 381 

who had forfeited their franchise, either in consequence of their having incurred 
legal infamy, or by the authority of the censors. 

The members of the country tribes, of those at least which had been created 
within the last century, lived on their lands, and probably only MaDner o{ m o{ ^ 
went up to Rome to vote at the elections, or when any law of citizens of the country 

• i • liii tribes. 

great national importance was proposed, and there was a power- 
ful party opposed to its enactment. They were also obliged to appear on the 
Capitol on the day fixed by the consuls for the enlistment of soldiers for the 
legions. 3 Law business might also call them up to Rome occasionally, and the 
Roman games, or any other great festival, would no doubt draw them thither in 
great numbers. With these exceptions, and when they were not serving in the 
legions, they lived on their small properties in the country ; their business was 
agriculture, their recreations were country sports, and their social pleasures were 
found irj the meetings of their neighbors at seasons of festival ; at these times 
there Would be dancing, music, and often some pantomimic acting, or some rude 
attempts' at dramatic dialogue, one of the simplest and most universal amuse- 
ments of the human mind. This was enough to satisfy all their intellectual 
cravings ; of the beauty of painting, sculpture, or architecture, of the charms of 
eloquence and of the highest poetry, of the deep interest which can be excited 
by inquiry into the causes of all the wonders around us and within us, of some of 
the highest and most indispensable enjoyments of an Athenian's nature, the ag- 
ricultural Romans of the fifth century had no notion whatsoever. 

But it was not possible that an equal simplicity should have existed at Rome. 
Their close and constant intercourse with other men sharpens and , ' • ,. v . 

•_..._. ... -, 1 And of those of the city 

awakens the faculties of the inhabitants or cities; and country study of the hw. Ap- 

. . pi i-iiii ii P lus Claudius, Ti. Cor- 

sports being by the necessity ot the case denied to them, they uncanius,andthcogui. 
learn earlier to value such pleasures as can be supplied by the art 
or genius of man. Besides, the conduct of political affairs on a large scale, 
much more when these affairs are publicly discussed either in a council or 
in a popular assembly, cannot but create an appreciation of intellectual power 
and of eloquence ; and the multiplied transactions of civil life, leading per- 
petually to disputes, and these disputes requiring a legal decision, a knowledge 
of law became a valuable accomplishment, and the study of law, which is 
as wholesome to the human mind as the practice of it is often injurious, was 
naturally a favorite pursuit with those who had leisure, and who wished either 
to gain influence or to render services. Thus the family of the Claudii seem 
always to have aspired after civil rather than military distinction. Appius 
Claudius, the censor, was a respectable soldier, but he is much better known by 
his great public works and by his speech against making peace with Pyrrhus, 
than by his achievements in war ; nay, it is said, that his plebeian colleague in 
the consulship, L. Volumnius, taunted him with his legal knowledge and his elo- 
quence, as if he could only talk 4 and not fight. The Claudii, however, were dis- 
tinguished by their high nobility, independently of any personal accomplish- 
ments ; but the family of the Coruncanii owed its celebrity entirely, so far as it 
appears, to their acquaintance with the law. Ti. Coruncanius 5 was consul with 
P. Leevinus in the year when Pyrrhus came into Italy, and was named dictator 
more than thirty years afterwards for the purpose of holding 'the comitia. He 
left no writings behind him, but was accustomed to the very latest period of his 
life to give answers on points of law to all that chose to consult him ; and his 
reputation was so high that he was the first plebeian 6 who was ever appointed to 
the dignity of pontifex maximus. The Ogulnii also appear to have been a family 
distinguished for knowledge and accomplishments. Two brothers of this name 
were, as we have seen, the authors of the law which threw open the offices of 

* Polybius, VI. 19. * 6 Pomponius, de Origine Juris, § 35, 38. Ci- 

* Livy, X. 19. cero, Brutus, 14. Cato Major, 9. 

6 Livy, Epit. XVIII. 



382 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVI. 

augur and pontifex to the commons, and afterwards in their eedileship they orna- 
mented the city with several works of art ; and one of them, besides his embassy 
to Epidaurus, already noticed, was sent as one of three ambassadors 7 to Ptolemy 
Philadclphus, king of Egypt, soon after the retreat of Pyrrhus from Italy. 

There was as yet no regular drama, for Livius Andronicus did not begin to ex- 
Totai absence of oil lit hibit his plays till after the first Punic war; 8 but there were pan- 
erature - tomimic dances performed by Etruscan actors ; 9 there were the 

saturae 10 or medleys, sung and acted by native performers ; and there were the 
comic or satirical dialogues on some ludicrous story (fabellae atellana?), in which 
the actors were of a higher rank, as this entertainment was rather considered an 
old national custom, than a spectacle exhibited for the public amusement. There 
were no famous poets, nor any Homer, to embody in an imperishable form the 
poetical traditions of his country ; but there were the natural elements of poetry, 
and the natural love of it; and it was long the custom at all entertainments" that 
each guest in his turn should sing some heroic song, recording the worthy deeds 
of some noble Roman. So also there was no history, but there was the innate 
desire of living in the memory of after-ages ; and in all the great families, pane- 
gyrical orations were delivered at the funeral of each of their members, contain- 
ing a most exaggerated account of his life and actions. 12 These orations existed 
in the total absence of all other statements, and from these chiefly the annalists 
of the succeeding century compiled their narratives ; and thus every war is made 
to exhibit a series of victories, and all the most remarkable characters in the Ro- 
man story are represented as men without reproach, or of heroic excellence. 

But whilst literature was unknown, and poetry, and even the drama itself, 
were in their earliest infancy, the Romans enjoyed with the keen- 
■rhe great g™me™f n tifi est delight the sports of the circus, which resembled the great 
national games of Greece. Every year in the month of Septem- 
ber 13 four days were devoted to the celebration of what were called indifferently, 
the Great or the Roman Games. Like all the spectacles of the ancient world, 
they were properly a religious solemnity, a great festival in honor of the three 
national divinities of the Capitoline temple, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. On 
the first day of the festival, the whole people went in procession 14 from the Capi- 
tol through the Forum to the circus ; there the sacrifice was performed, and 
afterwards the exhibition of the various games began, which was so entirely a 

7 Dionysius, XX. 4. Fragm. Vatic. Valer. Roman Antiquities. The view of the circus 
Maxim. IV. 3. § 9. and the Palatine, given in Panvinius' work, is 

8 Clinton, Fasti Hellcnici, Vol. III. p. 25, b. o. curious, as showing how greatly Rome has 
240. changed in the last 250 years. A shorter ae- 

8 Livy, VII. 2. count may be found in Rosini and Dempster's 

io x 

moloi 
scri 

varus poen_... 

quale scrip'serunt Pacuvias et Ennuis.'' Dio- prehensivc sketches of the games oi the circus, 

medes, 111. 9. Livy speaks of the saturse or in his account of the reign of Justinian, which 

satyr®, as an intermediate state in the dramatic notices every important point in the subject. 

art' between the acting of regular stories with a A representation of the circus is given on sev- 

plot, and the mere rude sparring with coarse cral coins which may be seen in Panvinius' 

jests, " versum incompositam temere ac rudern work, and which enables us to form a sufficient 

alternisjaoiebant," which used to go on between notion of its appearance. The bands or factions 

two performers. The saturse appear, then, to of the drivers arc noticed in numerous inscrip- 

liave been comic songs in regular verse, in tions. 

which a great variety of subjects were sneecs- " Tcrtullian, Do Spectaculis. Vll. His cnu- 
sivcly noticed, without any more connection mcration of the several parts of the greal pro- 
as being each of them points on which the cession is full and lively. /'De, simulacrorum 
hearers cquIq be readily excited to laughter. scrie, dc imaginum agmine, de curribus, de 
11 Cicero, Brutus, 19. thensis, de armamaxis, de Bedibus, 
13 Cicero, Brutus, 10. Live, V11I. 40. de exuviis, quanta prseterea sacra, quanta Bao- 
13 The fullest work on the'games of the cir- riticia pneccdant, intcrccdant, succcdant, quot 
cus is, I suppose, that of Onuphrius Panvinius collegia, quot sacerdotia. quot otHciamoveautur, 
(OnoiVio I'anvini, a Veronese, who flourished Bciunl h-.mincs illius urbis in qua dieinoniorura 
in the latter partbf the 16th century), published conventuB eonscdit." 
in the ninth volume of Grievius' Collection of 




Chap. XXXVI] PUBLIC BUILDINGS, TEMPLES, ETC. 383 

national ceremony, that the magistrate of highest rank who happened to be in 
Rome gave the signal for the starting of the horses in the chariot race. The 
circus itself was especially consecrated to the sun, and the colors by which the 
drivers of the chariots were distinguished, were supposed to have a mystical 
allusion to the different seasons. 15 Originally there were only two colors, white 
and red, the one a symbol of the snows of winter, the other of the fiery heat 
of summer ; but two others were afterwards added, the spring-like green, and 
the autumnal gray or blue. The charioteers, who wore the same colors, were 
called the red or white, or green or blue band (factio), and these bands became 
in later times the subject of the strongest party feeling ; for men attached them- 
selves either to the one or the other, and would have as little been induced to 
change their color in the circus as their political party in the commonwealth. 
It does not appear that these colors were connected with any real differences, 
social or political ; there were no ideas of which they were severally the sym- 
bols ; and thus, while the commonwealth lasted, the bands of the circus seem to 
have excited no deeper or more lasting interest than the wishes of their respect- 
ive partisans for their success in the chariot race. But afterwards, -'hen the 
emperor was known to favor any one color more than another, that color would 
naturally become the badge of his friends, and the opposite color the rallying 
point of his enemies ; and when a real political feeling was connected with these 
symbols, it was not wonderful that the bands of the circus became truly factions, 
and that their quarrels in the lower empire should have sometimes deluged Con- 
stantinople with blood. 

The Romans in the fifth century enjoyed the games as keenly as their descend- 
ants under the emperors ; but the lavish magnificence of the im- 
perial circus was as yet altogether unknown. Wooden boxes 16 ou" tem P °M%iAi™n r <i 
supported on poles, like the simplest form of a stand on an Eng- ornamen<; ■ 
lish race-course, were the best accommodation as yet provided for the specta- 
tors ; and it was only in the fifth century that the carceres 11 were first erected, 
a line of buildings of the common volcanic tufo of Rome itself, extending along 
one end of the circus, each with a door opening upon the course, from Avhich the 
horses were brought out to take their places, before they started on the race. 
But although the works of this period were simple, yet they now began to be 
very numerous, and some of them were on a scale of very imposing grandeur. 
Livy has recorded the building of seven new temples 18 within ten years, between 
452 and 462 ; for the period immediately following we have no detailed history, 
but the foundation of the temple of vEsculapius, about two years later, is noticed 
in the epitome of Livy's eleventh book ; and many others may have been founded, 
of which we have no memorial. It is mentioned also that C. Fabius 19 orna- 
mented one of. these temples, that of Deliverance from Danger, with frescoes of 
his own execution, in consequence of which he obtained the surname of Pictor. 
The date of the Greek artists, Damophilus and Gorgasus, 20 who painted the 
frescoes of the temple of Ceres, close by the circus, we have no means of deter- 
mining, but several notices show that a taste for the arts was beginning at this 
time to be felt at Rome. The colossal bronze statue of Jupiter, set up by Sp. 
Carvilius in the Capitol, in the year 461, has been already noticed, as well as the 
famous group of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, which was placed 
in the comitium three years before. And at the same time a statue of Jupiter in 

* Tertullian, ibid. VIII. IX. in the great battle of Sentinum (X. 29) ; a third 

Livy, I. 35. near the circus, dedicated to Venus (X. 31) ; a 

Livy, VIII. 20. Suetonius in Claud. 21. fourth dedicated to Victory (X. 33) ; a fifth to 

There are representations of the carceres in one Jupiter the Stayer of Flight (X. 37) ; a sixth to 

or two of the engravings of Panvinius' work, Fortis Fortuna (X. 46) ; and a seventh to Salus, 

copied from antiques. or Deliverance from Danger, which was the 

18 Namely, a temple of Bellona, vowed by temple painted by Fabius Pictor (Livv. X. 1). 
Appms Claudius in 458 (Livy, X. 19) ; another w Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXV. § 19. 
of Jupiter the Victorious, vowed by Q. Fabius ao Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXV. § 45. 



384 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXYL 

a chariot drawn by four horses, 21 the work of an Etruscan artist, and wrought in 
clay, was erected on the summit of the Capitol. 

The temple of Bellona, built by Appius Claudius 22 in fulfilment of a vow made 
Family images won, on the field of battle, was decorated with a row of shields or 
like masks at funerals, escutcheons, on which were represented his several ancestors with 
scrolls recording- the offices which they had filled, and the triumphs which they 
had won. Whoever of these had been the father of a family was represented 
with all his children by his side, as in some of our old monuments. In these 
and in all similar works, an exact likeness 23 was considered of much greater im- 
portance than any excellence of art ; for the object desired was to transmit to 
posterity a lively image of those who had in their generation done honor to 
their name and family. For this purpose waxen busts, the scorn of the mere 
artist, were kept in cases ranged along the sides of the court in the houses of all 
great families ; these were painted to the life, and being hollow, were worn like 
a mask' 24 at funerals by some of the dependents of the family, who also put 
on the dress of the office of rank of him whose semblance they bore ; so that it 
seemed as if the dead were attended to his grave by all the members of his race 
of past generations, no less than by those who still survived. None were so 
represented who had not in their lifetime filled some honorable public station, 
and thus the number of images worn at any funeral was the exact measure of 
the family's nobility. 

No other aqueduct had yet been added to that constructed by Appius Clau- 
TheAppian road payed dius in his famous censorship ; nor had any later road rivalled 
as far as BoviUffi. ^ e magnificence of the Appian. This was paved with lava in the 
3 r ear 461, from the temple of Mars, 25 a little on the outside of the city walls, to 
Bovillre, at the foot of the Alban hills. 

The city itself was still confined within the walls of Servius Tullius. The 
Enent and aspect of Capitol and the Quirinal hills formed its northern limit, and 
thecity - looked down immediately on the open space of the Campus Mar- 

tius, now covered with the greatest part of the buildings of modern Rome. Art or 
caprice had not yet effaced the natural features of the ground, by cutting down 
hills and filling up valleys, nor had the mere lapse of time as yet raised the soil 
bv continued accumulations to a height far above its original level. The hills, 
with their bare, rocky sides, and covered in many parts with sacred groves, 
the remains of their primeval woods, rose distinctly and boldly from the valleys 
between them; on their summits were the principal temples and the houses of 
the noblest families ; beneath were the narrow streets and lofty houses, 26 roofed 
only with wood, of the more populous quarters of the city, and in the midst, 
reaching from the Capitoline hill to the Palatine, lay the comitium and the Ro- 
man Forum. , 

• A spot so famous well deserves to be described, that we may conceive its prin- 
Description of tho Fo- cipal features, and image to ourselves the scene as well as the actors 
rum - in so many of the great events of the Roman history. From the 

foot of the Capitoline hill-" to that of the Palatine, there ran an open space of 

21 Plinv, Hist. Natar. XXXV. §158. the ancestors of the first Appius, and -what 

- Pliny i Bist. Nat. XXXV. §' 2, 3) ascribes offices could they have filled at Rome, when he 

these shields to the first Appius Claudius, who himself was the first of his family who became 

was consul with P. Scrvihus in 259. But un- a Roman? 

less the words "qui consul cum Servilio fuit 23 Pliny, Tlist. Nat. XXXV. §4.6. 

anno urbis CCLIX." are an unlucky gloss of 24 Pliny, Hist. Nat XXXV. § 6. Polybius, 

some ignorant reader, as is most probable, they VI. 53. 

seem to Bhow an extraordinary carelessness in as Livy, X. 47. 

Pliny himself| for to Bay nothing ofthe direct w Pliiiy, XVI. § 36, quoting from Cornelius 

testimony, which ascribes the foundation ofthe Nepos. 

temple Of Bellona to Appius the Blind in 458, " The whole of the following description of 

Plinj 'a own statement .-ays, thai Appius caused the Forum is taken from Bunsen's article in the 

tho figures of his ancestors, and Bcrolls record- third volume of the "Besehreibung der Stadt 

ing the offices Which fihey had tilled, to be af- Rom." The substance of this article has been 

fixed to this temple : but who could have been given by its author in another form, in a letter 



Chap. XXXVI] DESCRIPTION OF THE FORUM. 385 

unequal breadth, narrowing as it approached the Palatine, and enclosed on both 
sides between two branches of the Sacred Way. Its narrower end was occupied 
by the comitium, the place of meeting of the populus or great council of the 
burghers in the earliest times of the republic, whilst its wider extremity was the 
Forum, in the stricter sense, the market-place of the Romans, and therefore the 
natural place of meeting for the commons, who formed the majority of the Ro- 
man nation. The comitium was raised a little above the level of the Forum, like 
the dais or upper part of our old castle and college halls, and at its extremity 
nearest the Forum stood the rostra, such as I have already described it, facing 
at this period towards the comitium, so that the speakers addressed, not indeed 
the patrician multitude as of old, but the senators, who had, in a manner, suc- 
ceeded to their place, and who were accustomed to stand in this part of the as- 
sembly, immediately in front of the senate-house, which looked upon the comi- 
tium from the northern side of the Via Sacra. «The magnificent basilicse, which 
at a later period formed the two sides of the Forum, were not yet in existence, 
but in their place there were two rows of solid square pillars of peperino, forming 
a front to the shops of various kinds, which lay behind them. These shops were 
like so many cells, open to the street, and closed behind, and had no communica- 
tion with the houses which were built over them. Those on the north side of 
the Forum had been rebuilt or improved during the early part of the fifth cen- 
tury, and were called in consequence the new shops, a name which, as usual in 
such cases, they retained for centuries. On the south side, the line of shops was 
interrupted by the temple of Castor and Pollux, which had been built, according 
to the common tradition, by the dictator, A. Postumius, in gratitude for the aid 
afforded him by the twin heroes in the battle of the lake Regillus. On the same side 
also, but further to the eastward, and nearly opposite to the senate-house, was 
the temple of Vesta, and close to the temple was that ancient monument of the 
times of the kings which went by the name of the court of Numa. 

In the open space of the Forum might be seen an altar which marked the spot 
once occupied by the Curtian pool, the subject of such various tra- StatueS) & c ., in tteFo- 
ditions. Hard by grew the three sacred trees 28 of the oldest """■ 
known civilization, the fig, the vine, and the olive, which were so carefully pre- 
served or renewed that they existed even in the time of the elder Pliny. Further 
towards the Capitol, at the western extremity of the Forum, were the equestrian 
statues of C. Meenius and L. Camillus, the conquerors of the Latins. 

Nor was the interior of the comitium destitute of objects entitled to equal ven- 
eration. There was the black stone which marked, according to 
one tradition, the grave of Faustulus, the foster-father of Romulus, j^ts"?? interest in the 
according to another that of Romulus himself. There was the 
statue of Attius Navius, the famous augur; and there too was the sacred fig- 
tree, under whose shade the wolf had given suck to the two twins, Romulus and 
Remus. A group of figures representing the wolf and twins had been recently 
set up in this very place by the sediles, Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, and the fig-tree 

the Chevalier Canina, written in French (Rome, history, that his topography is necessarily ren- 

1837). He has also prefixed to some impressions dered of less value. Bunsen has had every ad- 

of bis German article, which have been printed vantage of local knowledge no less than Nibby, 

separately, all the passages in the ancient writers but with his local knowledge he combines other 

which throw any light on the topography of the qualities which Nibby is far from possessing 

Forum. equally. 

Since this chapter was written, I have seen However, the general correctness of the de- 

Nibby's latest work on the topography of Rome, scription of the Forum in the fifth century of 

which was published in 1889. His plan of the Rome, as given in the text, is independent of 

Forum differs topographically from Bunsen's; the question whether the position of the Forum 

he places it further to the west, and arranges is to be fixed a certain number of yards more 

the buildings differently. But historically his to the eastward or to the westward. And most 

views are so imperfect, and he follows so con- of those buildings, the site of which has been 

tentedly the old popular accounts, without the so much disputed, were pot in existence at tho 

slightest knowledge, so far as appears, of the period to which this sketch relates, 

light which Niebuhr has thrown on the Roman 2B Pliny, Hist. Natur. XV. § 78. 
25 



386 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVL 

itself had been removed by the power of Attius ISTavius, so said the story, 29 from 
its original place under the Palatine, that it might stand in the midst of the 
meetings of the Roman people. Nor were statues wanting to the comitium any 
more than to the Forum. Here were the three sibyls, one of the oldest works 
of Roman art ; here also were the small figures of the Roman ambassadors who 
had been slain at Fidense by the Veientian king Tolumnius ; and here too, at tho 
edge of the comitium where it joined the Forum, were the statues which the 
Romans, at the command of the Delphian oracle, had erected in honor of the 
wisest and bravest of the Greeks, the statues of Pythagoras and Alcibiades. 

The outward appearance of the Forum in the fifth century was very different 
character of the popu- fr° m i ts aspect in the times of the Caesars, and scarcely less dif- 
lation ; the shops, &c f eren t was the population by which it was frequented at either 
period. Rome was not yet the general resort of strangers from all parts of the 
world ; the Tiber was as yet not only unpolluted by the Syrian Orontes, but its 
waters had received no accession from the purer streams of Greece ; and the 
crowd Avhich thronged the Forum, however numerous and busy, consisted mainly 
of the citizens; or at least of the inhabitants of Rome. The shops of the silver- 
smiths had lately superseded those of a less showy character on the north side of 
the Forum ; but, on the other side, the butchers' and cooks' shops still remained, 
as in the days of Virginius, and it marks the manners of the times, that the 
wealthier citizens used to hire cooks 30 from these places to bake their bread for 
them, having as yet no slaves who understood even the simplest parts of the art 
of cookery. 

The names of the principal families, as well as of the most distinguished men 
Great families of this °f this period, have naturally been mentioned already in the course 
p eriod - of the narrative. It is enough to remark that Appius Claudius 

was still alive, though now old and blind, that M. Valerius Corvus Avas also liv- 
ing, but his public career had been for some time ended ; and that Q. Fabius, 
the hero of the third Samnite war, had died not long after its conclusion. Q. 
Publilius Philo was also dead, and with him expired the nobility of his family. 
But there were ready to meet Pyrrhus, the two victorious generals of the great 
campaign of 461, L. Papirius Cursor and Sp. Carvilius Maximus ; M'. Curius 
Dentatus w r as still in the vigor of life, and Q. Fabius and P. Decius had both left 
sons to uphold the honor of their name. The great Cornelian house contributed 
eminent citizens for their country's sendee from three of its numerous branches ; 
among the consuls of the fourth Samnite war we find a Cornelius Lentulus, a 
Cornelius Rufinus, and a Cornelius Dolabella. Two other names will demand 
our notice for the first time, those of C. Fabricius and L. Cfecilius Metellus, the 
first pre-eminent in the purest personal glory, but a glory destined to pass away 
from his family after one generation, " no son of his succeeding ;" while L. Caecilius, 
if he did not attain himself to the highest distinction, was yet " the father of a line 
of more than kings," of those illustrious Metelli who, from the first Punic war to 
the end of the commonwealth, were amongst the noblest and the best citizens of 
Rome. 

Against a whole nation of able and active men the greatest individual genius 
of a single enemy must ever strive in vain. The victory of Pyrrhus at Heraclea 
was endangered by a rumor that he was slain, for in his person lay the whole 
strength of his army and of his cause. But had the noblest of the Fabii or Cor- 
nelii fallen at the head of a Roman army, the safety of the commonwealth would 
not have been for a single moment in jeopardy. This contrast alone was sufficient 
to ensure the decision of the great war on which we are now about to enter. 

20 The mssiijrc in Pliny which mentions this M Pliny, Histor. Natur. XVIII. § 103. _ So in 

story, XV. § 77, is clearly corrupt, and various the Anlularia of Plantus, the cooks are hired in 

corrections of it have been attempted. Bunsen the Forum ti> go to Euclio's house, and dress 

has given one in a nyte to his article on the his daughter's voiMing dinner. 
Forum, Bcscureib. der Stadt. Koin. 111. p. 62. 



CHAPTER XXXVII, 

FOEEIGN HISTOEY FEOM 464 TO 479— WAES WITH THE ETEUSCANS, GAULS, 
AND TARENTINES— FOURTH SAMNITE WAE— PYRRHUS KING OF EPIEUS IN 
ITALY— BATTLES OF HEEACLEA, ASCULUM, AND BENEVENTUM. 



Non Simois tibi nee Xanthus nee Dorica castra 
Defuerint ; alius Latio jam partus Achilles. 

Virgil, .En. VI. 87. 



The third Samnite war ended in the year 464, and Pyrrhus invaded Italy ex- 
actly ten years later, in the year 474. The events of the interven- 

J . •L . n „ ' . •'■. ■. . , . Fourth Samnite war 

ing period, both foreign and domestic, are, as we nave seen, in- and coalition against 
volved in the deepest obscurity ; but as I have attempted to pre- 
sent an outline of the internal state of Rome, so I must now endeavor to .race 
the perplexed story of her foreign relations, from the first seeds of war, which 
the jealousy of the Tarentines either sowed or earnestly fostered, to the organi- 
zation of that great coalition, in which the Gauls at first, and Pyrrhus afterwards, 
were principal actors. 

On the side of Etruria there had been for a long time past neither certain peace 
nor vigorous war. Jealousies between city and city, and party state and ^positions 
revolution in the several cities themselves, were, as we have seen, oftheEtru8cana - 
forever compromising the tranquillity and paralyzing the exertions of the Etrus- 
can nation. In 461 the cities of southern Etruria had taken up arms, and had 
persuaded the Faliscans to join them ; and in 462 we hear of victories obtained 
over the Faliscans by the consul, D. Junius Brutus. 1 No further particulars are 
known of the progress of the contest, but it appears from the epitome of Livy's 
eleventh book, that at some time or other within the next eight years, the peo- 
ple of Vulsinii took a principal part in it, and in 4*71 the whole, or nearly the 
whole, of the Etruscan nation were engaged in it once again. 

Further to the north " the Senonian Gauls remained quiet," says Polybius, 2 
"for a period of ten years after the battle of Sentinum." If we 
take this statement to the letter, we must fix the renewal of the 
Gaulish war in 469 ; yet we cannot trace any act of hostility till the year 471. 
The Gauls appear first to have engaged as mercenaries in the Etruscan service, and 
afterwards to have joined the new coalition in their own name. 

To the south of Rome, Lucania, during the third Samnite war, had remained 
faithful to the Romans, and in the year 460 we expressly read of 0f fte Lucan j aM and 
. Lucanian cohorts serving with the Roman legions. 3 Of Tarentum Tarentines - 
nothing is recorded after its short war with the Lucanians and Romans in 451, 
which appears to have been ended, as I have already observed, 4 by an equal 
treaty. 

Italy was in this state when the Lucanians attacked the Greek city of Thurii. 
We know not the cause or pretext of the quarrel, but those unfor- The Lucanians attflCi 
tunate Greek cities of Italy were at this time the prey of every ria" 8 r %pT^ tb the T Rt 
spoiler; Agathocles had made repeated expeditions to that coast """»*» ««i- 
in the latter years of his reign, and had taken Croton and Hipponium, 5 while the 
Italian nations of the interior had from time immemorial regarded them as ene- 
mies. Thurii itself had been taken by Cleonymus in 452 6 when he was playing 

1 Zonaras, VIII. 1. i See chap. XXXIIL 

3 Polybius, II. 19. b Diodorus, XXI. 4, 8, Fragm. Hoeschel. 

3 Livy, X. 33. 6 Livy, X. 2. 



388 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXXVII. 



the buccaneer along all the coasts of Italy ; and a Roman army had then come 
to its aid, but too late to prevent its capture. This was perhaps remembered 
now, when the city was threatened by the Lucanians, and the Romans were im- 
plored once again to bring help to the people of Thurii. The request was not at 
first granted ; as far as we can make out the obscure story of these times, the 
first attacks must have been made about the period of the domestic troubles at 
Rome, when the commons occupied the Janiculum, and obliged the senate to con- 
sent to the Hortensian laws. During two successive summers, the Lucanians 
ravaged the territory of Thurii, 1 and so far as appears, there was no power of re- 
sistance in the inhabitants themselves, and no foreign sword was drawn to defend 
them. 

Meanwhile the Hortensian laws were passed, and with them, or shortly before, 
an agrarian law had been passed also. The power of the assembly 
of the tribes had been acknowledged to be sovereign, and the 
popular party for some years from this time, feeling itself to have 
the disposal of all that the state might conquer, appears to have been as fond 
of war as ever was the Athenian democracy under Pericles, while the aristo- 
cratical party, for once only in the history of Rome, seems to have adopted the 
peaceful policy of Cimon and Nicias. 0. iElius, one of the tribunes, proposed 
and carried in the assembly of the tribes what Pliny 8 calls a law against Stenius 
Statilius, 9 the captain-general of the Lucanians; in other words, he moved that 
war should be declared against Stenius Statilius and all his followers and abet- 
tors ; and the tribes gave their votes for it accordingly. The people of Thurii 
voted to vElius, as a mark of their gratitude, a statue and a crown of gold, and 
probably a Roman army was sent to their aid, and relieved them from the pres- 
ent danger ; but the Lucanians were not subdued, and it was evident that they 
would not be left to contend against Rome single-handed. 



The people in their 
tribes vote for war with 
the Lucaniiins. 



7 The data for the arrangement of all these 
events in order of time are as follows: 1. The 
interposition of the Romans in behalf of the 
Thnrians is mentioned in the epitome of the 
'eleventh book of Livy, and the twelfth book be- 
gan apparently with the consulship of Dolabella 
and Domitius in the year 471. 2. M\ Curios 
obtained an ovation or smaller triumph for his 
victories over the Lucanians. ( Auctor de Viris 
Illustrious, in M'. Curio.) This must either 
have been in the year after his consulship, when 
he was perhaps praetor, or else in 471, when we 
know that he was appointed praetor after the 
defeat and death of L. Caeeilius. S. But when 
C. iElius carried his resolution for a war with 
the Lucanians, the Lucanian general Statilius 
had twice assailed the Thurians i " his infestave- 
rat, Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIV. § 32), which, 
I think, implies that he had ravaged their lands 
for two successive years ; but the peace with 
the Samnites was only concluded in the year 
■when Carina was consul ; and throughout the 
war the Lucanians were in alliance with Rome, 
nor were they likely then to meddle with the 
Thurians. 4. C. .Elius passed his resolution as 
tribune; but before the Borteqsian laws were 
carried, such a resolution was not likely to have 
been brought forward bj a tribune, nor would 
it have been carried had the senate been opposed 
to it; ami had they aot been opposed to it. it 
would have been moved probablj bj one ofthe 
consuls with their authority. 5. There is a C. 
jElius recorded in bhi < ti, as having 

been consul in 408; we do not know whether 
this is the same pei on with the tribune; bu1 
if he were, his tribunoship, as preceding his 
consulship, must, have taken place before the 
year 468. 6. The date <Jf the Hortensian laws 
is unknown, but several modern writers place 



it in the very year 46S, when C. iElius was con- 
sul. On the whole, I would arrange these 
events in the following order: 

A. U. C. 464. End of the third Samnite war. 
A. U. C. 466, 467. Lucanians attack the Thu- 
rians. 

A. U. C. 467. The Hortensian laws. C. 
iElius, tribune, carries his motion in the assem- 
bly of the tribes for a war with the Lucanians. 

*A. U. C. 468. C. iElius, consid, chosen per- 
haps as a reward for his popular conduct in his 
tribuneship. 

A. U. C. 471. M\ Curius prtetor. His ova- 
tion over the Lucanians. 

A. U. C. 472. C. Fabricius consul. He de- 
feats the Lucanians, and raises the siege of 
Thurii. 

If it be thought that this scheme leaves too 
great an interval between the declaration of war 
against the Lucanians, and any recorded events 
ofthe war (although, in the total absence of all 
details of this period, this objection is not of 
much weight), then we must suppose that C. 
Jilius, the tribune, and C. iElius, the consul, 
were different persons; and we might then 
place the resolution against the Lucanians a 
\ ear or two later. But it seems more probable 
that the consul and the tribune were one and 
the same man. and then I think the above scheme 
offers fewer difficulties than any other. 
8 Uistor. Natur. XXIV. § G2. 
» It was probably a rogatio to the following 
: ■■ Vellcnt, juberentne cum Stenio Statilio 
Lucanorum pre tore, qiiique bjus seotam secuti 
mi, helium iniri." If there was a Roman 
till predominant in any part of Lueania, 
it would explain wh\ i should have 

rather specified Statilius personally than de- 
clared war against the whole Lucanian people. 



Chap. XXXVII] ROMAN AMBASSADORS MASSACRED. 389 

These events appear to have taken place about six years after the conclusion 
of the third Samnite war, in the year 470, when C. Servilius Tucca - m . 

l -itti j.1 The Tarentines are bu- 

and L. Caecmus Metellus were consuls. Whatever was the cause, sy m forming fl coaii- 

lrr , -in i ■ • i ,' ' ' i* ' ti on against Rome. 

the Tarentines 10 at this period were most active in forming a new 
coalition against Rome. They endeavored to excite the Samnites to renew the 
war, and the Samnites, with the Lucanians, Apulians, and Bruttians, were to 
form a confederacy in the south of Italy, of which Tarentum was to be the head. 
The Romans sent C. Fabricius to the several Samnite and. Apulian cities, to per- 
suade them, if possible, to remain true to their alliance with Rome. But the 
states to whom he was sent laid hands on him and arrested him, and then dis- 
patched an embassy with all speed into Etruria, to secure, if possible, the aid of 
the Etruscans, Umbriahs, and Gauls. Fabricius, we may suppose, was made a 
hostage for the safety of those Samnite hostages who had been demanded by the 
Romans after the late peace, and his release was probably the stipulated price of 
theirs. 

In the following year, 471, the Roman consuls were P. Cornelius Dolabella 
and Cn. Domitius Calvinus. The storm broke out against Rome 
in every direction. In the south the Samnites, Lucanians, Brut- Etruscans and Gauisbe- 
tians, and probably the Apulians, were now in a/state of declared remains rre fai'thmr to 
hostility ; while in the north the mass of the Etruscans were in 
arms, and had engaged, 11 it seems, large bodies of the Senonian Gauls in their 
service, although the Senonians, as a nation, still professed to be at peace with 
Rome. In Arretium, however, the Roman party was still predominant ; the 
Arretines would not join their countrymen against Rome ; and A . u. c . «i. a. c. 
accordingly Arretium 12 was besieged by an Etruscan army, of which 283- 
a large part consisted, as we have seen, of Gaulish mercenaries. 

The new consuls came into office at this period, about the middle of April ; so 
that the season for military operations had begun before they 

o J t Crecilius Metellus is 

could be ready to take the field. Thus L. Csecilius Metellus, the ovftated and siain in a 

./»., ■.. lii i/», ,i •,!!• battle near Arre:ium. 

consul ot the preceding year, had been left apparently with his 
consular army in Etruria during the winter ; and when the Etruscans began the 
siege of Arretium, he marched at once to its relief. According to' the usual 
practice of this period, he was elected praetor for the year following his consul- 
ship, and he seems to have just entered upon his new office when he led his 
army against the enemy. We know nothing of the particulars of the battle, but 
the, result was most disastrous to the Romans. 13 L. Metellus himself, seven mili- 
tary tribunes, and 13,000 men were killed on the field ; and the remainder of the 
arm}^ were made prisoners. 

The consternation caused by such a disaster at such a moment must have been 
excessive. M'. Curius Dentatus was appointed praetor in the room T heGa U is massacre the 
of Metellus, and sent off with all haste with a fresh army to main- Roman « mtassado ™. 
tain his ground if possible. At the same time an embassy was sent to the Gauls 
to complain that their people were serving in the armies 14 of the enemies of Rome, 
while there was peace between the Gauls' and Romans, and to demand that the 
prisoners taken in»the late battle might be released. But the Gauls were at once 
elated and rendered savage by their late victory. The Romans assuredly had 
not sold their lives cheaply ; many brave Gauls had fallen, and amongst the rest 
one of their noblest chiefs, Britomaris. His son, the young Britomaris, called for 

"Zonaras, VIII. 2, and Dion Cassius, Fragrn. writers shows that both are taken from a com- 

Ursin. CXLIV. mon source, which doubtless was Livy. They 

11 Appian, de Rebus Gallic. XI. Samnitic. vary from the account given by Polybhis, inrep- 
VI. resenting the murder of the Roman ambassa- 

12 Polybius, II. 19. dors as preceding the defeat of Metellus. Ap- 

13 Orosius, III. 22, and Augustine, de Civi- pian, copying from Dionysius, agrees with Po- 
tate Dei, III. 17. Orosius dedicated his history lybius. 

to Augustine, and the exact similarity of the " Appian, Samnitic. Fragrn. VI. Gallic. XI. 
notices about the defeat of L. Metellus in both 



390 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIL 

vengeance for his father's blood ; and the Roman ambassadors, the sacred feciales 
themselves, were murdered by the barbarians, and their bodies hewed in pieces, 
and the mangled fragments cast out without burial. 

The consul, P. Dolabella, had already left Rome with the usual consular army, 
and was on his march into northern Etruria, 15 when he received 

Great victories obtain- , ■. , • -. • r . i • x t,ii i i 

ed over the Seoonian the tidings ot this outrage. Immediately he resolved on vengeance, 
and instead of advancing into Etruria, he turned to the right, 
marched through the country of the Sabines into Picenum, and from thence led 
his army into the territory of the Gauls. The flower of their warriors were ab- 
sent in Etruria ; those who were left, and endeavored to resist the invaders, were 
defeated with great slaughter : no quarter was given to any male able to bear 
arms : the women and children were carried off as slaves, the villages and houses 
were burnt, and the whole country was made a desert. Meanwhile the Gauls 
in Etruria, maddened at these horrors, and hoping to enjoy a bloody revenge, 
urged the Etruscans to seize the opportunity, and to march straight upon Rome. 
But Cn. Domitius, with the other consular army, 16 was covering the Roman ter- 
ritory ; perhaps M'. Curius had joined him, or was hanging on the rear of the 
enemy during their march through Etruria, and was so at hand to co-operate 
in the battle. At any rate, the victory of the Romans was complete ; and the 
Gauls who survived the battle slew themselves in despair. It was resolved by 
the senate to occupy their country without delay, and to plant in it a Roman 
colony. 

These events had passed so rapidly that the season for military operations was 
And also over the Boian not y efc nearly at an end. The Boian Gauls, 17 the neighbors of the 
Battle or n rhe E iake C va- Senonians, enraged and alarmed at the total extermination of their 
dimon - countrymen, took up arms with the whole force of their nation, 

poured into Etruria, and encouraged the party adverse to Rome to try the for- 
tune of war once again. What the Samnites and Lucanians were doing at this 
moment we know not ; but probably a praetorian or proconsular army with the 
whole force of the Campanians, and perhaps of the Marsians and Pelignians, was 
in the field against them ; and after the loss of C. Pontius we hear of no Sam- 
nite leader whose ability was equal to the urgency of the contest. Thus Dola- 
bella and Domitius were enabled to turn their whole attention to the Etruscans 
and Gauls. Again, however, all details were lost, and Ave only know that the 
scene of the decisive action 18 was the valley of the Tiber, just below its junction 
with the Nar, and the neighborhood of the small lake of Vadimon, which lay in 
the plain at no great distance from the right bank of the river. 

The victory of the Romans was complete ; 19 the flower of the Etruscan army 
perished, while the Gauls suffered so severely that a very few of their number 
weri, all that escaped from the field. 

The consuls of the ensuing year were C. Fabricius and Q. ^Emilius Papus. 

Again the Etruscans and Gauls renewed their efforts, but one 

282. The cavds moke consular array was now thought enough to oppose to them, and 

JEmilius alone defeated them utterly, and obliged the Gauls to 

conclude a separate peace. 20 The Etruscans, who seemed to " like nor peace nor 

14 Appiim, Samnitio. VI. Gallic. XT. rival of the consul's messenger. The same story 

16 Appian, Samnitio. VI. Gallic. XI. is told of one of the battles fought between Tar- 

11 Polybius, 11.20. qulnius Priscus and the Sabines; bul there, at 

18 Polybius, II. 20. Dion Cassius, Mai Scrip- any rate, the scene of the action was within a 
tor. Vatican, t. II. p. 686. Floras, II. 18, The very few miles of Koine. Livy, I. 37. 

lake Vadimon was estceincil sacred. See Pliny, ' J(i Polybius, 11.20. It must nave been .Pmil- 

Epist. VIII. 20, where he gives a description of it. ins who defeated the Gauls, because we know 

19 Polybius, 11. -jo. One of the fragments of that Fabricius was employed in the smith : but 
Dion Cassias, published bj Mai in bisSoriptor. the fragments of the Fasti Capitolini for this 
Vetcr. Vatican. Collect. Vol. 11. p. ■ >'■'■*'>, states year contain only thus much : 

that Dolabella attacked the Etruscans as they ". . . eisque 111. Non. Mart." 

were crossing the Tiber, ami that the bodies ot' Dionysius, however, says expressly that JEmil- 

the enemy carried down by the stream bmnght ius, the colleague of Fabricius, commanded 

the news of the battle to Koine before the nr- against the Etruscans in this year. XVIII. 5. 



Chap. XXXVII.] CRUISE OF THE ROMAN FLEET. 39] 

war," would not yet submit ; or perhaps some states yielded while others con- 
tinued the contest ; but there remained only the expiring embers of a great fire ; 
and the Roman party in the several cities was gradually gaining the ascendency, 
and preparing the way for that lasting treaty which was concluded two years 
afterwards. 

In the south, C. Fabricius was no less successful. He defeated the Samnites, 
Lucanians, and Bruttians in several great battles, 21 and penetrated . ._,/... 

' o r> 1 t " Victone3 of Fabricjus 

through the enemy s country to the very snores ot the Ionian sea, in the south over the 
where rhurn was at that very time besieged by btatilius at the 
head of a Lucanian and Bruttian army. Fabricius defeated the enemy, stormed 
their camp, and raised the siege of Thurii ; 22 for which service the Thurians ex- 
pressed their gratitude as they had done two years before to the tribune, C. 
JElius, by voting that a statue should be made and given to him, to be set up 
by him in Rome. Thus the coalition which the Tarentines had formed seemed 
to be broken to pieces, while its authors had not yet drawn the sword, and were 
still nominally at peace with the Romans. 

Fabricius left a garrison in Thurii, and led his army back to Rome with so 
rich a treasure of spoil, 23 that after having made a liberal distribu- a . 

r . -° - n . 1 ..A Roman fleet is sent 

tion of money amongst his soldiers, and returned to all the cm- to cruise on the coast 

e 1 l-ijl li -j-xlj. of the Tarentines. 

zens the amount 01 the war-taxes which they had paid in that 
year, he was still able to put four hundred talents into the treasury. In the 
mean time, as the army was withdrawn from Lucania, a fleet was sent to protect 
the Thurians, and to watch probably the movements of the Tarentines, whose 
dispositions must, ere this, have become sufficiently notorious. Accordingly, L. 
Valerius, 24 one of the two officers annually chosen to conduct the naval affairs of 
the commonwealth, with a fleet of ten ships of war, sailed on to the eastward of 
Thurii, and unexpectedly made his appearance before the walls of Tarentum, 25 
and seemed to be preparing to force his way into the harbor. 

It was the afternoon 20 of the day, and as it was the season of the Dionysia, 
when the great dramatic contests took place and the prizes were The TareD tmes attack 
awarded to the most approved poet, the whole Tarentine people cnddefratit - 
were assembled in the theatre, the seats of which looked directly towards the 
sea. All saw a Roman fleet of ships of war, in undqubted breach of the treaty 
existing between the two states, which forbade the Romans to sail to the east- 
ward of the Lacinian headland, attempting to make its way into their harbor. 
Full of wine, and in the careless spirits of a season of festival, they readily lis- 
tened to a worthless demagogue, named Philocharis, who called upon them to 

21 Dionysius, XVIII. 5. or land-locked basin, running far into the land, 

22 Dionysius, XVIII. 5. Valerius Maximus, and communicating with the open sea by a sin- 
I. 8, § 6. Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIV. § 32. gle narrow passage. It is now called the Mare 
Mr. Fynes Clinton, by mistake, refers the ac- Piccolo. The ancient city formed a triangle, 
count in Valerius Maximus to Fabricius' second one side of which was washed by the open sea, 
consulship in 476. But the mention of the re- and another by the waters of the harbor : the 
lief of Thurii shows clearly that it belongs to his base was a wall drawn across from the sea to 
first consulship. the harbor, and the point of the triangle came 

The story in Valerius Maximus relates a won- down to the narrow passage which was the har- 

derful appearance of a warrior of extraordinary bor's mouth. Here at the extreme point of the 

stature, who led the Romans to the assault of city was the citadel, the site of which is occu- 

the enemy's camp, and who was not to be found pied by the modern town. An enemy entering 

the next day when the consul was going to re- the harbor of Tarentum would therefore be as 

ward him with a mural crown. This, it was completely in the heart of the city, as in the 

said, was no other than Mars himself, who great harbor of Syracuse ; and Cicero's descrip- 

fought on this day for his people. Compare the tion will apply even more strongly to Tarentum 

story in Herodotus of the gigantic warrior whose than to Syracuse; "quo simul atque adisset 

mere appearance struck the Athenian Epizelus non modo a latere sed etiam a tergo magnam 

blind at Marathon, VI. 117. partem urbis relinqueret." — Verres, Act. II. 

23 Dionysius, XVIII. 16. V. 38. See Keppel Craven, Tour through the 

24 Appian calls him "Cornelius," Samnitic. southern provinces of Naples, p. 174, and Ga- 
Fragm. VII. Dion Cassius, Fragm. Bekker. e gliardo, Descrizione di Taranto. 

libro IX. calls him "Valerius," and so does 26 Dion Cassius, Fragm. Ursin. CXLV. Zo- 
Zonaras, who copies Dion, VIII. 2. naras, VIII. 2. 

25 The harbor of Tarentum was a deep gulf, 



392 • HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV IL 

punish instantly the treachery of the Romans, and to save their ships and their 
city. Wiser citizens might remember, that by the Greek national law, ships of 
war belonging to a foreign power appearing under the walls of an independent 
city, in violation of an existing treaty, 2 ' were liable to be treated as enemies. But 
explanations and questionings were not thought of now : the Tarentines manned 
their ships, sailed out to meet the Romans, put them instantly to flight, sunk four 
of their ships 'without resistance, and took one, with all its crew. - L. Valerius, 
the duumvir, was killed, and of the prisoners, the officers and soldiers serving on 
board were put to death, and the rowers were sold for slaves. 

Thus fully committed, the Tarentines determined to follow up their blow. 
They expei the Roma™ They taxed the Thurians 28 with preferring barbarian aid to that of 
irou.ThQrii. Tarentum, a neip-hboiino- and a Greek city, and with brinoino- a 

Roman fleet into the Ionian sea. They attacked the town, allowed the Roman 
garrison to retire unhurt, on condition of their opening the gates without resist- 
ance, and having thus become masters of Thurii, they drove the principal citizens 
into exile, and gave up the property of the city to be plundered. 

The Romans immediately sent an embassy to demand satisfaction for all these 
And insult the nmoas- outrages. L. Postumius was the principal ambassador, 29 and the 
^SSd W MtiBf«ctirate instant that he and his colleagues landed, they were beset by a 
these aggressions. disorderly crowd, who ridiculed their foreign dress, the white toga 
wrapped round the body like a plaid, with its broad scarlet border. At last they 
were admitted into the theatre, where the people were assembled, but it was 
again a time of festival, and the Tarentines were more disposed to coarse buf- 
foonery and riot than to serious counsel. When Postumius spoke to them in 
Greek, the assembly broke out into laughter at his pronunciation, and at any mis- 
takes in his language ; but the Roman delivered his commission unmoved, gravely 
and simply, as though he had not so much as observed the insults offered to him. 
At last a worthless drunkard of known profligacy came \ip to the Roman ambas- 
sador, and purposely threw dirt in the most offensive manner upon his white 
toga. Postumius said, " We accept the omen ; ye shall give us even more than 
we ask of you," and held up the sullied toga before the multitude, to show them 
the outrage which he had received. But bursts of laughter pealed from every 
part of the theatre, and scurril songs, and gestures, and clapping of hands, were 
the only answer returned to him. " Laugh on," said the Roman, " laugh on 
while ye may ; ye shall weep long enough hereafter, and the stain on this toga 
shall be washed out in your blood." The ambassadors left Tarentum, and Pos- 
tumius carefully kept his toga unwashed, that the senate might witness with their 
own eyes the insult offered to the Roman name. 

He returned to Rome with his colleagues late in the spring of the year 473, 
a.u.c.4-3. a.c.231. a ^ ev tDe new consuls, L. ^Emilius Barbula and Q. Maroius Phi- 
Zllag^TLrur'vZ lippus, had already entered upon their office. Even now the Ro- 
ti " (,s - mans were reluctant to enter on a war with Tarentum, whilst they 

had so many enemies still in arms against them, and the debates in the senate 
lasted for several day. It was resolved 30 at last to declare war; but still, when 

27 Tin' I loTcyreaans nerrecd to receive a single Ursin. CXLV. "Who this L. Postumius was is 

Athenian or Lacedaemonian ship into their har- not known. He may have been one of thePos- 

bor, but it' u greater number appeared, they tnmii Albini, although the L. Postumius Albi- 

wcre to be treated as enemies. Thucyd. 111. nus, who was consul in 520, was the son and 

71. And when the Athenian expedition coasted grandson of two Auli Postumii. Put it may 

along lapyfjia on its way to Syracuse, Tarentum nave been the consul who had been fined for 

would neither allow them to enter the city, nor bis mad oonducl to 464, for Vith ah 1 bis faults 

even to bring their vessels to shore under the he was an able and resolute man. ami the am- 

walls. Thucyd. VI. 44. So again the Cama- bassadors sent to so great a city as Tarentum 

rinamns, although they had been in alliance were likely to have been men oi consular dig- 

with Athens a few yoara before, refused to ail- nity. 

mit more than a single ship of the Athenian ar- * Dionysius, XVII. 10. ReiBke has made 

mament within their harbor. VI. 52. Dionysius say just the contrary to this, by al- 

88 Appian, Samnitio, Fragra. VII. tering oSroi into,,;. He gives no reason for the 

M Zonaras, Vlll. 2. Dion Cassius, Frairm. alteration, but merelj Bays, " ai de meo dedi, 



Chap, XXXVII.] . WAR WITH THE TARENTINES. 393 

the consuls took the field as usual with their two consular armies, Q. Mar- 
cius was sent against the Etruscans, and L. JEmilius was ordered, not imme- 
diately to attack Tarentum, but to invade Samnium and subdue the revolted 
Samnites. 

But whether the exhausted state of Samnium assured JEmilius that no great 
danger was to be apprehended there, or whether a praetorian 
army was sent to keep the Samnites in check, and to leave the 
consul at liberty for a march into southern Italy, it appears that i-ielofparti^infMeL 
instructions were sent to L. vEmilius soon after his arrival in Sam- 
nium, 31 to advance at once into the territory of Tarentum, and after offering once 
again the same terms which Postumius had proposed before, to commence hos- 
tilities immediately if satisfaction should still be refused. The terms were again 
rejected by the Tarentines, and JEmilius began to ravage their terrtory with 
fire and sword. But knowing that the aristocratical party in Tarentum, as else- 
where, were inclined to look up to Rome for protection, he showed much tender- 
ness to some noble prisoners who fell into his hands, 32 and dismissed them un- 
hurt. Nor did the result disappoint him, for the presence of the Roman army 
struck terror into the democratical party, while the mildness shown to those who 
had taken no part in the shameful outrages offered to the Romans, induced mod- 
erate, men to hope that peace with Rome was a safer prospect for their country 
than an alliance with Pyrrhus. Agis, one of the aristocratical party, was chosen 
captain-general, and it was likely that the Tarentines would now in their turn 
offer that satisfaction which hitherto they had scornfully refused. 

But before any thing could be concluded, the popular party regained their as- 
cendency. An embassy to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, had been Pyrrhus is j nvited i^ 
sent off early in the summer, 33 inviting him over to Italy in the Italy- 
name of all the Italian Greeks, to be their leader against the Romans. All the 
nations of southern Italy, he was assured, were ready to join his standard ; and 
he would find amongst them a force of 350,000 infantry, and 20,000 cavalry 
able to bear arms in the common cause. 

Every Greek looked to foreign conquest only as a means of establishing his 
supremacy over Greece itself, the proudest object of his ambition. 
Victorious over the Romans, 34 thence easily passing over into occupy 'tie \i(adei of 
Sicily, and from thence again assailing more effectually than Aga- ]»'" p"r U ty 'recove«°fhe 
thocles the insecure dominion of the Carthaginians in Africa, Pyr- 
rhus hoped to return home with an irresistible force of subject allies, to expel 
Antigonus from Thessaly and Boeotia, and the ruffian Ptolemy Ceraunus from 
Macedonia, and to reign over Greece and the world, as became the kinsman of 
Alexander and the descendant of Achilles. He promised to help the Taren- 
tines ; but the force needed for such an expedition could not be raised in an 
instant; and when the invasion of the Roman army, and the probable ascendency 
of their political adversaries, made the call of the popular party for his aid more 

pro vulg. ovtoi." The old reading, however, at the extremity of Italy til^measures had been 

is quite correct in grammar, and perfectly in- taken to secure it against an attack of the Sam- 

telligible, and seems to be recommended by the nites on its rear. When this was provided for, 

general structure of the passage. It may be the consul might safely be ordered to advance 

thought that it is inconsistent with Appian's upon Tarentum. 

account, who says that the consul JSmihus was 31 The consuls came into office in April, and 

already in Samnium when he received orders JSmilius was in the Tarentine territory before 

to march against the Tarentines (Samnitic. the corn was cut, for the Fragment of Dionys- 

Fragm. VII. 3), whereas Dionysius makes him his, XVII. 12, clearly relates "to this invasion : 

to have been present in the senate when the apovpas re Sck^ov ijSv rb aiTixbv dipog exofoas 

question of war or peace was debated ; and had mi pi AiSovs. In 1818, Mr. Keppel Craven found 

immediate war been then resolved upon, woidd the harvest going on briskly a little to the 

he not, it may be said, have been ordered to southwest of Tarentum on tlie 1st of June.— 

attack Tarentum at once, instead of being sent Tour through the southern provinces of Naples, 

into Samnium, and receiving a subsequent order p. 197. 

to march against Tarentum ? This, however, ffl Zonaras, VIII. 2. 

would not necessarily follow ; for the senate S3 Zonaras, VIII. 2. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 13. 

may have thought it unsafe to hazard an army a4 Plutarch, Pyrrh . 14. 



394 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIJ. 

urgent, he sent over Cineas, 35 his favorite minister, to assist his friends by his 
eloquence and address, and shortly afterwards Milo, one of his generals, followed 
with a detachment of 3000 men, and was put in possession of the citadel. A 
political revolution immediately followed ; 36 Agis was deprived of his command, 
and succeeded by one of the popular leaders who had been sent on the embassy 
to Pyrrhus ; all prospect of peace was at an end, and the democratical party 
held in their hands the whole government of the commonwealth. 

The Tarentines were masters of the sea, and the arrival of an experienced 
Ro ^ general and a body of veteran soldiers gave a strength to their 
treats from the Taren- land-forces, which in numbers were in themselves considerable. 
Winter was approaching, and iEmilius proposed to retreat into 
Apulia, to put his army into winter quarters in those mild and sunny plains. 
He was followed by the enemy, 37 and as his road lay near the sea, the Tarentine 
fleet prepared to overwhelm him with its artillery, as his army wound along the 
narrow road between the mountain sides and the water. ^Emilias, it is said, put 
some of his Tarentine prisoners in the parts of his line of march most exposed 
to the enemy's shot, and as the Tarentines would not butcher their helpless 
countrymen, they allowed the Romans to pass by unmolested. The Roman 
army wintered in Apulia, and both parties had leisure to prepare their best 
efforts for the struggle of the coming spring. 

It was still the depth of winter 38 when Pyrrhus himself arrived at Tarentum. 
pyrrtas arrive at Ta- His fleet had been dispersed by a storm on the passage, and he 
ripHnTisirkLme i 't t o d the himself had been obliged to disembark on the Messapian coast 
Tarentines. ^^ on ]y a sma yj p art f hi s arm j > an( j to proceed to Tarentum 

by land. After a time, however, his scattered ships reached their destination 
safely, and he found himself powerful enough to act as the master rather than 
the ally of the Tarentines. He shut up the theatre, the public walks, and the 
gymnasia, obliged the citizens to be under arms all day, either on the walls or 
in the market-place, and stopped the feasts of their several clubs or brother- 
hoods, and all revelry, and all riotous entertainments throughout the city. 
Many of the citizens, as impatient of this discipline as the Ionians of old when 
Dionvsius of Phocaea tried in vain to train them to a soldier's duties, left the 
city in disgust ; but Pyrrhus, to prevent this for the future, placed a guard at 
the gates, and allowed no one to go out without his permission. It is further 
said that his soldiers were guilty of great excesses towards the inhabitants, and 
that he himself put to death some of the popular leaders, and sent others over 
to Epirus ; and this last statement is probable enough, for the idle and noisy 
demagogues of a corrupt democracy would soon repent of their invitation to 
him, when they experienced the rigor of his discipline ; and if they indulged in 
any inflammatory speeches to the multitude, Pyrrhus would consider such con- 
duct as treasonable, and would no doubt repress it with the most effectual se- 
verity. 

So passed the winter at Tarentum. But the Italian allies, overawed perhaps 
Am™.* of the force, of by the Roman army in Apulia, were slow in raising their promised 
i ' : " 1 ' • contingents, 89 and Pyrrhus did not wish to commence offensive 

preparations till his whole force was assembled. What number of men he had 
brought with him or received since his landing from Greece itself, it is not easy 
to estimate: 3000 men crossed at first under Milo; the king himself embarked 
with 20,000 foot, 3000 horse, 40 2000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 elephants, 
and Ptolemy Ceraunus is said to have lent him for two years the services of 
5000 Macedonian foot, 4000 horse, and 50 elephants. 41 The Macedonian foot 

35 3n Zonaras, VIII. 2. *■> Plutaroh, Pyrrh. 16. 

n Zonaraa, VIII. 2. Frontinus, Stratagem. *° Plutaroh, Pyrrh. 15. Zonaras agrees an to 

I. 4, § 1. the number of elephants : ofthe numbers of the 

** Zonaras, VIII. 3. Plutaroh, Pyrrh. l.">, 16. infantry and cavalry he givea no account. 

Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. VIII. u Justin, XVII. 2. 



Chap. XXXVIL] AMOUNT OF THE ROMAN FORCES. 395 

may have been included in the 20,000 men whom he himself brought into Italy ; 
the cavalry and elephants of course cannot have been so, if the numbers are cor- 
rectly given ; but we find his cavalry afterwards spoken of as amounting only to 
3000, and we can hardly think that he had at any time so many as *70 elephants. 
Some deductions must also be made, in all probability, for losses sustained by 
shipwreck, when the armament was dispersed by a storm in its passage. Yet 
still the Greek army with which Pyrrhus was ready to take the field from Taren- 
tum in the spring of the year 474, must have been more numerous, both in foot, 
horse, and elephants, than that with which Hannibal, about sixty years later, is- 
sued from the Alps upon the plain of Cisalpine Gaul. 

The Romans, on their part, finding that not Tarentum only, but so great a king 
and good a soldier as Pyrrhus was added to their numerous enemies, And of the Eonmrai 
made extraordinary exertions to meet the danger. Even the pro- AU - C - 414 - A - C - 280 - 
letarians, 42 or the poorest class of citizens, who were usually exempt from the 
military service, were now called out and embodied, and these probably formed 
a great part of the reserve army kept near Rome for the defence of the city. 
The new consuls were P. Valerius Lsevinus and Ti. Coruncanius, of whom the 
latter was to command one consular army against the Etruscans, while the 
former was to oppose Pyrrhus in the south. No mention is made of the army of 
L. ./Emilius, which had wintered in Apulia, so that we do not know whether it 
joined that of Leevinus, or was employed to watch the doubtful fidelity of the 
Apulians, and to prevent the Samnites from joining the enemy's army. We 
learn accidentally, 43 that a Campanian legion was placed in garrison at Rhegium, 
and other important towns were no doubt secured also with a sufficient force ; 
but the whole disposition of the Roman armies in this great campaign cannot be 
known, from the scantiness of our remaining information respecting it. 

It is briefly stated in the narrative of Zonaras 44 that the Romans chastised 
some of their allies who were meditating a revolt, and that some state of tlie a iiies of 
citizens of Praeneste were suddenly arrested and sent to Rome, Rome- 
where they were imprisoned in the vaults of the asrarium on the Capitol, and 
afterwards put to death. If even the Latin city of Prseneste could waver in its 
fidelity, what was to be expected from the more remote and more recent allies 
of Rome, from the Vestinians, Marsians, Pelignians, Sabines, and even from the 
Campanians, whose faith in the second Samnite war, little moi*e than thirty years 
before, had been found so unstable ? Yet one of the consuls for this year, Ti. 
Coruncanius, was a native of Tusculum, and those Latin, Volscian, and ^Equian 
towns which had received the full rights of Roman citizenship were incorporated 
thereby so thoroughly into the Roman nation, that no circumstances could rend 
them asunder. Still the senate thought it best on every ground to keep the 
war, if possible, at a distance from their own territory, and Lsevinus therefore 
marched into Lucania, to separate Pyrrhus from his allies, and to force him to a 
battle whilst he had only his own troops and the Tarentines to bring into the 
field. 

"Laevinus," says Zonaras, 45 " took a strong fortress in Lucania, and having left 
a part of his amy to overawe the Lucanians, he advanced with i^vinus, the Roman 
the remainder against Pyrrhus." Yet Pyrrhus, after all, fought, p y I ?rhu™ arc 
we are told, with an inferior army ; 46 nor indeed can we conceive that so able a 
general would have exposed himself to the unavoidable disadvantage of seem- 
ing to dread an encounter with the enemy, had the number of his troops been equal 
to theirs. But a Roman consular army never contained more than 20,000 foot 
soldiers, and 2400 horse ; and the army which Pyrrhus brought with him from 
Epirus was more numerous than this, without reckoning the Tarentines, 
and allowing that Milo and his detachment of 3000 men still garrisoned the 

« Orosius, IV. 1. « VIII. 3. 

43 Orosins, IV. 3. Polybius, I. 7. 46 Justin, XVIII. 1. 

«* Zonaras, VIII. 3. 



396 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVII. 

citadel of Tarentum. It is clear, then, either that Lsevinus had taken with him 
the whole or the greater part of the consular army which had wintered in Apulia, or 
that a praetorian army had marched under his command from the neighborhood 
of Rome, so that his force cannot be estimated at less than 30,000 foot and 
3600 hors*!. 

Pyrrhus not thinking himself strong enough to meet the enemy with the army 
actually at his disposal, endeavored to gain time by negotiation. 
b™ time tii "hi'rfKea He wrote to Lsevinus, 47 offering his mediation between the Ro- 
mans and his Italian allies, and saying that he would wait ten 
days Cor the consul's answer. But his offer was scornfully rejected ; and in the 
same spirit, when one of his spies was detected in the Roman camp, Lasvinus is 
said to have allowed the spy to observe his whole army on their usual parade, 48 
and then to Vive sent him back unharmed, with a taunting message, that if 
Pyrrhus wished to know the nature of the Roman army, he had better not send 
others to spy it out secretly, but he should come himself in open day, and see 
it and prove it,. 

Thus provoked, or more probably fearing to lose the confidence of his allies 
if he should seem to have crossed the sea only to lie inactive in 
him 9 Bauteof Hi*. Tarentum, Pyrrhus with his own army and with the Tarentines 
took the field and advanced towards the enemy. The Romans 
lay encamped on the right or southern bank of the Siris not far from the sea, 
arid Pvrrhus having crossed the Aciris between the towns of Pandosia and Hera- 
clea, encamped in the plain 49 which Ijes between the two rivers, and which was 
favorable at once for the operations of his heavy infantry, and for his cavalry and 
elephants. A nearer view of the strength of the Roman army determined him 
still to delay the battle, and he stationed a detachment of troops on the bank of the 
Siris, to obstruct, if possible, the passage of the stream. But the river, though 
wide, is shallow, 50 and while the legions prepared to cross directly in front of the 
enemy, the cavalry 61 passed above and below, so that the Greeks, afraid of being 
surrounded, were obliged to fall back towards their main body. Pyrrhus then 
o-ave orders to his infantry to form in order of battle in the middle of the plain, 
while he himself rode forward with his cavalry, in hopes of attacking the Romans 
before they should have had time to form after their passage of the river. But 
he found the long shields of the legionary soldiers advancing in an even line from 
the stream, and "their cavalry in front ready to receive his attack. He charged 
instantly, but the Romans and their allies, although their arms were very unequal 
to those of the Greek horsemen, maintained the fight most valiantly, and a Fren- 
tanian captain 52 was seen to mark Pyrrhus himself so eagerly, that one of his 
officers noticed it, and advised the king to beware of that barbarian on the black 
horse with white feet. Pyrrhus, whose personal prowess was not unworthy of 
his hero-ancestry, replied, " What is fated, Leonatus, no man can avoid ; but 
mil! er this man nor the stoutest soldier in Italy shall encounterwith me Tor noth- 
ing." At that instant, the Frentanian rode at Pyrrhus with his levelled lance, and 
killed his horse ; but his own was killed at the same instant, and while Pyrrhus was 
remounted instantly by his attendants, the brave Italian was surrounded and slain. 
Finding that his cavalry could not decide the battle, Pyrrhus at length 

« Dionysius, XVII. 15, 16. Heraclea, tor about three miles, and is for the 
48 Dionvsins, XVIII. l. Zonaras, YELL 3. mostpart highly cultivated. 
• Plutarch, Pyrrh. L6. At present a thick 60 Keppel Craven, p. 204. Mr. Keppel < 're- 
forest covers the western part of this plain, ex- ven forded it below the point where tlio Ko- 
tendinp along the lefl bank of the Siris tor sev- man army elfected its passage. 
eral miles upwards from its mouth, as far as the 51 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 16. 
point where the hills begin. See Keppel Cra- "Plutarch, Pyrrh. 16. Dionysius, XvTH. 
ven, i'. 208, and Zannonrs map. But in ancient 2-4. Part of tliis story of the Prentanii 
times it is probable thai the whole plain be- tain has been copied by Plutarch from I 

t the two rivers was open, and mostly corn ins, but he lias some other particulars which 

land. The plain rises in a gradual slope from are not to be found in Dionysius, and which he 

Policoro, supposed to be the site of i I e ao&enl got probably from Hieronyums. 



Chap. XXXVIL] THE ROMANS ARE DEFEATED. 397 

ordered his infantry to advance and attack the line of the Roman . . 

_,•'_ , t , _ _ . '..., Panic occasioned by the 

legions. 3 He himselt, knowing the importance oi . his own lite to supposed death of Pyr- 
an army in which his personal ascendency was all in all, gave 
his own arms, and helmet, and scarlet cloak to Megacles, one of the officers of 
his guard, and himself put on those of the officer in exchange. But Megacles 
bought his borrowed splendor dearly: every Roman marked him, and at last he 
was struck down and slain, and his helmet and mantle carried to Laevinus, and 
borne along the Roman ranks in triumph. Pyrrhus feeling that this mistake was 
most dangerous, rode bareheaded along his line to show his soldiers that he 
was still alive ; and the battle went on so furiously that either army seven 
times, 64 it is said, drove the enemy from the ground, and seven times was driven 
from its own. 

Laevinus, true to the tactic of his country, proposed to win the battle by 
keeping back his last reserve 55 till all the enemy's forces were in 

. r D TT . .... t i J ■• i xi • i The Romans are de- 

action. His tnani, it seems, were already engaged, and their long feated, and their camp 
spears might enable them 'to encounter, on something like equal 
terms, the pikes of the phalanx ; but Lsevinus held back a chosen body of his 
cavalry, hoping that their charge might at last decide the day. They did charge, 
but Pyrrhus met them with a reserve still more. formidable, his elephants. The 
Roman horses could not be brought to face monsters strange and terrible alike to 
them and to their riders ; they fell back in confusion — the infantry were disordered 
by their flight ; and Pyrrhus then charged with his Thessalian cavalry, and to- 
tally routed the whole Roman army. The vanquished fled over the Siris, 56 but 
did not attempt to defend their camp, which Pyrrhus entered without opposition. 
They retreated to a city in Apulia, 51 which Niebuhr supposes must have been 
Venusia, with a loss variously estimated as usual by different writers, 58 but suffi- 
cient at any rate to cripple their army, and to leave Pyrrhus undisputed master 
of the field. 

His Italian allies now joined him ; 59 and though he complained of the tardiness 
of their aid, he distributed to them a share of the spoils of his vic- 
tory. The allies of Rome began to waver; and the Roman gar- 
risons in distant cities, cut off from relief, were placed in extreme jeopardy. The 

63 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 17. 66 The destruction of the Eoman array was 

64 Tpoirds firra Xiysrai (f>Evy6vT<j>v avdira\tv kcH prevented, according to Orosius,' by an acci- 
5hdk6vtuiv yzvioQai. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 17. From dent. One Minucius, a soldier of the fourth 
this and other circumstances related of this bat- legion, cut off with his sword the trunk of one 
tie, it appears certain that only a.very small part of the elephants ; which made the animal turn, 
of Pyrrhus' infantry could have had the arms and run back upon his own army. The confu- 
and array of the regular phalanx. For as the sion and delay thus occasioned enabled the 
ground was open and level, and the two armies Eomans to escape over the Siris with the bulk 
met front and front, if Pyrrhus' heavy-armed of their army. Orosius, IV. 1. 

infantry had been numerous, they must have 57 Zonaras, VIII. 3. 

had the same advantage which the phalanx had 68 Hieronymus, a contemporary, who in his 

at Cynocephalse and at Pydna as long as it kept account of the loss sustained in the battle of 

its line unbroken; and the Eoman infantry Asculum, is known to have copied Pyrrhus' own 

could not have maintained the contest. While, commentaries, makes the Eoman loss in the 

on the other hand, if the phalanx did not keep first battle to have amounted to 7000 men, and 

its order, so that the Eomans were able to pen- that of Pyrrhus to less than 4000. Dionysius 

etrate it in several places, then they would have stated the Eoman loss at 15,000 and that of Pyr- 

obtained an easy victory, as the phalanx when rhus at 13,000, copying probably from the ex- 

once broken became wholly helpless. But it aggerated accounts of some of the Eoman an- 

would seem that the Greek infantry in this bat- nalists, perhaps from Valerius Antias himself, 

tie consisted mostly of peltastte, or troops not See Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 17. Orosius, copying 

formed in the close array of the phalanx; such from Livy, who 'in his turn probably followed 

were the Epirots generally, and such would be Fabius, reckons the Eoman loss at 11,880 killed, 

also the jEtolians and Illyrians, some of whom, it and 310 prisoners; while of their cavalry 243 

is said [Dion Cassius,Fragm.Peiresc. XXXIX.], were killed and 802 taken. He says also that 

were serving at this time in Pyrrhus' army, twenty-two standards were taken. But what is 

Thus the infantry in both armies were armed curious, and which shows that neither he him- 

and formed in a manner not very different from self nor Livy could have at all consulted the 

each other ; and this would account for the Greek writers on this war, he asserts that of the 

length and obstinacy of the action, and the loss on Pyrrhus' side no record had been pre- 

number of slain on both sides. served. 

65 Zonaras, VIII. 3. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 17. ° 9 Zonaras, VIII. 3. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 17. 



398 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIL 

The Romnn gan-ioon Loerians rose upon the garrison of their city, and opened their 
mSacre.^Ie'fthau! gates to Pyrrhus. 60 At Rhegium 61 the garrison, which consisted 
tan,s - of the eighth legion, composed of Campanian soldiers, acted like 

the garrison of Enna, in similar circumstances in the second Punic war : they 
anticipated the inhabitants by a general massacre of all the male citizens, and 
made slaves of the women and children. For this alone they might have received 
reward rather than punishment from the Roman government ; and the Roman 
annalists would have pleaded necessity as a sanction for the act. But the Cam- 
panians, looking to the example of their Mamertine countrymen on the other side 
of the strait, and thinking that Rome was in no condition to enforce their alle- 
giance any more, held the city in their own name, and refused to obey the con- 
sul's orders. Thus Rhegium, no less than Locri, was for the present lost to the 
Romans. 

Pyrrhus, however, had not won his victory cheaply. Nearly four thousand of 

his men had fallen, and amongst these a large proportion of his 
wVa an embaay to best officers and personal friends ; for the Greek loss must have 

fallen heavily on the cavalry, and when the king exposed his own 
life so freely, those immediately about his person must have suffered in an un- 
usual proportion. The weather also, if we may trust some stories in Orosius, 62 
was very unfavorable, and the state of the roads may have retarded the advance 
of the victorious army, and particularly of the elephants. Besides, so complete 
a victory, won by Pyrrhus with his own army alone, before the mass of his allies 
had joined him, might dispose the Romans to peace without the risk of a second 
battle. Accordingly, whilst the army advanced slowly from the shores of the 
Ionian sea towards central Italy, Cineas w T as sent to Rome with the king's terms 
of peace and alliance. 63 

The conditions offered were these : peace, friendship, and alliance between 
He propoeea terms of Pyrrhus and the Romans ; 64 but the Tarentines were to be included 
p*""*- in it, and all the Greek states in Italy were to be free and inde- 

pendent. Further, the king's Italian allies, the Lucanians, Samnites, Apulians, 
and Bruttians, were to recover all towns and territories which they had lost in 
war to the Romans. If these terms were agreed to, the king would restore to 
the Romans all the prisoners whom he had taken without ransom. 

Cineas, the ambassador of Pyrrhus on this memorable occasion, was, in the 
cineas sent as hu am- versatility and range of his talents, worthy of the best ages of 
bassador. Greece. He was a Thessalian, 65 and in his early youth he had 

heard Demosthenes speak ; and the impression made on his mind by the great 
orator was supposed to have enkindled in him a kindred spirit of eloquence : the 
tongue of Cineas, it was said, had won more cities than the sword of Pyrrhus. 
Like Themistocles, he was gifted with an extraordinary memory ; the very day 
after his arrival at Rome, he was able to address all the senators 66 and the cit- 
izens of the equestrian order by their several proper names. He had studied 
philosophy, like all his educated countrymen, and appears to have admired par- 
ticularly the new doctrine of Epicurus ; 67 which taught that war and state affairs 
were but toil and trouble, and that the wise man should imitate the blissful rest 
of the gods, wdio, dwelling in then- own divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil 

80 Justin, XVIII. 1. showed sufficient respect on the part of Pyrrhus 

81 Appian, Samnitio. Fragm. IX. Dion Cas- for the power and resolution of the Romans ; 
eius, Fragm. Peiresc. XL. but they would not satisfy the Roman vanity, 

03 Orosius, IV. 1. One of the Roman forag- and accordingly, Plutarch Bays that " the king 

ing parties, Boon after the battle, was overtaken merely asked for peace for himself and indem- 

by so dreadful a storm, that thirty-four men nity for the Tarentines, and offered to aid the 

were knocked down, and twenty-two left nearly Romans in conquering Italy." Pyrrh. 18. 

dead; and many oxen and horses were killed " Plutarch, Pyrrh. 14. 

or maimed. °° Pliny, ffistor. Natur. VII. § 88. 

68 Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. X. Plutarch, CT Cicero, de Senectut. 13. Plutarch, Pyrrh. 

Pyrrh. 18. 20. 

84 Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. X. These terms 



Chap. XXXVIL] APPIUS CLAUDIUS SPEAKS AGAINST PEACE. 399 

of this lower world. Yet his life was better than his philosophy ; he served his 
king actively and faithfully in peace and in war, and he wrote a military work, 68 
for which he neither wanted ability nor practical knowledge. He excited no 
small attention as he went to Rome, and his sayings at the places through which 
he passed were remembered and recorded. 69 Some stories said that he was the 
bearer of presents to the influential senators, and of splendid dresses 70 to win the 
favor of their wives ; all which, as the Roman traditions related, were steadily 
refused. But his proposals required grave consideration, and there were many 
in the senate who thought that the state of affairs made it necessary to accept 
them. 

Appius Claudius, the famous censor, the greatest of his countrymen in the 
works of peace, and no mean soldier in time of need, was now, in Appiu3 ciaudius is 
the thirtieth year after his censorship, in extreme old age, and had ^ p d ea g> 3 the a gSt e ' a* 
been for many years blind. But his active mind triumphed over peace - 
age and infirmity ; and although he no longer took part in public business, yet 
he was ready 71 in his own house to give answers to those who consulted him on 
points of law, and his name was fresh in all men's minds, though his person was 
not seen in the Forum. The old man heard that the senate was listening to the 
proposals of Cineas, and was likely to accept the king's terms of peace. He im- 
mediately desired to be carried to the senate-house, and was borne in a litter by 
his slaves through the Forum. When it was known that Appius Claudius was 
coming, his sons and sons-in-law 72 went out to the steps of the senate-house to 
receive him, and he was by them led into his place. The whole senate kept the 
deepest silence as the old man arose to speak. 

No Englishman can have read thus far without remembering the scene, in all 
points so similar, which took place within our fathers memory in Simi]ar scena ^ Eng . 
our own house of parliament. We recollect how the greatest of Ushliistor y- 
English statesmen, bowed down by years and infirmity like Appius, but roused, 
like him, by the dread of approaching dishonor to the English name, was led by 
his son and son-in-law into the house of lords, and all the peers, with one im- 
pulse, arose to receive him. We know the expiring words of that mighty voice, 
when he protested against the dismemberment of this ancient monarchy, and 
prayed that if England must fall, she might fall with honor. The real speech of 
Lord Chatham against yielding to the coalition of France and America, will give 
a far more lively image of what was said by the blind Appius in the Roman 
senate, than any fictitious oration which I could either copy from other writers, 
or endeavor myself to invent ; and those who would wish to know how Appius 
spoke should read the dying words of the great orator of England. 

When he had finished his speech, the senate voted that the proposals of Pyr- 
rhus should be rejected, that no peace 73 should be concluded with The aenate reiectB &e 
him so long as he remained in Italy, and that Cineas should be term8 P r °p° ao<i - 
ordered to leave Rome on that very day. 

Even whilst the senate had been considering the king's proposals, there had 
been no abatement of the vigor of their preparations for war. Two ^.j prepare Tigorou8] y 
new legions, 74 which must have been at least the ninth and tenth for wsr - 

08 At least Cicero, in writing to Psetus, says, 70 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 18. 

"Plane nesciebam tetam perituin esse rei mili- 71 Cicero, de Senectut. 6, 11. Tusculan. Disp, 

taris. Pyrrhi te libros et Cinese video lectitas- V. 38. 

se." Ad Familiar. IX. 25. Now the corn- ,2 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 18. He had four sons and 

mentaries of Pyrrhus are referred to by Plutarch, five daughters, but how many of his daughters 

and it would seem therefore that the allusion to were married, we know not. See Cicero de 

the writings of Cineas is also to be taken literally. Senect. 11. A speech was extant in Cicero's 

69 At Aricia, on the Appian Way, Cineas had time purporting to be that which Appius spoke 

remarked the luxuriance of the vines, as they on this occasion. De Senectut. 6. Brutus, 16. 

festooned on the very summits of the elms, and But Cicero does not seem to have regarded it 

at the same time complained of the harshness as genuine. 

of the wine. " The mother which bore this ™ Plutarch, jPyrrh. 19. Appian, Samnitic. 

wine well deserves," he said, " to be hung on so X. 2. Zonaras,' VIII. 4. 

high a gibbet." Pliny, Hist. Natur. XIV. § 12. '* Appian, Samnitic. X. 3. The Campanian 



400 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIL 

in number, were raised while Cineas was at Rome by voluntary enlistment, procla- 
mation being made, that whoever wished to offer his services to supply the place 
of the soldiers who had fallen in battle, should enrol himself immediately. Nie- 
buhr supposes that this was the period of P. Cornelius Rufimis' dictatorship, and 
that he superintended the recruiting of the armies. The new legions were sent 
to reinforce Lcevinus, who, as Pyrrhus began to advance northwards, followed 
him hanging upon his rear, but not venturing to engage in a second battle. 

Cineas returned to the king, to tell him that he must hope for nothing from 
pyrrhus advances into negotiation. He expressed, according to the writers 15 whom we 
Campania. are b]ig e d. to follow, the highest admiration of all that he had 

seen. " To fight with the Roman people was like fighting with the hydra, so 
inexhaustible were their numbers and their spirit." " Rome was a city of gen- 
erals, nay, rather of kings," or, according to another and more famous version of 
the story, "The city was like a temple, the senate was an assembly of kings." 
Did we find these expressions recorded by Hieronymus of Cardia, who wrote 
before Rome was the object of universal flattery, Ave might believe them; but 
from the later Greek writers they deserveno more credit than if reported merely 
by the Romans themselves ; and nothing is more suspicious than such statements 
of the language of admiration proceeding from the mouth of an enemy. But be 
this as it may, Pyrrhus now resolved to prosecute the war with vigor. At the 
head of a large army, 16 for the Italian allies had now joined him, he advanced 
through Lucania and Samnium into Campania. The territory of the allies of 
Rome had now for some years been free from the ravages of war, 11 and its scat- 
tered houses, its flourishing cultivation, and luxuriant fruit-trees, were a striking 
contrast to the Avasted appearance of Samnium and Lucania. All Avas ravaged 
and plundered without mercy, by the Italians in revenge, by the Greeks to enrich 
themselves and force their enemy to submission, but in some instances it only 
provoked a firmer resistance, and Neapolis and Capua 88 Avere attacked, but re- 
fused to surrender, nor could Pyrrhus make himself master of either of them. 

From Campania he ascended the valley of the Liris, and followed the Latin 
road toAvards Rome. Fregellse, 19 Avrested formerly from the Vol- 
ni^n' r °"m,i r y. e He scians by the Samnites, and the occupation of which by the Ro- 
advnnces'withm eigh- mans had led to the second Samnite war, now yielded to the 
Greek conqueror. The Hernicans, Avho, under the name of Ro- 
man citizens, without the right of suffrage, were in fact no better than Roman 
subjects, received Pyrrhus readily, and Anagnia, 80 their principal city, opened its 
gates to him. Still advancing, he at last looked out upon the plain of Rome 
from the opening in the mountains under Praeneste ; and Prseneste itself, 81 with 
its almost impregnable citadel, fell into his hands, for the Prtenestines remem- 
bered the execution of their principal citizens a few months before, and longed 
for vengeance. Praeneste is barely twenty-four miles distant from Rome, but 
Pyrrhus advanced yet six miles further, 82 and from the spot Avhere the road 

legion which garrisoned Rhegium had been the Siris, for it would have been very hard to have 

eighth. Orosius, IV. 8. But perhaps the pro- involved in their sentence the newly raised sol- 

letarians raised to form thcarmy of reserve had diers who had no share in the defeat, 

already formed a ninth and truth legion, in ,B Plutarch, in Pyrrh. 19. Appian, Samnit 

which' case those now raised would be the X. 3. Floras, 1. 18. Dion Cassius apud Maium, 

nth and twelfth. We cannot account for Script. Voter. Collect, torn. II. p. 588. 

four Legions in the two consular armies, two 10 Zonaras, VIII. 4. Eutropius, II. Floras, 

more under the proconsul, L. jEmilius; one or I. IS. 

two, we know Dot which, forming the reserve 77 Dion Cassius, Fragm. 50. Script. Voter. 

army under the walls of Koine, and one in gar- Collect. 

rison at Rhegium. The legions of Lsevinus bad w Zonaras, VIII. 4. 

suffered so greatly in the battle that their num- 19 Floras, I. IS. 

hers were no doubt very incomplete j but the m Appian, Bamnitio. X. 3. 

reinforcements formed two fresh legions, and M Floras, I. 18. Eutropius, IT. 

i merely serve to recruit the old ones, as M " Milliario ab urbe octavodecdmo." Eutro- 

ps both by Appian's express language, and plus. If this statement is correot, Pyrrhnfl 

also by what is afterwards said <A' the punish- must have passed beyond Zagarolo, and reached 

ment of the legions which had fought on the the spot where the road descends to the level 



Chap. XXXVII] EMBASSY SENT TO PTRRHUS. 401 

descends from the last roots of the mountains to the wide level of the Campagna 
he cast his eyes upon the very towers of the city. . 

One march more would have brought him under the walls of Rome, where, 
as he hoped, there was nothing: to oppose him but the two lemons, mu „ 

" ' <■ 1 ri . J r The Etruscari8 sudden- 

which, at the bepinnino; of the campaign, had been reserved tor iy make peace with 

o p !• 1 • c 1 Kome, and the second 

the defence of the capital. J3ut at this moment he was informed consular army is em- 
that the whole Etruscan nation had concluded a peace 83 with Rome, rh.,' s . hI retreats to 

i rn 1 s~i • i i ■ i l £ Campania. 

and li. Coruncanius, with Ins consular army, was returned from 
Etruria, and had joined the army of reserve. At the same time Lsevinus was 
hanging on his rear, and before he could enter Rome, both consuls would 
be able to combine their forces, and he would have to deal with an army of 
eight or nine Roman legions, and an equal number of their Latin and other 
allies. Besides, his own army was feeling the usual evils of a force composed 
of the soldiers of different nations ; the Italians complained of the Greeks, 84 
and charged them with plundering the territory of friends and foes alike; the 
Greeks treated the Italians with arrogance, as if in themselves alone lay the 
whole strength of the confederacy. Pyrrhus retreated, loaded with plunder, 
and returned to Campania ; Lcevinus fell back before him, but it is said that 
when Pyrrhus 83 was going to attack him, and ordered his soldiers to raise their 
battle-cry, and the Greeks to strike their spears against their brazen shields, and 
when the elephants, excited by their drivers, uttered at the same time their fear- 
ful roarings, the Roman army answered with a shout so loud and cheerful, that 
he did not venture to bring on an action. Neither party made any further at- 
tempts at active operations ; the Samnites and Lucanians wintered in their own 
countries, Pyrrhus himself returned to Tarentum, and the Romans remained 
within their own frontiers, 86 excepting only the legions which had been beaten in 
the first battle, and which were ordered to remain in the field during the winter 
in the enemy's country, with no other supplies than such as they could win by 
their own swords. 

As soon as the campaign was over, the senate dispatched an embassy to 
Pyrrhus to request that he would either allow them to ransom his 

T> • j.1 j. 1 li i xl f i A Roman embassy sent 

Roman prisoners, or that he would exchange them tor an equal toPyn-hus. Hisinter- 

, r-rr- • i i e i • ii- i • view with Fabriciua. 

number or larentmes and others ot his allies who were prisoners 
at Rome. 81 The ambassadors sent to. Pyrrhus were C. Fabricius, Q. ./Emilius, 
and P. Dolabella, all of them men of the highest distinction ; but Fabricius was 
the favorite hero of Roman tradition, and the stories of this embassy spoke of 
him alone. That Pyrrhus was struck with the circumstance of his being at once 
bo eminont among his countrymen, and yet so simple in his habits, and even, ac- 
cording to a king's standard of wealth, so poor, is perfectly probable : he may 
have asked him to enter into his service, for the Greeks of that age thought it 
no shame to serve a foreign king ; and if the Thessalian Cineas was his minister, 
he could not suppose that a similar office would be refused by the barbarian Fa- 
bricius. It was the misfortune of Pyrrhus to live in a state of society where 

of the Campagna, close by what is called the Hernican town, had revolted, and that these le- 
lake of Eegillus, and just at the junction of the gions were employed in reducing it. But no- 
modern road from La Colonna. (Labiei.) thing can be decided with certainty. 

83 Zonaras, VIII. 4. See also Appian, X. 3, 87 Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. X. 4, 5. The 
although his statement is not quite accurate as names of the Boman ambassadors, and long 
to time. speeches put into the mouths of Pyrrhus and of 

84 Dion Cassius, Fragm. 50. Script. Veter. Fabricius, are to be found in the fragments of 
Collect. Dionysius, XVIII. 5-26. The famous anec- 

85 Zonaras, VIII. 4. Dion Cassius, Fragm. dotes, how Fabricius was neither to be bribed 
LI. "by the king's money, nor frightened by the 

86 Frontinus, Strategem. IV. 1. § 24. The sudden sight of one of his elephants, which at 
name of the place to which Lsevinus' army was a signal given stretched out its trunk imme- 
sent is corrupt. Oudendorp and the Bipont diately over bis head, are given by Plutarch, 
edition read "Firmum," which, of course, must Pyrrh. 20. Speeches of Pyrrhus and of Fabri- 
be wrong, as Firmum was far away from the cius in answer, declining the king's offers, are 
Beat of war. Niebuhr conjectures Samnium or also preserved in the Vatican Fragments of 
Ferentinum, supposing that Ferentinum, the Dion Cassius, LIII. LIV. 

26 



402 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVII 

patriotism was become impossible ; the Greek commonwealths were so fallen, 
and their inner life so exhausted, that they could inspire their citizens neither 
with respect nor with attachment, and the military monarchies founded by Alex- 
ander's successors could know no deeper feeling than personal regard for the 
reigning monarch ; loyalty to his line could not yet have existed, and love for the 
nation under a foreign despotism is almost a contradiction. In Rome, on the 
other hand, the state and its institutions were in their first freshness and vigor, 
and so surpassed any individual distinction, that no private citizen could have 
thought of setting his own greatness on a level with that of his country, and the 
world could offer to him nothing so happy and so glorious as to live and die a 
Roman. But the particular anecdotes recorded of the king and Fabricius are so 
ill attested and so suspicious, and the speeches ascribed to them both are so 
manifestly the mere invention of the writers of a later age, that I have thought 
it best to exclude them from this history, and merely to give a slight mention of 
them in a note, on account of their great celebrity. 

Pyrrhus would neither ransom nor exchange his prisoners, unless the Romans 
His generous treatment would accept the terms of peace proposed to them by Cineas. 88 
oftheRomanprisoners. j3 ut to S ^ QW ^ow little he wished to treat them with harshness, 
he allowed Fabricius to take them all back with him to Rome to pass the Satur- 
nalia, their winter holydays, at their several homes, on a solemn promise that they 
would return to him when the holydays were over, if the senate still persisted in 
refusing peace. The senate did persist in its refusal, and the prisoners returned 
to Pyrrhus ; the punishment of death having been denounced by the Roman 
government against any prisoner who should linger in Rome beyond the day 
fixed for their return. And thus both parties prepared to try the fortune of 
war once again. 

The new consuls were P. Sulpicius Saverrio, whose father had been consul in 

the last year of the second Samnite war, and P. Decius Mus, the 
279. second campaimi son of the Decius who had devoted himself at Sentinum, and the 
posed c to 8 pj-""^ °S» grandson of him who had devoted himself in the great battle with 

the Latins. The legions required for the campaign were easily 
raised, 89 every citizen being eager to serve in such a season of danger, and C. 
Fabricius acted as lieutenant to one of the consuls ; but beyond this we know 
nothing of the number or disposition of the Roman armies, nor of their plan of 
operations, nor of the several generals employed in different quarters. Nor do 
we know whether any of the places which had revolted to Pyrrhus during his 
advance upon Rome continued still to adhere to him after his retreat ; nor, if 
they did, how much time and what forces were required to subdue them. We are 
only told that Pyrrhus took the field in Apulia, and reduced several places in that 
quarter ; 90 and that he was employed in besieging Asculum when both consuls, 
with their two consular armies, advanced to relieve it and to offer him battle. 

The ancient Asculum, if its site was exactly the same with that of the modern 
preparations for battle Ascoli, stood on a hill of inconsiderable size 91 on the edge of the 
on both sides. plains of Apulia ; but, geologically speaking, it belongs to the 

plains, for the hill is composed only of beds of sand and clay, and the range of 
the limestone mountains sweeps round it at some distance on the west and south. 
The country is, for the most part, open, and must have been favorable for the 
operations of the king's phalanx and elephants, as the soil, which after the winter 
rains is stiff and heavy, must, later in the year, have recovered its hardness. 



w Appian, Samnitdo. Fragm. X. 4, 5. Zona- M Dion 
ras, following Dion Cassius, and Dionysius also, sins, IV. 1 



Dion Cassius, Fragrn. Vatic. LV. Oro- 

. IV. 1. 
place at this period tin- tree release of all the !IU Zonaras, VIII. 4. 
Roman prisoners by Pyrrhus without ransom. 91 Bee Dr: Dauheny's Excursion to Amsanc- 
Aml so also Jol-s the epitome "t' Livy, XIII. tus, p. 80. Ascoli is a poor town, though it 
Plutaroh agrees with Appian, and their account contained in 1797, awarding to Giustimani, 
is so much the more probable of the two that 5270 bouIs. It has suffered repeatedly from 
I have not hesitated to follow it. earthquakes. 



Chap. XXXVIL] BATTLE OF ASCULUM. 403 

When the armies were opposed to each other, a rumor spread among Pyrrhus' 
soldiers 92 that the consul Decius intended to follow the example of his father 
and grandfather, and to devote himself, together with the enemy's army, to the 
powers of death, whenever they should join battle. The men were uneasy at 
this report, so that Pyrrhus thought it expedient to warn them against yielding 
to superstitious fears, and to describe minutely the dress worn by any person so 
devoting himself. " If they saw any one so arrayed," he said, " they should not 
kill him, but by all means take him alive ;" and he sent a message to the con- 
suls, warning them that if he should take any Roman, practising such a trick, 
he would put him to an ignominious death as a common impostor. The consuls 
replied, that they needed no such resources, and trusted to the courage of Ro- 
man soldiers for victory. 

The first encounter took place on rough ground, 93 and near the swampy banks 
of a river : and Pyrrhus havins: assailed the Romans in such a posi- 

*} Cj *■ Battle of Asculum. 

tion, was repulsed with loss. But he manoeuvred so as to bring 
them fairly into the plain, and there the two armies engaged. He kept his 
cavalry and elephants to act as a reserve ; the Tarentines formed the centre of 
his line ; the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Sallentines 94 were on the left, and the 
Greeks and Samnites on the right. The Romans, as usual, had their cavalry on 
the wings, and their own legions formed the first line, and also the reserve ; the 
troops of their allies forming a second line between them. If this be true, the 
Romans must have suspected the fidelity of their allies ; for their courage had 
been proved in a hundred battles ; and the Marsians and Pelignians now, as at 
Pydna, would have thrown themselves on the pikes of the phalanx as fearlessly 
as the bravest Roman. On the other hand, Pyrrhus intermingled the Samnites 
with his Greek infantry, on purpose to combine the advantages of the Italian 
tactic 95 with those of the Macedonian ; that if his line should be attacked in flank, 
or if the enemy should penetrate it in any quarter, the Samnites might meet the 
Romans with their own weapons, and allow the Greeks time to recover the posi- 
tion and close order which, to their mode of fighting, were indispensable. 

But he had no occasion to try the effect of this disposition ; for his phalanx 
kept its advantage, and as the nature of the ground obliged the The Romans are de- 
Romans to attack it in front, they hewed in vain with their swords 96 feated> 
at the invincible mass of the Macedonian pikes, or tried to grapple them with 
their hands and break them. The Greeks kept an even line, and the Romans, 
finding it impossible to get within the hedge of spears, were slaughtered without 
returning a wound. At last they gave way, and then the elephants charged, and 
completed the rout. The other parts of the line opposed to the Tarentines and 
Lucanians were obliged to follow the example, and the Roman army fled to its 
camp. This was so close at hand that the loss did not exceed six thousand 
men, while in the army of Pyrrhus there had fallen 3505 according to the state- 
ment copied by Hieronymus from the commentaries of the king himself. This 
loss must again have fallen on the cavalry, light troops, and peltastse of Pyrrhus' 
army, unless it was sustained chiefly by his allies on the centre and left wing ; 
for the circumstances of the battle make it certain that the victory of his heavy- 
armed Greek infantry must have been almost bloodless. 

In this account of the actual battle of Asculum, Plutarch luckily chose to copy 
Hieronymus ; but immediately after it he follows Dionysius, and Exaggerated and faiso 
we have nothing but the usual exaggerations of Roman vanity, account °f tliisbattle - 
which leave the real facts of the campaign in utter darkness. The victory of 
Asculum was not improved, and at the end of the season the Romans wintered 
in Apulia, and Pyrrhus again returned to Tarentum. A victory followed by no 

92 Zonaras, VIII. 5. Dion Cassius, Fragm. 96 Polybius, XVIII. 11. 

Vatican. LV. x Plutarch, Pyrrh. 21, copying apparently 

93 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 21. from Hieronymus. 

94 Frontinus, Stratagem. II. 3, § 21. 



404 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIL 

results is easily believed to be a defeat ; and where there is no other memorial 
of events than unchecked popular report and unsifted stories, facts which have 
no witness in their permanent consequences are soon hopelessly perverted. 
Niebuhr declares from his own personal observation, that within a few days after the 
battle of Bautzen every Prussian who had not been actually engaged in the action, 
maintained that the allies had been victorious ; and we can remember the extra- 
ordinary misrepresentation which for a moment persuaded the English public 
that Napoleon had been defeated at Borodino. The successive steps of Roman 
invention with respect to the battle of Asculum are so curious, that I have given 
a view of them in a note : 91 but it is not so easy to determine what were the 
real causes which neutralized to Pyrrhus the result of his victory, and made the 
issue of the campaign, as a whole, decidedly unfavorable to him. 

Both Zonaras and Dionysius relate that the baggage of Pyrrhus was plundered 
it i 8 attended with no during the battle by his Italian allies ; by the Apulians according 
tath.ES.»d. to Zonaras, or according to Dionysius by the Samnites. If this 
Carthaginians. were SOj no t on ] v (jjj ft imply such bad discipline and bad feeling 

on the part of his allies as to make it impossible for Pyrrhus to depend on their 
co-operation for the future ; but the loss of their plunder and baggage would 
greatly discourage his own soldiers, and indispose them to the continuance of the 
war. Besides; it was manifest that the brunt of every battle must fall on the 
Greeks ; already Pyrrhus had lost many of his best officers, and as he never lost 
sight of his schemes of conquest in Greece, he would not be willing to sacrifice 
his bravest soldiers in a series of hard-Avon battles in Italy, for the sake of allies 
on whom he could place no reliance. It is likely also that the Apulian cities 
which he had taken, overawed by the Roman power, and disgusted with the 
arrogance and indiscriminate plundering of the Greeks, were ready to return to 
their alliance with Rome ; and as the Roman army was certain to be speedily 
reinforced, whilst Pyrrhus could look for no additional soldiers from Epirus, it 
might be absolutely impossible for him to keep .the field. Finally, the Romans 
had concluded a defensive alliance 98 with the Carthaginians, for their mutual 
support against Pyrrhus ; and towards the autumn of the year Ptolemy Cerau- 
nus, king of Macedon, was defeated and killed by the Gauls, 99 and the presence 
of these barbarians in Macedonia made it certain that no more soldiers could be 
spared from Epirus for foreign warfare, when their own frontier was in hourly 
danger of invasion. 

Thus left with no prospect of further conquests in Italy, Pyrrhus eagerly lis- 
tened during the winter to offers from other quarters, inviting him to a new field 

97 The account in the text is Plutarch's, copied, actually devote himself in this battle as his 

as T have said, from Ilieronymus of Cardia, a father 'and grandfather had done before him. 

contemporary historian. And Justin agrees De Finib. IL 19. Tusculan. Disp. I. 87. No 

with it: "The issue of the second battle/' he other existing account notices this cireum- 

says, " was similar to that of the first," XVIII. stance ; and according to the author " de Yiris 

1. Livv, if we may trust the epitome of his Ulustribus," Decius was alive some years after- 

13th book, describes the action as a drawn bat- wards, and was engaged in the last war with 

tie: "dubio eventu pugnatum est." But Flo- Volsinii. Probably it was either a forgetfblnessin 

rus calls it a victory on tin- part of the Romans; Cicero himself, or he followed some exaggerated 

mid Eutropius and'Orosius, copying apparently account, which, as he was not writing a history 

from thr same source, says that Pyrrhus was of the period, he did not criticise, but adopted 

wounded, many of his elephants destroyed, it without inquiry. But such enormous dis- 

and 20,0110 of lils men killed, the Roman 'loss crepanoies in the several accounts show what is 

not exceeding 5000. Zonaras. copying from the character of the Roman history ol' this 

Dion Caseins, says thai Pyrrhus was wounded, period, that, except in particular cases, it is 

and that his army was defeated ; owing chiefly merely made up oftraditional stories and pane- 

to an Bl "ii his camp during the bat- gyrical orations, and can scarcely be called his- 

tle by a party of Apulians, which spread a panic tory at all. How different is the account given 

among his soldiers. According to Dionysius, of the battle by the contemporary historian 

as quoted by Plutarch, Pyrrhus was wounded. Hieronymus, who was writing from really good 

the Samnites, and not the Apulians, assaulted materials, not from guess or fancy, but from 

his camp daring wve action, and the loss on knowledge! 

both sides wae equal, amounting to 15.000 men w I. ivy. Epitome, X1IT. Polyhius, III. 25. 

in each army. It is no less remarkable that. Justin, XvlII. 2. 

according to Cicero, the consul P. Decius did ,8 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 22. 



Chap.XXXVIL] PYRRHUS IS INVITED TO SICILY 405 

of action. The death of Ptolemy Ceraunus and the anarchy py,. rhus crosses 0Ter 
which followed tempted him to win back his old dominion in ^s^y- 
Macedonia, while envoys from some of the principal cities of Sicily called upon 
him to aid them against Carthage, and promised to make him master of the 
whole island. He was thus eager to seize the first pretext for abandoning Italy, 
and early in the following spring such an occasion was afforded him. The new 
consuls, C. Fabricius and Q. JEmilius, were sent against him : 100 A . v _ c . 416 . A . c . 
and he soon received a message from them to say that one of his 218 - 
servants had offered to poison him, and had applied to the Romans to reward his 
crime, but that the consuls, abhorring a victory gained by treason, wished to give the 
king timely notice of his danger. Pyrrhus upon this expressed his gratitude in 
the warmest terms, furnished all his prisoners with new clothing, and sent them 
back to their own country, without ransom and without conditions. 101 Immedi- 
ately afterwards, without paying any regard to the remonstrances of his allies, 
he left Milo still in possession of the citadel of Tarentum, 103 and his second son 
Alexander at Locri, and set sail with the rest of his army for Sicily. 

It was apparently soon after the battle of Asculum, that a Carthaginian fleet 
of 120 ships 103 was sent to Ostia to offer aid to the Romans, and 

, -it- i • i n l • * 1-A- Carthaginian fleet 19 

the senate declining this succor, the Carthaginian commander sent to the aid of the 
sailed away to the south of Italy, and there it is said proposed to 
Pyrrhus that Carthage should mediate between him and the Romans, his 
real object being to discover what were the king's views with respect to Sicily. 
Was then the Tarentine fleet wasting the coasts of Latium, so that Rome stood 
in need of naval aid ? Or did so large a fleet contain a Carthaginian army, and 
was Rome wisely unwilling to see an African general making war in Italy, and 
carrying off the plunder of Italian cities ? The insinuation against the good faith 
of the Carthaginian commander seems quite unfounded ; this very armament 
helped the Romans 104 in attempting to recover Rhegium, and though the seige 
did not succeed, yet a large supply of timber, which the Campanians had col- 
lected for building ships, was destroyed, and the Carthaginians having made a 
league with the Mamertines of Messana, watched the strait with their fleet to 
intercept Pyrrhus on his passage. But it seems that their fleet was called off in 
the next year to be employed in the siege of Syracuse, so that Pyrrhus, avoiding 
Messana, crossed from Locri to Tauromenia 105 without opposition, and being wel- 
comed there by the tyrant Tyndarion, landed his army, and marched to the 
deliverance of Syracuse. His operations in Sicily lasted more than two years ; 10S 
his fortune, which at first favored him in every enterprise, was wrecked in a 
fruitless siege of Lilybseum ; lor disgusts arose, as in Italy, between him and his 
allies ; they were unmanageable and he was tyrannical, so that when at length 
his Italian allies implored him to come once again to their aid, he was as ready 
to leave Sicily as he had before been anxious to invade it. 

During his absence the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Tarentines still 

100 Claudius Quadrigarius, quoted by A. tained no triumph over Tarentum, and the 
Gell'ius, III. 8. Appian, Samnitic. Fragm. XI. success for which Fabricius triumphed "de 
Plutarch, Pyrrh. 21. Tarentinis" (Fasti Capitol.) may have been ob- 

101 Plutarch and Appian say that the senate tained in the early part of his consulship, before 
released an equal number of Tarentine and Sam- the truce with Pyrrhus was concluded. 

nitc prisoners, and that Cineas was again sent 102 Justin, XVIII. 2. Zonaras, VIII. 5. 
toKoinetonegotiateapeace,butthatthe Romans 103 Justin, XVIII. 2. 
refused to treat, while Pyrrhus remained in 10 * Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXII. 9. 
Italy. Yet Appian, in another fragment, says I05 Diod., Fragm.Iloeschel. XXII. 11. 
that Pyrrhus, "after his treaty with the Eo- 106 From the middle of 476 to the latter end 
mans," fxtra ras trpdg 'Pu/^ai'uus' awdrjicas, went of 478. era rpiru) is Appian's expression, Sam- 
over to Sicily. Probably a truce for a certain nitic. Fragm. XII., which Mr. Fynes Clinton 
period was agreed to, and with it a general ex- wrongly rmder^tands of the year 479, for 'that, 
change of prisoners. Whether Pyrrhus stipu- according to the Greek mode of reckoning, 
lated any thing for the Tarentines we cannot would not have been etci Tpn-w, but T^dory. 
tell; but the consuls of the two succeeding 107 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXII. 14 
years, although they triumphed over the Sam- Plutarch, Pyrrh. 22, 23. 
nites and Lucanians, yet appeared to have ob- 



406 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVH. 

a.u.c.476,477. a. c. continued the war. They ventured no battles in the field, but 
thl'wlVin luifduriug resolutely defended their towns and fastnesses, 108 and sometimes, 
the absence of pyrrhus. as a i wa y S happens in such warfare, inflicted some partial loss on 
the enemy, without being able to change in any degree the general fortune of the 
contest. The consuls employed against them enjoyed a triumph at the end of 
each campaign ; Fabricius at the end of the year 476, 109 C. Junius Brutus at the 
end of 477, and Q. Fabius Gurges at the end of 478. In the mean time P. Cor- 
nelius Rufinus, the colleague of C. Junius in 477, had recovered Croton and Lo- 
cri ; but as he was considered the principal cause of a severe repulse sustained 
by himself 110 and his colleague from the Samnites at the beginning of the year, 
he was not thought deserving of a triumph. 

It seems to have been in the autumn of 478 that Pyrrhus returned to Italy. 111 
But his return was beset with enemies, for a Carthaginian fleet 
2-6. Pyrrbui returns attacked him on his passage, and sunk seventy of his ships of 
war, 112 and when he landed on the Italian coast he found that the 
Mamertines had crossed over from Messana to beset his road by land, and he 
had to cut his way through them with much loss. Yet he reached Tarentum 
with a force nearly as large as that which he had first brought over from Epirus ; 
as large in numbers, but of a very different quality, consisting principally* of mer- 
cenaries raised in his Sicilian wars, men of all countries, Greek and Barbarian, 
and whose fidelity would last no longer than their general was victorious. 

No sooner had he arrived at Tarentum than he commenced active operations. 
He pinnae™ the tempiu The Roman consuls were employed in Lucania and in Samnium, 113 
of Proserpine at Locri. j^ ] ie rece iyed no interruption from them, and recovered Locri. 
He next made an attempt upon Rhegium, a place so important from its position 
to the success of any new expedition to Sicily, but the Campanian garrison re- 
sisted Pyrrhus 114 as stoutly as they had resisted the Romans, and the king was 
obliged to retire with loss. His old allies, the Samnites and Lucanians," 5 re- 
ceived him coldly, and, however anxious to obtain his aid, they had not, ex- 
hausted as they were, the means of supplying him with money, even if they 
had been disposed to rely on his constancy in their cause. Thus embarrassed, 
as he passed by Locri on his return from Rhegium to Tarentum, he listened to 
the advice of some of his followers, 116 and plundered the temple of Proserpine. 
In the vaults underneath this temple was a large treasure, which had been buried 
for unknown generations, and no mortal eye had been allowed to look on it. 
This he carried off, and embarked his spoil on board of his ships, to transport it 
by sea to Tarentum. A storm, however, arose and wrecked the ships, and cast 
ashore the plundered treasure on the coast of Locri. Pyrrhus was moved, and 
ordered it to be replaced in the temple of the goddess, and offered sacrifices to 
propitiate her anger. But when there were no signs given that she accepted his 
ottering, he put to death the three men who had advised him to commit the 
sacrilege, and even yet his mind was haunted by a dread of divine vengeance, 
and his own commentaries 117 recorded his belief that Proserpine's wrath was still 

108 Zonaras, VIII. 6. gjnians employed in their engagement with 

m Fabricius triumphed in December, Brutus Duilius in the first Punic war a large ship, 

in January, thirteen months afterwards, and Fa- which they took from Pyrrhus probably on his 

bius in the February of the year following, when retreat from Sicily. (Polybins, 1. 28.) Wo 

Pyrrhus in all probability was already returned must suppose that the ships of war were omi- 

to Italy. voying the transports on which Pyrrhus had 

110 Zonaras, Vin. 6. embarked his army; and that their resistance 

111 Zonaras expressly s;ns that Pyrrhus re- enabled the transports to escape, 
turned in the year after the consulship oi' P. lia Zonaras, Vlll. 6. 
Rufinus, that is, in 478. VIII. 6. m Zonaras, VIII. 6. 

"- Appian, Bamnitic. Fragm. XII. Plutarch, IU Plutarch, Pyrrh. 25. Dion. Oassius, Fragm. 

Pyrrh. 24. Pyrrhus had obtained tlii> fleet Peireso. Xl.ll. 

chiefly from tin- Syracusaus, who, on his first J1 " Dionysius, XIX. 0. Appian, Samnitio, 

arrival in Sicily, gave up to him their whole Fragm. XII. 

navy, amounting to 140 ships of war. Diodo- "' Dionysius, XIX., fijitoiaJrJj 5 n^osrvroft 

rus," Fragm. Hoesohel. XXII. 11. The Cartha- ISlots biropvfipaoi ypd<pti. 



Chap. XXXVIL] PREPARATIONS OF THE ROMANS. 407 

pursuing him, and bringing on his arms defeat and ruin. If Pyrrhus himself, after 
his long intercourse with the Epicurean Cineas, entertained such fears, they weighed 
far more heavily doubtless on the minds of many of his soldiers and his allies ; 
and the sense of being pursued by the wrath of heaven may have well chilled 
the hearts of the bravest, and affected in no small degree the issue of the war. 

This was fast approaching. The consuls chosen for the year 479 were M'. 
Curius Dentatus and L. Cornelius Lentulus. The Romans on their . 

. . i ■ • i • i iHn Reliinous terrors at 

side also were visited by religious terrors; during the year 478 a «ome. a. u. cm. 
fatal pestilence had raged amongst them, 118 and now the clay 
statue of Jupiter on the summit of the Capitoline temple was struck by light- 
ning, and shattered to pieces. The head of the image was nowhere to be found, 
and the augurs declared that the storm had blown it into the Tiber, and com- 
manded that it should be searched for in the bed of the river. It was found 
in the very place in which the augurs had commanded the search to be made. 

Fears of the anger of the gods, together with the dread of the arms of Pyr- 
rhus, made the Romans backward to enlist in the legions. Those . <u 

' . . ° . . , Seventy of the consul 

who were summoned did not answer to their names, upon which m the enlistment of 
the consul, M'. Curius, 119 commanded that the goods of the first de- 
faulter should be publicly sold. A public sale of a man's property by the sen- 
tence of a magistrate rendered him incapable of exercising afterwards any politi- 
cal rights ; but the necessity of a severe example was so felt that no tribune in- 
terposed in behalf of the offender, and the consul's order was carried into execu- 
tion. The usual number of legions was then raised; Lentulus 120 marched into 
Lucania, Curius into Samnium. 

Pyrrhus took the field against Curius with his own army, and the flower of the 
force of Tarentum, and a division of Samnites ; the rest of the „ t 

' . T l r Pyrrhus nnd M\ Currai 

Samnite armv was sent into Lucania to prevent Lentulus from opposed to each other 

. % i . nl t~* • e t i t-»i near Beneventum. 

coming to join his colleague. Curius, finding that Jryrrhus was 
marching against him, sent to call his colleague to his aid ; and in the mean 
while the omens would not allow him to attack the enemy, 121 and he lay en- 
camped in a strong position near Beneventum. There is much rugged and diffi- 
cult country behind the town on the road towards Apulia, and there is a con- 
siderable extent of level ground in the valley of the Calore below it, which was 
the scene of the decisive battle between Manfred and Charles of Anjou. But 
whether they fought on the same ground which had witnessed the last encounter 
between Pyrrhus and the Romans, it is not possible to determine. 

Pyrrhus resolved to attack Curius before his colleague joined him, and he 
planned an attack upon his camp by night.' 22 He set out by Un8UC ce6sfui night- 
torchlight, with the flower of his soldiers and the best of his ele- ™$^ Zr^JlL 
phants ; but the way was long, and the country overgrown with camp - 
wood, and intersected with steep ravines ; so that his progress was slow, and at 
last the lights were burnt out, and the men were continually missing their way. 
Day broke before they reached their destination ; but still the enemy were not 
aware of their approach till they had surmounted the heights above the Roman 
camp, and were descending to attack it from the vantage-ground. Then Curius 
led out his troops to oppose them ; and the nature of the ground gave the Ro- 
mans a great advantage over the heavy-armed Greek infantry, as soon as the 
attempt to surprise them had failed. But the action seems to have been decided 

118 Orosius, IV. 2. Livy, Epitom. XIV. Cicero, most tolerant even of the greatest severity when 

de Divinat. I. 10. the public service seemed to require it. But 

ua Livy, Epitom. XIV. Valerius Maximus, the authority of a collector of anecdotes is so 

VI. 8, § 4, adds to this story that Curius sold small, that Valerius' addition to the story must 

not only the property of the defaulter, but the be considered very doubtful, 

man himself, saying "that the commonwealth 12 ° Plutarch, Pyrrh. 25. 

wanted no citizen who did not know how to 121 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 25. 

obey." If the tribunes did not interfere, the m Plutarch, Pyrrh. 25. Dionysius, XIX. 

consul's power might indeed extend to any 12-14. 
thing ; and we know that the Romans were 



408 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIII. 

by an accident ; for one of Pyrrhus' elephants was Avounded, and running wild 
among its own men, threw them into disorder ; nor could they offer a long resist- 
ance, being almost exhausted with the fatigue of their night-march. They were 
repulsed with great loss ; 123 two elephants were killed, and eight being forced 
into impracticable ground from which there was no outlet, were surrendered to 
the Romans by their drivers. 

Thus encouraged, Curius no longer declined a decisive action on equal ground ; 
Battle of Beneventum. he descended into the plain, 124 and met Pyrrhus in the open field. 
pyrrhus is defeated. Q n ^g one w j n g t| ie Romans were victorious ; on the other, op- 
pressed by the weight of the elephants' charge, they were driven back to their 
camp. 125 But their retreat was covered by a shower of missiles from the guards 
on the rampart, and these so annoyed the elephants that they turned about, and 
fled through their own ranks, bearing down all before them. When the phalanx 
was thus disordered the Romans attacked it vigorously, and made their way into 
the mass ; and then their swords had an immense advantage over the long spears 
of the enemy, and their victory was speedy and complete. 

What number of men were killed or taken is variously reported ; but the over- 
He finally leaves itniy throw was decisive ; and Pyrrhus, retreating to Tarentum, resolved 
and returns to Epirus. immediately to evacuate Italy. Yet, as if he still clung to the 
hope of returning hereafter, he left Milo with his garrison in th'e citadel of Taren- 
tum, and then embarked for Epirus. 126 He landed in his native kingdom with no 
more than eight thousand foot and five hundred horse, 127 and without money to 
maintain even these. Thus he was forced to engage in new enterprises ; and 
often victorious in battle, but never successful in war, he perished two or three 
years afterwards, as is well known, by a woman's hand, in his attack upon Argos. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII, 

'GENERAL HISTORY FROM THE DEPARTURE OF PYRRHUS FROM ITALY TO THE . 
BEGINNING OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR— FINAL SUBMISSION OF SAMNIUM— 
CONQUEST OF TAREXTUM — P1CENTIAN AND VOLSINJAX AVARS— ROME 
ACQUIRES ' THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ALL ITALY— DETACHED EVENTS AND 
ANECDOTES RELATING TO THIS PERIOD.— 479 TO 489 A. U. O, 275 TO 265 A. C. 



"France was now consolidated into a great kingdom. . . . And thus having conquered her- 
self, if I may use the phrase, and no longer apprehensive of any foreign enemy, she was pre- 
pared to carry her arms into other countries.'' — Hallam, Middle Ages, Chap. I. Part 11. 



We have seen that a Carthaginian fleet appeared on the coasts of Latium in 
Relations between th e heat of the war with Pyrrhus, to offer it s assistance to the 
some and Carthage. R om ans. The offer was then refused, but very soon afterwards a 

123 Dionysius, XIX. It. mother, and so excited her, that she, too, be- 

124 PI u tare h, Pvrrli. -j5. The scene of the came ungovernable, and threw the Greek army 
battle is placed by Orosiua and Florus "in into disorder, and that this accident first turned 
campis Arusinis," or "sub campis Arusinis," the fortune of the day. 

but this name is unknown to us, and does not I2C It is said that a report was purposely cir- 

enable us to determine the place exactly. culated by PyrrhuB, of the Bpeedy arrival of re- 

08 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 'J~>. The Btory which inforcements from the kings of Macedonia and 

Dionysius and Plutarch relate of the first action Syria, and that the Romans therefore did not 

is by Zonaras and Florus referred to the last venture to advance upon Tarentum. Pausaniaa, 

ciaive battle; namely, that a young ele- 1.18; compare Niebuhr, Vol. 111. p. 610, and 

phant having been wounded, and runnjng note 927. 

about screaming, its cries were heard by its 1 -' 1 Plutarch, Pyrrh. 26. 



Chap. XXXVIII.]- . PREPARATORY EVENTS. 409 

treaty was concluded between Rome and Carthage,' in which both nations en- 
gaged to reserve to themselves the right of assisting one another, even if either 
should conclude an alliance with Pyrrhus ; that is to say, their alliance with 
him was to be subordinate to their alliance with each other, and instead of aiding 
him in his attacks against the other, they were in such a case to aid one another, 
even against him. Such were the relations subsisting between Rome and Car- 
thage in the year 479 ; eleven years afterwards these friendly ties were broken 
to pieces, and the two nations were engaged in the first Punic war. 

In fact, from the moment that Pyrrhus embarked at Tarentum to return to 
Epirus, the whole stream of our history begins, to set towards that Pre| , ai , llion of events 
great period when Rome and Carthage first became enemies. The for the firatPanio -« rar - 
relics of wars in Italy, which still remain to be noticed, are only like a clearing 
of the ground for that mightier contest ; and the union of all Italy under one 
dominion is rather to be regarded for the present as the forging of that iron 
power by which Carthage was to be crushed, and the whole civilized world 
bowed into subjection, than as the completion of the magnificent and complicated 
fabric, in which law and polity were to abide as in their appoint ecj temple. The 
very barrenness of the political history of Rome duiing the half century which 
followed the war with Pyrrhus, is in itself a presumption that the energies of the 
Roman people at this time were employed abroad rather than at home. I shall 
therefore* defer all notice of the internal state of Italy under the Roman sov- 
ereignty, till we come to the period of the second Punic war. Then, when Han- 
nibal's "sword was probing so deeply every unsound part in the Roman dominion, 
and when he was laboring to array Campania and Samnium and Lucania and 
Bruttium in a fifth coalition against Rome, the internal relations of the Italian 
states towards the Romans and towards each other will necessarily demand our 
attention. But for the present I shall merely regard them as blended into one 
great mass, which was presently to be engaged in deadly conflict with the do- 
minion of Carthage. 

After Pyrrhus left Italy, his general, Milo, retained the citadel of Tarentum for 
nearly four years. The aristocratical party, which had been from „ „ „ . „ 

t • • i i -n • iv j , A. U. C. 482. A. C. 

the beo-mmns: opposed to the Jipirot alliance, now endeavored to 272. siege of Taren- 

O & Ft* £ „, „ ., , , . turn. Milo retires to 

rid themselves of it by force 01 arms. Ihey failed, however, in Epirus. surrender of 
their attempt to recover the citadel, and then leaving Tarentum, 
they occupied a fort in the neighborhood, 2 from whence they carried on a plun- 
dering warfare against the city, and were able to make their own peace with the 
Romans. Even the popular party were tired of the foreign garrison and its gov- 
ernor, but, feeling that they never could be forgiven by the Romans, they looked 
elsewhere for aid, and sent to the Carthaginian commanders 3 in Sicily to deliver 
them from Milo's dominion. A Carthaginian fleet" appeared accordingly before 
the harbor, while L. Papirius Cursor, the Roman consul, w T as besieging the town 
by land. But Papirius, dreading the interference of Carthage, treated secretly 
with Milo, 4 and persuaded him to deliver up the citadel to the'Romans, on con- 
dition of being allowed to retire in safety to Epirus with his garrison and all their 
baggage. Thus Tarentum was given up into the hands of the Romans, and the 
Carthaginian fleet returned to Sicily. The Roman government complained of its 
appearance on the coast of Italy, 5 when its assistance had not been requested by 

1 Polybius, III. 25. between the Roman and Carthaginian forces, in 

2 Zonaras, VIII. 6. This was like the aristo- which the Romans were victorious. 

cratical party in Corcyra, who, after their expul- 4 Zonaras, VIII. 6. Frontinus, Strategem. 

sion from the city, built a fort in the. mountains, III. 3, § 1. 

from whence they plundered the lands of their 6 Orosius, IV. 5. That the interference of the 

opponents. Thucyd. III. 85. Carthaginians on this occasion was complained 

* Zonaras, VIII. 6. Orosius, IV. 3. But the of by the Romans appears also from Livy, 

account in Orosius is greatly distorted and ex- Epitom. XIV. and from Dion Cassius, Fragm. 

aggerated, for he makes the Tarentines call in Vatican. LVII. Yet as Pyrrhus was the enemy 

the aid of Carthage not against Milo, but against of Carthage, the Carthaginians might lawfully 

Rome, and says that a regular action took place aid the Tarentines against his officer ; the of- 



410 HISTORY OF ROME. . [Chap. XXXVIII. 

Rome ; and the Carthaginians, now that Tarentum was actually in the Roman 
power, disavowed the expedition as an unauthorized act of their officers in Sicily. 

The death or banishment of the leaders of the democratical party at Tarentum 
subjugation of Taren- atoned, no doubt, for the insult offered to the Roman ambassadors, 
tum - and for the zealous enmity which had organized against Rome the 

fourth Samnite war. When vengeance was satisfied, policy demanded the com- 
plete humiliation of a city which had shown both the will and the power to in- 
jure. 6 Tarentum was dismantled, its fleet and all its stores of arms were sur- 
rendered, it was made to pay a yearly tribute, and a Roman garrison, 7 it seems, 
was quartered in the citadel. When thus effectually disarmed and fettered, the 
Tarentines were allowed to retain their municipal freedom, as the allies, and not 
the subjects of Rome. 

In the same year, immediately before the fall of Tarentum, Samnium, Lucania, 
and Bruttium had made their final and absolute submission. L. 

Sabmission of the Sam- y-. . . ~* i o /~i *v n r ■ iiii l 

nites, Lucanians, and fapmus Cursor and Sp. Uarvilius Maximus, who had been consuls 
together one-and-twenty years earlier in the great campaign which 
decided the thir,d Samnite war, were elected consuls together for the second time, 
to put the last stroke to the present contest. Carvilius invaded Samnium, 8 and 
received the submission of the Samnites ; Papirius received that of the Lucanians 
and Bruttians. The three nations all retained their municipal freedom, or rather 
their several towns or districts were left free individually, but their national union 
was dissolved ; and they were, probably, not even allowed to intermarry with or 
to inherit property from each other. Besides this, they made, undoubtedly, large 
cessions of territory, and were obliged to give hostages 9 for their future good 
behavior. It is mentioned in particular that the Bruttians ceded the half of their 
mountain and forest district, called Sila, 10 or the Weald ; a tract rich to this day 
in all varieties of timber trees, and in wide ranges of well-watered pastures, and 
famous for yielding the best vegetable pitch known to the ancients. The right 
of preparing this pitch was let as usual by the censors, and brought into the re- 
public a large revenue. 

Thus the Romans had put down all their enemies in the south of Italy, except 
a. u. c. 4S4. a. c. the rebellious soldiers of the eighth legion, who had taken posses- 
revoii!d'' u l'arruoa fth o 6 f s i° n °f Rhegium. Those, however, were reduced two years later 
Rnegium. | )y tne consu ] } q Genucius." A separate treaty concluded with 

the Mamertines of Messana 18 had cut them off from their most natural succor, 
and Hiero, who since Pyrrhus had left Sicily had been raised by his merit and 
services 13 to the throne of Syracuse, took an active part against them, and sup- 
plied the Roman besieging army not with corn only, but with an auxiliary force 
of soldiers. Thus the town of Rhegium was at last stormed, and most of the 
garrison put to the sword in the assault. Of the survivors, all except the sol- 
diers of the original legion were executed 14 by the consul on the spot ; but these, 
as Campanian citizens, 15 and, therefore, having all the private rights of citizens of 
Rome, were reserved for the judgment of the senate and people. When they 
were brought to Rome, one of the tribunes pleaded in their behalf that they 

fence complained of, however, was, in all prob- Lollius, a Samnite hostage, is said to have es- 

ability. tin- appearance of a foreign fleet, unin- caped from Koine. 

vited by the Etonians, on the coasts of what 10 Dionysius, XX. 5. Sila is, doubtless, the 

they would < siderthe Roman dominion. But same word as Silva and as CAg. For the actual 

the Carthaginians might answer that the coast state of this forest country, see Mr. Keppel 

of Iapygia was not yet to be regarded as belong- Craven, Tour in the Southern Provinces of 

ing to Some. Naples, p. 24'.'. 

« Zonaras, VIII. 6. » Dionysius, XX. 7. 

7 In the interval between the first anil second ™ Zonaras, VIII. 0. 

Punic wars, a legion was regularly stationed at " Polvbius, I. 8, 9. Justin, XXIII. 4. Zona- 
Tarentum. Polybius, II. 24. Niebuhr thinks ras, Vlfl. 6. 

that this had been the case ever sinee the sur- M Orosins, IV. 8. 

render of the oity. w See Niebuhr, Rom. Hist. Vol. II. p. 57. 

8 Zonaras, VIII. 6. E»g- Transl. 
This appears from Zonaras, VIII. 7, where 



Chap. XXXVIII] CONQUEST OF THE PICENTIANS. 411 

were Roman citizens, 16 and ought not to be put to death, except by the judgment 
of the people ; but the people were as little disposed to mercy as the senate, and 
the thirty three tribes 17 condemned them unanimously. They were thus all 
scourged and beheaded, to the number of more than three hundred, and their 
bodies were cast out unburied. Rhegium and its territory were restored to the 
survivors of the old inhabitants. , 

In the next year one of the Samnite 18 hostages escaped from Rome, and re- 
vived a guerilla warfare in the country of the Caracenians in north- A n c 4S5 A c 
ern Samnium. Both consuls were employed to crush at once an mV shortperuiawar 
enemy who might soon have become fo.-midable, and the bands 
which had taken up arms were soon dispersed, and their strongholds taken, 
although not without some loss and danger on the part of the conquerors. 

A war followed with a people whose name has only once before been heard 
of in Roman history, the Picentians, on the coast of the Adriatic. A n c 486 AC . 268 
The Picentians had become the allies of Rome 19 thirty-one years war 'with, and conquest 

... » i • i rt • j of the Picentians. 

before this period, at the beginning ot the third feamnite war, and 
they had ever since observed the alliance faithfully. But in the year 486 we 
find two consular armies 20 employed against them, and after a short struggle they 
submitted at discretion. A portion of them was removed to the coast of the 
Tuscan sea, and settled in the country which had formerly belonged to the Sam- 
nites, on the shores of the gulf of Salernum. 21 It may have been that this mi- 
gration had been commanded by the Roman government as a measure of state 
policy, in order to people the old Samnite coast with less suspected inhabitants, 
and to acquire as Roman domain the lands which the Picentians had left in their 
old country ; and the Picentians, perhaps, like the Carthaginians in the third 
Punic war, unwilling to be torn from their native land, rose against Rome in mere 
despair. But whatever was the cause of the war, it ended in the speedy and 
complete conquest 22 of the Picentian people. 

The last gleanings of Italian independence were gathered in during the two 
years which next followed. The Sallentines and Messapians had tt 

J . , . r- i ot n i t l . A. U. C. 487 and 488. 

at one time taken part in the confederacy" ot southern Italy against a.c. 26? and 206. con- 

Ti-ii r 1 i/> . ° quest of the Messa- 

Rome, but they had withdrawn trom the cause before its over- plans. . occupation of 
throw. Their repentance, however, availed them nothing, for the 
port of Brundisium, in the Sallentine territory, was a position which the Romans 
were very anxious to secure ; 24 the more so as Alexander, the son of Pyrrhus, 
was reigning in Epirus, and had inherited much of the warlike temper of his 

16 Valerius Maximus, II. 7, § 15. The same w See page 331. 

thing happened after the reduction of Capua in 20 The Fasti Capitolini record that both the 

the second Punic war. The Campanians being consuls of the year, P. Sempronius and Appius 

Boman citizens, the senate could not determine Claudius, triumphed over the Picentians. 

their fate without being empowered by the 21 Strabo, V. p. 251. 

people to do so; and accordingly the tribes B The Picentian war is briefly noticed by 
voted that whatever sentence the senate might Plorus, I. 19, by Eutropius, and by Orosius, IV. 
pass should have their authority for its full ex- 4. A great earthquake happened just as the 
ecutiou. Livy, XXVI. 33. It is remarkable Eoman and Picentian armies were going to en- 
that the power of taking up the Eoman fran- gage, upon which P. Sempronius, the consul, 
chise at pleasure should be considered as so vowed to build a temple to the earth. The 
completely equivalent to the possession of the population of the Picentians, when they sub- 
franchise actually, which is Niebuhr's explana- mitted to the Eomans, amounted, according to 
tion of the condition of the Campanians. Vol. Pliny (Hist. Natur. III. § 110), to 360,000 souls. 
II. note 136. Eng. Transl. It rather appears 23 They had fought under Pyrrhus at Aseu- 
from the definition of the term munieeps, given lum ; see Frontinus Strategem. II. 3, § 21 ; and 
by Festus from Ser. Sulpicius the younger, that they are not mentioned as conquered by Papir- 
the Camp tnians, and others in the same rela- ius and Carvilius, when the Samnites, Luca- 
tion to Borne, enjoyed actually all the private nians, and Bruttians submitted, so that they 
rights of Eoman citizens, without foifeiting had probably left the confederacy at an earlier 
their own Campanian franchise; and this too period. 

seems implied by the fact of their forming a M Zonaras, copying from Dion Cassius, ac- 

regular legion in war, instead of being reckoned cuses the Eomans of making war on the Sallen- 

merely as auxiliaries. tines because they wished to get possession of 

17 Dionvsius, XX. 7. Polybius, I. 7. Brundisium. VIII. 7. 

18 Zonaras, VIII. 7. Dionysius, XX. 9. 



412 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXVIII. 

father ; and whether for attack or defence, the possession of Brundisium, the 
favorite point of communication in later times with Greece and the East, appeared 
then-fore to the Romans very desirable. Accordingly, the Sallentines and Mes- 
sapians were reduced to submission, and Brundisium was ceded to the Romans. 
They did not send a colony thither till some years 25 afterwards, but the land 
must, in the mean while, have formed a part of their domain, and the port in all 
probability was occupied by a Roman garrison. 

In the midst of the Sallentine war, the consuls of the year 488 triumphed over 
Conquest of the sar- the Sarsinatians, 26 a people of Urnbria, and the countrymen of the 
smauitna. comic poet Plautus. Livy's epitome" 7 speaks of the Umbrians 

generally, and says that they, as well as the Sallentines, submitted to the Romans 
at discretion. 

One more conquest still remained to be achieved, a conquest called for by po- 
litical iealousy.no less than by national ambition. The aristocracy 

War wilh the Volsi- ■»...*'. ^ " 

nmus. a. u. c. 489. of Volsinii 23 applied to Rome for aid against the intolerable tyr- 
anny of their former serfs or vassals, who were now in possession 
of the government. As the necessity of keeping up a large navy in the Persian 
invasions first led to the ascendency of the poorer classes at Athens, and as wars 
with foreign states had favored the liberties of the Roman commons, so the long 
wars in which Volsinii had been engaged with Rome had obliged the aristocracy 
to arm and train their vassals, till they, feeling their importance and power, had 
risen against their old lords, and had established their own complete ascendency. 
But in proportion as they had been more degraded and oppressed than the Ro- 
man commons, so was their triumph far less happy. Slaves let loose knew not 
how to become citizens ; two only social relations had they ever known, those of 
oppressor and oppressed ; and having ceased to be the one, they became imme- 
diately the other. They retaliated on their former masters the worst atrocities 
which they had themselves been made to suffer ; M and when they found that some 
of the oppressed party had applied to Rome for aid, they put many of them to 
death,"" as for an act of treason. This was more than sufficient to excite the Ro- 
mans to interfere, and, as the present ruling party in Volsinii were regarded as 
little better than revolted slaves, the majority of the Roman commons would be 
ready to put them down no less than the senate. National ambition, no doubt, 
made the enterprise doubly welcome ; perhaps too the accusation of Metrodorus 31 
was not without foundation, when he ascribed the war to a baser passion, and 
said that the two thousand statues with which Volsinii was ornamented, tempted 
the Romans to attack it. Q. Fabius G urges, one of the consuls of the year 489, 

25 In the latter part of the first Punic war. there is a hill that runs up thirty stadia in 
See Livy, Epitom. XIX. But Floras says [I. height; and beneath there is a forest of all sorts 
Brundisium, with its famous port, was of trees, and much water. So the people of the 
reduced by M. Atilius, who was one ofthecon- city, fearing lest any of them should become a 
suls of the year 487. And so also does Eutro- tyrant, set up their freedmen to be their ma- 
pins, gistrates; and these freedmen rule over them, 

-■' Fasti Capitolini. and others of the same sort are appointed in 

•' E] il mi. XV. "Umbri et Sallentini victi their place at the end of the year." 

iceptisunt." "° Valerius Maximus, IX. 1. The worst of 

*• Zonarae, VIII. 7. Auct. de Viris Ulustrib. all the outrages there described was practised 

"DcciusMus." Floras, I. 21. Valerius Maxi- in some instances by the feudal aristocracy in 

inns, IX. l. Extern, g 2. Orosius, IV. .">. All modern Europe; and it is far more likelj that 

these writers call the revolution at Volsinii a the Volsinian serfs retaliated it upon their mas- 

rising of slaves against their masters; just as tersthan that they should have been the first 

Herodotue represents _ a similar revolution at inventors of it. 

Argos, after the old citizens had been neatly 3U Zonaras. VIII. 7. 

weakened by their wars with Sparta. VI. 88. '■" Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIV. § t. Metro- 

The story told In the work "de Minthil. Aus- doras of Scepsis lived in the seventh century 

oultationibiis,"94, Ed. Bekker, wrongly ascribed of Borne, and was intimate with Mithridates, 

to Aristotle, relates undoubtedly to Volsinii, whose hatred against the Romans he snared to 

and shi tgue and exaggerated form in such a degiee, thai be was .called 6 /<i<r»p(5^uioj. 

which oven contemporary events in distant His charge, whether true or false, is at least con- 

countriea are related, when there is unreal Ids- sistent with those other representations which 

torian to sift them. Acoording to this story, speak of the growing wealth and increased love 

"the city is very strong; lbr in the midst of it or wealth among the Komans at this period. 



Chap. XXX VIII] SOVEREIGNTY OF ALL ITALY. 413 

laid siege to Volsinii with a consular army ; 32 but having been mortally Abounded 
in one of the sallies of the besieged, he left the completion of his work to his 
successors. 33 In the following year Volsinii was taken ; bloody executions took 
place, and the remnant of the new Volsinian citizens, who were not put to death, 
were given up as serfs once again to their former masters. But the old Vol- 
sinian aristocracy were not allowed to return to the city of their fathers. Vol- 
sinii was destroyed, its statues, no doubt, were carried to Rome, and its old citi- 
zens were settled in a new spot 34 on the lower ground near the shores of the lake, 
apparently on or near the site of the modern town of Bolsena. 

Thus the whole extent of Italy from the Macra and the Rubicon to Rhegium 
and Brundisium was become more or less subject to Rome. But T he Romans sovereigns 
it was not merely that the several Italian nations were to follow ofalUtivl y- 
in war where Rome might choose to lead them ; nor yet that they paid a certain 
tribute to the sovereign state, such as Athens received from her subject allies. 
The Roman dominion in Italy had wrested large tracts of land from the con- 
quered nations in every part of the peninsula ; forests, mines, and harbors had 
become the property of the Roman people, from which a large revenue was de- 
rived ; so that all classes of Roman citizens were enriched by their victories ; the 
rich acquired a great extent of land to hold in occupation ; the poor obtained 
grants of land in freehold by an agrarian law ; while the great increase of revenue 
required a greater number of persons to collect it, and thus from the quaestors to 
the lowest collectors or clerks employed under them, all the officers of govern- 
ment became suddenly multiplied. 

The changes, indeed, which were wrought in the course of ten years, from the 
retreat of Pyrrhus to the conquest of Volsinii, must have affected Great change8 which 
the whole life and character of the Roman people. Even the ^ °a in al elation of 
mere fragmentary notices, which are all that we possess of this fte Romans - 
period, record, first, the increase of the number of qusestors from four to eight : 35 
secondly, a distribution of land, in portions of seven jugera 36 to each citizen, to 
the Roman commons generally : thirdly, a . distribution of money amongst the 
citizens, 37 probably amongst those of the city tribes who did not wish to become 
possessors of land ; the money so distributed having arisen from the sale of con- 
quered territory : fourthly, the first adoption of a silver coinage, copper having 
been hitherto the only currency of the state : 3S fifthly, the appointment of several 
new magistrates or commissioners, such as the decemviri litibus judicandis, 39 or 

32 Zonaras, VIII. 7. for their own profit, but sanctioned by the state, 

33 The author " cle Viris IUustrib." ascribes and controlled by the triumviri monetales. 
the conquest of Volsinii to Deeius Mus, who Qusestors are known to have coined money 
was consul in 475, and fought with Pyrrhus at when employed under a proconsul as his pay- 
Asculum. But whether Deeius was employed master, but these coins are equally without any 
as praetor, or as dictator, we know not. The peculiar national device, and relate to some- 
same writer also says that Appius Claudius, the thing in the quaestor's own family or in the cir- 
consul of the year 490, obtained the surname cumstances of his general. Thus on the gold 
ofCaudex, after his conquests of the Volsinians; coins struck by P. Lentulus Spinther, when 
but the Fasti Capitolini give the honor of the he was quaestor to Cassius in Asia, we see the 
conquest to his colleague, M. Fulvius Flac- device of a cap of liberty and a dagger, in inani- 
cus, who triumphed "de Vulsiniensibus, An. fest allusion to the assassination of Caesar. Yet 
cdxxcix. K. Nov." the two-horsed and four-horsed chariots which 

3 * Zonaras, VIII. 7. appear so often on the denarii are noticed by 

° 5 Livy, Epitom. XV. Pliny as a general de.vice, from which the old- 

36 Columella, Praefat. est silver coins received their name. It seems 

37 Dionysius, XX. ad finem. probable that there was no fixed rule with re- 

38 Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIII. § 44. The sil- spect to the right of coining ; that sometimes 
ver coinage was first introduced in the year 485 ; the state issued a coinage, that sometimes mon- 
and the corns struck were denarii, quinarii, and ey was struck by particular magistrates for the 
sestertii. It is still a great question in whose immediate use of their own department of the 
hands the right of coining money was placed, public service ; and that sometimes also it was 
The devices on the consular denarii are so va- struck by individuals /or their own profit, just 
rious, and refer so peculiarly to the house of as a large part of our own circulation at this day 
the individual who coined them, that Niebuhr consists in the notes issued by private bankers, 
supposes them to have been really a private 3a "Pomponius de origine juris," 29. See 
coinage, like the tokens occasionally issued in Niebuhr. Eom. Gesch. III. p. 649. 
England, a coinage issued by private persons 

7V- 4 



414 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXV IU. 

the board of ten, who presided over the court of the centumviri or hundred 
judges ; the board of four, 40 who had the care of the streets and roads ; the board 
of five, who acted for the magistrates during the night, 41 the consuls' ordinary 
responsibility ceasing with the going down of the sun ; and the board of three, 
who had the care of the coinage. All these things are recorded as having been 
introduced for the first time about the period between the war with Pyrrhus and 
the first war with Carthage, and they clearly show what manifold changes the 
Roman people were then undergoing. 

The conquest of Italy was, indeed, to Rome what the overthrow of the Athe- 
Effects of these on man empire was to Sparta : the larger scale of all public transac- 
An\cSotTofCunu'"and tions > tne vast influx of wealth into the state, and the means of 
Fabricius. acquiring wealth unjustly which were put within the reach of 

many private individuals, were a severe shock to the national character. Many 
other Romans, no doubt, besides P. Cornelius Rufinus, were as corrupt and tyran- 
nical as Gylippus and Lysander; and it was this very corruption which made 
men dwell so fondly on those who were untainted by it :' 12 the virtue of Fabri- 
cius and Curius, like that of Callicratidas, shone the brighter, because the tempta- 
tions which they resisted were so often yielded to by others. In the present 
state of Italy any eminent Roman might seriously affect the condition of any of 
the subject people either for good or for evil : hence the principal citizens of 
Rome were earnestly courted with compliments, and often, no doubt, propitiated 
with presents, and it was for refusing such presents Avhen offered to them by the 
Samnites, that Fabricius and Curius became so famous. All know how deputies 
from Samnium came to Curius 43 at his Sabine farm to offer him a present of gold. 
They found him seated by the fireside, with a wooden platter before him, and 
roasting turnips in the ashes. " I count it my glory," he said, " not to possess 
gold myself, but to have power over those who do." So, again, other Samnite 
deputies came to bring a present 44 of ten pounds of copper, five of silver, and five 
slaves, to Fabricius as the patron of their nation. Fabricius drew his hands over 
his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, and then along his neck and down his body ; 
and said that whilst he was the master of his five senses and sound in body and 
limb, he needed nothing more than he had already. Thus, whether refusing to 
have clients, or to accept from them their customary dues, Curius and Fabricius 
lived in such poverty as to be unable to give a dowry to their daughters ; 45 and 
in both cases the senate paid it for them. Men of this sort, so indifferent to 
money, and at the same time not without a roughness of nature which would 
delight in vexing the luxury and rapacity of others, were likely to struggle hard 
against the prevailing spirit of covetousness and expense. When Fabricius was 
censor in 4*79, he expelled P. Rufinus 46 from the senate because he had returned 
amongst his taxable possessions ten/pounds weight of silver plate ; for there is 
often a jealousy against any new me-de of displaying Wealth, when the greatest 
expenditure in old and accustomed ways excites no displeasure. Silver plate 
was a new luxury in the fifth century of Rome, and therefore attracted the 
censor's notice ; three hundred years later, the possession of silver plate to any 

40 4l Pomponius, § 30, 31. government of his province, the same spotless 

42 Pope lias said, that integrity which he proved actually in sitting hy 

,, T ,, , e i-» ni his cottage lire, and refusing the humble prcs- 

» Lucullus, when frugality could charm, t ol . (||i , Sainnites s 

Had roasted turnips in the SaBme farm ;» „ , ^^ ^ Scn ^ tnt _ 16 . Valerius Maxim. 

as if the virtue of Curius had belonged to his IV. 3, § 5. 

age and not to himBelf. Bui this is the mistake M Julius Ilyginus, apud Gellium, 1. 14. Va- 

of a satirist and fatalist, whoso tendency it lcrius Maximus, IV. 3, § 6. 

always is to depreciate human Virtue. llad'Lu- "I borrow this from Nicbuhr, who refers 

cullus lived in Curius' day, be would have for. the story to Apuleius. 

Bhown in the possession often pounds of silver 40 Livy, Epitom. XIV. Niebuhr supposes 

plate, the same spirit which, in bis own days, that Fabricius may have suspected this plate to 

was shown in the Bplendor of bis feasts in the have been a part of the spoils won by Rufinus 

Apollo: had Curias lived in the days of OJfero, atCroton, and have thought that he ought to 

he would have displayed, like Cicero in the have accounted for it to the treasury. 



Chap. XXXVIIL] FIRST EXHIBITION OF GLADIATORS. 415 

amount was fully allowed, 47 but gold plate was still unusual, and the senate, even 
in the reign of Tiberius, denounced it as an unbecoming extravagance. But Fa- 
bricius, no doubt, disliked the large domain lands held in occupation by Rufinus 
as much as his ten pounds of silver plate, thinking that great wealth in the hands 
of private persons, however employed, was injurious to the commonwealth. 

It must not be forgotten, amongst the other changes of this period, that the 
consulship of Appius Claudius and M. Fulvius, 48 the year which 
witnessed the final reduction of Volsinii, was marked by the first diatom, a. u.c.490. 

" A C. 264 

exhibition of gladiators ever known at Rome. Two sons of D. 
Junius Brutus exhibited them, it is recorded, at the funeral of their father. The 
principle of this, as a part of the funeral solemnity, was very ancient and very 
universal ; 49 that the dead should not go on his dark journey alone, but that a 
train of other departed souls, whether of enemies slain to avenge him, or of fol- 
lowers to do him honor, should accompany him to the unseen world. But the 
Romans, it is said, 60 borrowed the practice of substituting a combat for a sacri- 
fice, that the victims might die by each other's swords, immediately from the 
Etruscans ; and when we recollect that the capture of Volsinii took place in this 
very year, we may conjecture that the gladiators of M. and D. Brutus were 
Volsinian prisoners, perhaps slaves, who had been accustomed to fight before 
under the service of their former masters. The spectacle, from the very begin- 
ning, excited the liveliest interest at Rome ; but for many years it was exhibited 
only at funerals, as an offering in honor of the dead ; the still deeper wickedness 
of making it a mere sport, and introducing the sufferings and death of human 
beings as a luxury for the spectators in their seasons of the greatest enjoyment, 
was reserved for a later period. 

The ten years preceding the first Punic war were probably a time of the great- 
est physical prosperity which the mass of the Roman people ever 
knew. Within twenty years two agrarian laws had been passed Roman people at tu» 
on a most extensive scale ; and the poorer citizens had received pe "° 
besides what may be called a large dividend in money out of the lands which 
the state had conquered. In addition to this, the farming of the state domains, 51 
or of their produce, furnished those who had money with abundant opportuni- 
ties of profitable adventure, while the accumulation of public business increased 
the demand for clerks and collectors in every branch of the service of the reve- 
nue. And the power of obtaining like advantages in all future wars seemed 
secured to the people by the Hortensian laws, which enabled them to pass an 
agrarian law whenever they pleased, in spite of the opposition in the senate. No 
wonder then that war was at this time popular, and that the tribes, more than 
once, resolved on taking up arms, when the senate would have preferred peace 
from considerations of prudence, §md, we may hope, of national faith and justice. 
But our " pleasant vices" are ever made " instruments to scourge us :" and the 
first Punic war, into which the Roman people forced the senate to enter, not only 
in its own long course bore most heavily upon the poorer citizens, but from the 
feelings of enmity which it excited in the breast of Hamilcar, led most surely to 

47 Tacitus, Annal. II. 33. ryclice at their funeral at JEgae. Diyllus, apud 

48 Valerius Maximus, II. 4, § 7. Athenseum, IV. p. 155. Diodorus, XIX. 52. 

49 Every one remembers the slaughter of 60 Nicolaus Damascenus, apud Atheneeuin, 
twelve Trojan prisoners over the funeral pile of IV. p. 153. 

Patroclus. When the Scythian kings died, 61 See the well-known passage in Polybius, 

some of all their servants were slain and were where he notices the extent of patronage pos- 

buried with them. (Herodotus, IV. 71.) In sessed by the senate. rioAAfii/ yap 'ipyuv dvrwv 

Thrace single combats took place at the funerals t&v tK&iboiihiav virb t&v r^rwv iia -nucris 'IraXiag 

of the chiefs; and there also, as in India, the eig rag imuKtvag Kai KaTaaxevag twv Srifioa-iwv, a rig 

best beloved of the wives of the deceased was ovk uv i^aptdfiijcaiTo fading, iroWiav 61 -roTanuv, 

killed and buried with her husband. (Herodo- \ijitvuiv, Ktj-niusv, ^ErdAXwi/, x&pas, cv'WrjfSdriv baa 

tus, V. 5, 8.) In Spain, too, when Viriathus iriirrwKev bird Trjv 'Pco/i<u'ui> bmaardav, Trdvra 

was burnt on his funeral pile, there were single xEipi'ijEo-Sat cv^alvu to. Ttpoiipyiicvu bid. tov 

combats fought around in honor of him. Ap- nXtjOovg, Kai axtbbv, ag'hog cheTv, irdvTag hbcbiadai 

pian, de Rebus Hispan. 75. Cassander paid raig tovatg Kai ralg epyamaig raUg ck tovtwv. — IV. 

the same honor to Philip Arrhidsus and Eu- 17. 



416 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



[Chap. XXXVIII. 



that fearful visitation of Hannibal's sixteen years' invasion of Italy, which de- 
stroyed forever, not indeed the pride of the Roman dominions, but the well- 
being of the Roman people. 

But that calamitous period was only to come upon the children of the existing 

generation, and in the mean time all was going on prosperously. 
t3"s uL<i "for rwfing Another aqueduct was constructed by M'. Curius, 52 when he was 

censor soon after the retreat of Pyrrhus, by which a supply of 
water was conveyed to the northern parts of the city from the Anio above Tibur : 
and tiles 53 at this time began to supersede wood as the roofing material for the 
common houses of Rome. 

Their victories over Pyrrhus spread the fame of the Romans far and wide ; 

and immediately after his return to Greece, when he was again be- 
PhaSefphos, kiug'Tf coming formidable by his victories over Antigonus in Macedonia, 

Ptolemy Philadelphia, 54 king of Egypt, sent an embassy to Rome 
to conclude an alliance with the Romans. The senate, delighted at such a cojn- 
pliment from so great a king, sent in return an embassy to Alexandria, consisting 
of three of the most eminent citizens in the commonwealth, Q. Fabius Gurges, 
who was then first senator (princeps senatus), Q. Ogulnius, who had gone to 
Epidaurus to invite JEsculapius to Rome, and Nam. Fabius Pictor, the son of 
that Fabius who had painted the frescoes in tn^jtemple of Deliverance from 
Danger. The ambassadors found Alexandria at the height of its splendor, for 
these were the most brilliant days of the Greek-Egyptian kingdom ; and Ptolemy 
Philadelphia, 55 with a fleet of 1500 ships of war, and a revenue of nearly 15,000 
talents, reigned over the whole coast of the Mediterranean, from Cyrene to the 
Nile, and'' from the Nile to the Triopian headlan/1 at the southwestern extremity 
of Asia/Minor, opposite to Rhodes ; while to the south his power extended to 
the heatt of Ethiopia or Abyssinia, and along both shores of the Red Sea. In 
his capital there met together the wisdom of Greece and of the east and of 
Egypt itself: Theocritus, Callimachus, and the seven tragedians of the Pleias ; K 
the Jews who at this time began at^Alexandria the translation ofti £• Bible ; and 
Manetho. the famous hist orian-ef the ancient dynasties of Egypt. The Roman 
ambassadors were honorably entertained and received valuable presents ; which 
on their return home they laid before the senate, but which the/senate imme- 
diately' gave back to them, with permission to do with them ay they thought 
proper. 

In the year 48S, 57 the people of Apollonia, a Greek city on^he coast of Epi- 
ou.rage .0 u« «mins- ™s, sent an embassy to Rome, with 'what object we know not, but 
Th^ffenderegi'" !^ possibly to complain of some of the officers qt the Roman govern- 
totheApoiiouium. m ent. Two Romans of rank, one of thenya senator of the house 
of Fabius, insulted and beat the ambassadors,, and werfe, in consequence of the 
outrage, given up to the Apollonians ; one of thepHtSstors also was sent to escort 



M Frontinus, de Aquceduetibus, 6. The aque- 
duct of Curius was known by the name of 
•• Anio votus ;" its whole length was forty-three 
lnilcs ; but, like the older aqueduct of Appius 
Claudius, it consisted mostly of pipes under 
ground, and was only conducted on an embank 
mint above ground tor a distance of something 
less than a quarter of a mile. 

S< e < '"in' lit oted by Pliny, as 

■ ed, Hist. Natur. XVI. « 86. 






M Livy, Epit om. XIV. Zonaras, VIII. C. 
DionysiUB, XX. -1. Valerius Maximus, IV. 3, 

M The extent of Ptolemy Philadelphia' do- 
minion, and the flourishing condition of Egypt 
- his reign, are described by TheocntuB, 
witness, in his 17th Idyll, and in thai 
remarkable inscription found at Adulis, on the 
western shore of the Bed Sea, by Cosmaa Indi- 



copleustes, in the reign of Justin, the father of 
Justinian. Cosmas copied the inscription into 
his work, which is to be found in Montfaucon's 
Colleotio Nova, &o. Vol. II. p. 142. Somere- 
markable particulars as to the amount of Ptol- 
emy's revenue are preserved by Jerome in his 
Commentary on Daniel, XI. 5. 

50 They were called the Pleias from their num- 
ber, in allusion to the constellation. Different 

lists of them arc given i Bee Fynes Clinton, Fasti 
i. Vol. 111. year b. o. 259), b 
are known to us bj any existing works, 
Mr. Fox and Niebuhr Beem mi 
think, the Lycophron who wrote the Alexandra 
is a verj different person from the Lycophron 
of the Pleias, and belongs to a later age. See 
Niebuhr'a Kleine Sohrift p. 488 

" Zonaras, VIII. 7. Livy, Epitom. XV. 
Valcr. Max. VI. 0, §5. 



Chap. XXXVIIL] DEATHS OF CURIUS AND FABRICIUS. 417 

the ambassadors and their prisoners to Brundisium, lest any attempt should be 
made to rescue them. But the Apollonians, measuring rightly their own utter 
inability to cope with so great a nation as the Romans, and judging tbat it would 
be unwise 68 to interpret too closely the sentence of the senate, restored both 
offenders unhurt. 

Our notices of the physical history of these times are very scanty. The win- 
ter of 484 was one of unusual severity ; 59 the Tiber was frozen over Physical history, se- 
to a great depth, the snow lay in the Forum for nearly six weeks, ™' e >vinter of 484 - 
the olives and fig-trees were generally killed, and many of the cattle perished 
for want of pasture, as they were dependent, even in winter, on such food as 
they could find in the fields. This great frost happened about one hundred and 
thirty years after the frost of 355, and seems to have equalled it in severity. 
Volcanic phenomena 60 are recorded during the two following years, and in 488 
we hear of a very destructive pestilence, which lasted for more than two years 
more, and is described as exceedingly fatal ; 61 but the language of Augustine is 
indefinite, and that of Orosius clearly exaggerated, so that we can neither dis- 
cover the nature and causes of the disease, nor estimate the amount of the mor- 
tality. 

Ten years, as they bring forward into active life a new generation, so they 
always sweep away some of the last survivors of former times, 

j i • 1 1 • j 1 /• V • a A new generation eom- 

and bring down to a later period the range 01 living memon 7 . Ap- in? forward. Death 80 f 

,~,i v i t T -1 • /-n i i ,i t -i <3uriua and Fabrieius. 

puis Claudius and Valerius Corvus, who were both alive when 
Pyrrhus was in Italy, died soon after his return to Epirus. L. Papirius Cursor, 
if he were still living, had yet appeared for the last time in a public station ; 
neither he nor his colleague, Sp. Carvilius, are heard of again after their second 
censorship in the year 482. M'. Curius had obtained the censorship in that 
same year, three years after his victory at Beneventum ; he employed the mon- 
ey arising from the spoils of his triumph in constructing, as we have seen, the 
second oldest of the Roman aqueducts ;jand after his censorship he was named 
by the senate one 62 of two commissionersTor""c , ompkting the work, but he died 
within a few days after his appointment. Thus one of the most honest and ener- 
getic men known to us in the Roman history, a man whose name is associated so 
closely with the uncorrupted period of the Roman character, was carried off 
apparently before he had arrived at old age. When Fabricius died we know 
not ; but he was not heard of again after his censorship in 479, nor do we know 
any further particulars of him than that he was buried, by a special dispensation, 
within the city walls ; 63 a rare honor, which strongly marks the general sense 
entertained of the purity of his virtue ; " as if," says Niebuhr, " his bones could 
be no defilement to the temples of the heavenly gods, nor his spirit disturb the 
peace of th*Ji"ing." 

So passes away what may be called the spring-time of the Roman people. 
Wealth, and power, and dominion have brought on the ripened 
summer, with more of vigor indeed, but less of freshness. Be- 
ginning her career of conquest beyond the limits of Italy, Rome was now enter- 
ing upon her appointed work, and that work was undoubtedly fraught with good. 
The conqueror and the martyr are alike God's instruments ; but it is the priv- 

68 They may have remembered the wisdom 60 Orosius, IV. 4. The earthquake which 

of the ^Eginetans in like circumstances, when happened in the Pieentian war, just as the Ro- 

the Spartan king, Leutychidas, was given up mans and Picentians were going to engage, 

to them by his countrymen, as an atonement belongs to the volcanic phenomena of this pe- 

for some wrong which he had done to them. riod. 

A Spartan had warned them not to take the 6I Augustine, III. 17. Orosius, IV. 5. 

Spartan government at its word, nor to believe C2 Frontinus, de AquaxlucVfc- -. 

that they might really carry the king of Sparta 63 Cicero, de Legibus, II. 23. Thus Brasidas 

away as their prisoner, and punish him at their was buried within the walls of Amphipolis, aa 

discretion. See Herodotus, VI. 85. having been the deliverer of the city. Thucyd. 

59 Zonaras, VIII. 6. Augustine, de Civit. V. 11. 
Dei, III. 17. 

27 



418 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIX. 

ilege of his conscious and willing instruments to be doubly and merely blessed ; 
the benefits of their work to others are unalloyed by evil, while to themselves it 
is the perfecting and not the corrupting of their moral being ; when it is done, 
they are not cast away as instruments spoiled and worthless, but partake of the 
good which they have given, and enjoy forever the love of men, and the bless- 
ing of God. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

CONSTITUTION AND POWER OF CARTHAGE. 



TJoXiTeieo&ai it ioKovai xai Kap^rjSdviot KaX&i. — Aeistotle, Politic. II. 



The name of Carthage has already occurred more than once in the course of 
internal condition of this history ; and I have already noticed the extent of her do- 
carthage. minion, and the inherent causes of its unsoundness, inasmuch as 

the Carthaginians and their African subjects were separated from one another 
by broad differences of race, language, and institutions ; so that they could not 
blend together into one nation. The isolation of Carthage from all the surround- 
ing people offers a striking contrast to the position of Rome in Italy, where the 
allies and the Latin name were bound to the Romans and to each other by mani- 
fold ties, and the communication of the Roman franchise, or at least the prospect 
of obtaining it hereafter, was every year effacing the painful memory of the first 
conquest, and effecting that consolidation of various elements into one great and 
united people, in which alone conquest can find its justification. But as the 
Carthaginians will now occupy no small share of our attention, from the impor- 
tance and long duration of their contest with the Romans, so it becomes desirable 
to look at them more closely, and see what was their internal state, and with 
what excellences and defects in their national character and institutions they en- 
countered the iron strength of Rome. 

The constitution of Carthage was compared to that of Sparta, as containing in 
it the elements of monarchy and of aristocracy, and of democracy. 
miied g , 0V i;™ m Fcd™i! But in such mixed governments, one element is always predomi- 
nant : first, in the natural course of things, the moiffl-chical, next 
the aristocratical, and, lastly, the democratical or popular. The predominance 
of one element by no means implies, however, the total inactivity of the others ; 
and in their common, although not equal action, consists the excellence of such 
constitutions ; not simply that the working of the principal power is checked by 
the direct legal rights of the other two, but much more because the nation retains 
by their means those ideas and those points of character which they peculiarly 
suggest and encourage, and is thus saved from that narrow-minded uniformity of 
views and of tastes which the exclusive influence of any single element must 
necessarily occasion. In Carthage there is reason to believe that the monarchical 
part of the constitution had once the ascendency, 1 but during those times in 
which she is best known to us, the aristocratical element was predominant ; the 

1 Aristotle Bays that Carthage had novor suf- by an aristocracy. V. 12. It seems, then, that 

(bred in any serums Faction this tyrannymust be understood of the earlier 

or from a tyrant. Politic. 11. li. Yet in an- times of the Carthaginian history, before that 

other place ne gives Carthage as an instance of constitution existed on which Aristotle com- 

a country "where a tyranny had been succeeded ments. 



Chap. XXXIX.] THE COMMISSIONS OF FIVE. 419 

full development of the deraocratical was prevented by the premature destruc- 
tion of the whole nation. 

The Carthaginian aristocracy was partly one of birth, but chiefly, as it should 
seem, of wealth. Indeed, the older form of a pure aristocracy of 

. . iii ■ ■ i j. The suffetes or judges. 

birth must necessarily be rare in a colony, where the original set- 
tlers must almost always be a mixed bod} r , and yet in their new settlement find 
themselves on an equality with each other. It appears, however, that nobility 
of birth was acknowledged in Carthage, and that their two chief magistrates, or 
judges, 2 suffetes, whom the Greeks called kings, were elected only from a certain 
number of families. How many these were, and what was the origin of their 
nobility, we are not informed. But wealth, contrary to the practice of the Ro- 
man government, was an indispensable qualification for all the highest offices. Nay, 
we are told that the very suffetes and captains-general of the commonwealth 
bought their high dignities : 3 whether this is to be understood of paying money 
to obtain votes, or, as is much more probable, .that the fees or expenses of entering 
on an office were purposely made very heavy, to render it inaccessible to any 
but the rich. 

The great council, dujxkr\Tog, was probably an assembly as numerous as the 
Roman senate, and, like the senate, was a mixed body, containing The ^^ councilj and 
members of different ages, who, in whatever manner appointed, thecouncil of « Iders - 
were a sort of representation. of the general feelings of the aristocracy. But from 
this great council there were chosen one hundred members, 4 who formed what 
was called the council of elders, and who in fact were the supreme authority in 
the state. They were originally appointed as a check upon the power of the 
captains-general, and were a court before which every general, on his return 
from a foreign command, had to render an account of his conduct. But by de- 
grees they became not only supreme criminal judges in all cases, but also a su- 
preme executive council, of which the two suffetes or kings were the presidents. 
In this capacity they were legally, we may presume, no more than a managing 
committee for the great council, so they became in ordinary cases its substitute, 
and in all cases exercised such a control over it, that they are called a power for 
governing the general council itself. 5 

The hundred, or the elders, were chosen for life from members of the great 
council, but not by the votes of the great council at large. On the Tho commi85iOEfl or 
contrary, they were chosen by certain bodies which Aristotle calls boaidsoffive - 
KSMTCLgxicu, or commissions of five, and which formed so many close corporations, 
filling up their own vacancies. This is nearly all the information which ; ive possess 
on the subject ; for Aristotle only adds, that these commissions had great and 
various powers, and that their members remained longer in office than the ordi- 
nary magistrates, inasmuch as they exercised an authority both before and after 
their regular term of magistracy. The most probable conjecture is, that the 
more important branches of the public administration were, as we should say, 
put in commission, and vested in boards of five members ; that thus the treasury 

2 Aristotle, Politic. II. 11. Bflnov Si toOs (5a- * " Centum ex numero senatorum judices 
o-tXas ixf)T£ Kara rb avrd elvai yhog untie tovto to tv- deliguntur," says Justin, giving an account of 
Xtv. It is obvious that " suffes," or " sufes," is the origin of this council of elders, XIX. 2. The 
the same word with the Hebrew DtHTZJ which council of elders, or ytpovoia, is distinguished 
,, .... „,, . . " „ expressly from the larger council, or senate, 
was.the title, of those magistrates whom we call a6yK x nT a\. See Polybiust X. 18, and XXXVI. 2. 
the judges. Now as the judges m the Scripture For the whole sub j ect of t]ie Carthaginian eon- 
history are distinguished from the kings, and B tituti«fc I have been largely indebted to Hee- 
it .was a great change when the Israelites tired ren 's Historical Eesearches on the African Na- 
ot their judges, or sufletes desired to have a tionB V ol. I. I have also derived some assist- 
ing; so i.t is probable that the suffetes at anee f rom Kluge's Commentary on Aristotle's 
Carthage also were so named to show that they account of the Carthaginian constitution, pub- 
were not kings, and that the Greek writers, in lighed in 1824 
calling them /WiAtfj, have used a term likely to * Livy, XXX. 16. "Sanctius consilium, 

m » S i> a iV ttt o a • 4. ..l • .. ■ maxima'que ad ipsum senatum regendum vis." 

■ Polybius, VI. 56. Aristotle s account 1m- V- ■ * b 

plies the same thing. 



420 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIX. 

would be intrusted to one commission of five, the care of public manners and 
morals, the censor's office at Rome, would be given to another commission ; the 
police, perhaps, to another ; the navy to another ; and so on. Nothing would 
hinder these commissioners from being members of the great council, and nothing 
would hinder them, therefore, from electing themselves to fill up vacancies in 
the council of elders ; in fact, we are expressly told 6 that the treasurer's or quaes- 
tor's office led regularly to a seat amongst the hundred ; and thus the same men 
being often members at one and the same time of one or perhaps more of these 
administrative commissions, and of the great council, and also of the council of 
elders, we can understand what Aristotle means when he says that it was^a 
favorite practice with the Carthaginians to invest the same person with several 
offices together. 

All this was sufficiently aristocratical, or rather in the spirit of that worst form 
of aristocracy which the Greeks called oligarchy. And what 
was thus ordered by law, was to be maintained by feeling ; the 
members of the aristocracy had their clubs, 1 where they habitually met at a com- 
mon mess or public table, with the very object of binding them more closely to 
each other, and imbuing them entirely with the spirit of their order. 

Under such a constitution the power of the suffetes had been reduced from its 
Diminution or the pow- originally almost kingly prerogatives to the state of the doge 
er of the suffetes. under the late constitution of Venice. In earlier times they had 
been invested with the two great characters of ancient royalty, those of general 
and of priest ; s but now the first of these was commonly taken from him, and the 
office of general-in-chief is spoken of by Aristotle as distinct ; nor was it even 
left in the suffetes' appointment. Still the two kings, as the Greek writers call 
them, were recognized as an essential branch of the government, and if they dif- 
fered upon any proposed measure from the council of elders, then the question 
was referred to the assembly of the people. 9 It was thus, no doubt, that an 
opening was afforded for weakening the power of the aristocracy ; for either of 
the suffetes was thus enabled to introduce the decision of the popular branch on 
points of government ; and it is of the essence of a popular assembly, if called 
into activity, to become predominant : it may exist and yet be powerless, but 
only so long as few points are in practice submitted to its decision. 

But so long as the suffetes and council were agreed, the power of the Car- 
judiciai power, conn thaginian people was exceedingly small. Nothing, it seems, could 
of the hundred and tour. or jrrinate with the popular assembly; so that the exercise of its 
functions did not depend on its own will, but on the accidental disagreement of 
the other branches of the legislature. And as the mass of the people had so 
small a share practically in the legislation or in the administration of affairs, so 
they were destitute of judicial power: there were no juries as in England, nor 
any large popular courts where hundreds or even thousands of the poorest citi- 
zens sat in judgment as at Athens. All causes, civil and criminal, were tried by 
certain magistrates ; 10 the highest matters, as we have seen, by the council of 

8 Livv, XXXIII. 46.— What is here said of 8 At least Hamilcar, who commanded the 

the multiplication of offices in the hands of the Carthaginians at the battle of Ilimcra. and who 

game persons at Carthage, was also the ease at was one of the suffetes, is described by Hero- 

Venice. Every member of the supreme criminal dotus as sacrificing during the battle, and pour- 

txibunal of fortj had a Bea1 ex-omcio in the sen- ing libations with his own hand on the victims, 

ate; and the three presidents of the Forty sat VII. lt37. And although the expression in 

also in the council of the doge. "L'autorite Herodotus is iOvcro, and not eOvcr. yet the same 

du legislatenr," says Dam, "celle da juge, expression is applied to the prophet Tisamenus, 

rinfluence dc Padministration et le pouvdir who was with tne Greek army at Plattea; and, 

discretionnairedelapolice, setrouvaient reunis unless Hamilcar had been personal!] engaged 

dans le mams." — Histoire de Venise, in the sacrifice, we can scarcely suppose* that he 

Livre XXXIX. Vol. VI. p. 68, and 146. would have remained in the camp while it was 

7 Td evoolria rdv hatpi&u. Aristotle, Politic, going forward, instead of being present with 

II. 11. It may be mentioned, as b mark of the his soldiers in the action. 

aristocratical spirit of the Carthaginian govern- ,J Aristotle, Pulitic.ll.il. 

ment, that the senate and people had dill'eivnt "> ' \ptoroKpa-iicbv , rd t«j iUns vnb twv ap\di»t 

bathe. Yaler. Max. IX. 5. Ext. § 4. liKd\t<rBai ndaas, ko\ /ij) <i\\as far 1 uAAwv, KaQ&*tp i» 



Chap. XXXIX.] SYSTEM OF COLONIZATION. 421 

elders ; but every magistracy seems to have had a judicial power attached to it, 
and only one court had a popular constitution. This was the court of the hun- 
dred and four, 11 the members of which were elected by the people at large ; but 
public opinion required that they should be men of irreproachable characters ; 
and therefore the election was conducted with care, and no one without merit 
was likely to be appointed. This court probably exercised jurisdiction especially 
in civil and mercantile causes ; such as would be exceedingly numerous in so 
great a commercial country as Carthage. 

Thus excluded in the ordinary course of tilings from the government, the legis- 
lature, and the courts of justice, the Carthaginian commons were Regular system of coi- 
kept for centuries in a state of contented acquiescence with their omzatlon - 
country's constitution, because provision was happily and wisely made for their 
physical wants. Colonization, as a provision for the poorer citizens, was an 
habitual resource of the Carthaginian government. And not only did their nu- 
merous settlements along the coast of Africa enable them to make grants of land 
to whole bodies of their people, but individuals 12 were employed in various offices 
under the government, as cierks, or as custom-house officers, where opportuni- 
ties of acquiring money would not be wanting. With such means of relief, 
largely offered by fortune and wisely used, the Carthaginian people were 
saved from that worst cause of revolutions, general distress ; and the mass of 
mankind are so constituted, that so long as their physical wants are satisfied, the 
cravings of their intellectual and moral nature are rarely vehement. 

Every one who is accustomed to make history a reality must feel how unsatis- 
factory are these accounts of mere institutions, which, at the best, Mea grene S 9 of our ac- 
can offer us only a plan, and not a living picture. Was the Cartha- ?he nt tot°,fi C wam g o/ r au 
ginian aristocracy, with its merchant-nobles, its jealous tribunals, Carth «g>nian literature. 
its power abroad and its weakness at home, an older sister of that Venetian re- 
public, whose fall, less shameful than the long stagnation of its half existence, 
Nemesis has in our own days rejoiced in '? Or did the common voice in France 
speak truly, when it called England the modern Carthage ? Or is Holland the 
truer parallel ; and do the contests of the house of Nassau with the Dutch 
aristocracy represent the ambition of the house of Barca, and the triumph of the 
popular » arty over the old aristocratical constitution ? We cannot answer these 
questions certainly, because Carthage on the stage of history is to us a dumb 
actor; no poet, orator, historian, or philosopher, has escaped the wreck of time, 
to show us how men thought and felt at Carthage. There were Carthaginian 

AaK^aifiovi. Aristot. Politic. II. 11. Udaag apxai practice of submitting different causes to differ- 

nveg Kpivovai ras SUas, III. 1. For the statement ent magistrates, but of a more democratical sys- 

in the text these passages are a sufficient war- tern by which not all causes were tried by magis- 

rant; but the first offers, as is well known, trates, as at Carthage, but some by magistrates, 

much difficulty in itself; and Klr.ge's explana- and others by juries; u some by one authority, 

tion is not satisfactory. In the latter passage and others by another?" 

Carthage and Lacedwmon are said to resemble u The number of this court is supposed by 

each other in the atistoeratical principle of Niebuhr (Vol. I. note 851) to have reference to 

vesting the judicial power in magistrates, and the number of weeks in the solar year, as if 

not in juries taken from the people at large, there were two judges for each week. The 

This is perfectly clear; but one does not see numbers were elected, says Aristotle, ovk Ik r<2v 

why it should be more aristocratical to give tvxHvtuv dXX' apiarlv&riv. This can only mean that 

all these magistrates a universal jurisdiction, public opinion required for the office so high a 

rather than, as at Sparta, to assign civil causes qualification in point of character, that the ap- 

to one court, and criminal to another. It is pointment was in the truest sense of the word 

strange, too, that in one of these passages Sparta aristocratical ; whereas at Sparta, a lower stand- 

and Carthage should be said to manage their ard being fixed for the characters of the Ephori, 

courts of justice on the same principle ; that persons of very ordinary qualifications were 

is, on one of an antipopular character, rbv avrbv often chosen, if party feelings recommended 

6e rponov Kai tn.pl Kap^rji6na, if in the other pas- them. 

sage they are meant to be contrasted with one B Aristot. Politic. VI. 5. 'A« was «7rf>:rov- 
another. Is it not possible therefore to refer res rot i^uou -pds i-a? nepwiKibas miovaiv svirdpovs. 
the words Kadd-xtp ev AtiKt&aipovi to the whole of Klnge understands this passage as I have done ; 
the clause preceding it, rather than to the Heeren objects to this interpretation, and ex- 
words Kul fih aXXag vtt' d'XXuv, and to under- plains it of colonies sent out in the mass. 
stand these last words not of the Lacedaemonian 



422 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XXXIX. 

writers, we know. Sallust had heard translations of passages in their historical 
records ; 13 and the Roman senate, when Carthage was destroyed, ordered Mago's 
work on agriculture to be translated into Latin. 14 Nor were geographical accounts 
of their voyages of discovery wanting ; imperfect translations of, or rather extracts 
from, two of which into Greek 15 and Latin, have descended to our times. But 
of poets, orators, and philosophers we hear nothing ; nor probably were the 
writers who were translated to Sallust deserving of the name of historians ; at 
least all that he quotes from them relates to times beyond real historical memory, 
as if they had but recorded floating popular traditions, without attempting criti- 
cal or contemporary history. It was a Greek who gave what may be loojfcl 
upon as a Carthaginian account 16 of the first Punic war ; and it was to two 
Greeks 17 that Hannibal committed the task of recording his own immortal expe- 
dition to Italy. Their language, indeed, shut the Carthaginians out from the 
prevailing civilization of the ancient world : it was easy for a Roman to learn 
Greek, which was but a sister language to his own ; but neither Greek nor Latin 
have any near resemblance to Phoenician ; nor were there any Carthaginian 
names or stories which poets and artists had made famous amongst all civilized 
nations like those of Thebes and Troy. Thus, as I said before, Carthage, not 
having spoken of what was in her heart, it has passed along with herself into 
destruction ; and we can now only know something of what she did, without un- 
derstanding what she was. 

Polybius ls has said that during the wars with the Romans, the Carthaginian 
Growth of the popular constitution became more democratical, and he ascribes the vic- 
S^Bl^and^uto- tor y 0l th e Romans in some measure to the superior wisdom of 
a y- their aristocratical government, and the instability of popular coun- 

sels in Carthage. It is, indeed, evident, that the family of Barca rested on pop- 
ular support, and were opposed by the party of the aristocracy; and that they 
could maintain their power so long in spite of such an opposition, shows, un- 
doubtedly, that the popular part of the constitution must have gained far more 
strength "than it possessed in the days of Aristotle. Hamilcar and his family 
seem to have stood in the position of Pericles at Athens ; both have often been 
taxed with having injured irreparably the constitution of their two countries ; and 
both, perhaps, had the natural weakness of great men, that feeling themselves 
to be better than any institutions, they removed too boldly things which to them 
were hindrances, but to the mediocrity of ordinary men are supports or useful 
guides ; so that when they died, and no single men arose able to fill their place, 
what they had undone found nothing to succeed to it, and then the overthrow 
of the older system appeared an irreparable mischief. But the question is 
amongst the most difficult in political science ; Venice shows that no democracy, 
no tyranny, can be so vile as the dregs of an aristocracy suffered to run out its 
full course ; and with respect to the conduct of a war, the Roman senate is no fair 
specimen of aristocracies in general ; the affairs of Athens and Cartilage were 

• 
18 Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. 20. means certain that all of what is there given is 

14 Pliny, Histor. Natur. XVIII. § 22. It ap- genuine Carthaginian. Was Plantus likely to 
pears from this passage that on the destruction have learnt the language, and for what object 
of Carthage the Carthaginian libraries were would pure Carthaginian have been introduced, 
given by tin- Benate to "the princes of Africa," when apparently the only purpose auswi 
"regulis Africa* :" that is chiefly, no doubt, to Hanno's Bpeaking in a foreign Ian 
Masinissa, And thus the Carthaginian books cause a laugh at Milphio's burlesque interpreta- 
from which Sallust quotes were Baid, he tells tionofit? 

i:-. to have belonged t" king Hiempsal, Masin- u Such as a Creek translation of a voyage of 
iBsa'e grandson. Ami further, Mago's work was Hanno, published by Hudson in his Geographi 

itted for translation to persons who under- Minorca; ami Festus Avienus' Latin vi 
Btood Carthaginian, of whom the man who knew certain parts of the voyage of Himiloon, which 
it best was a member of the Junian family, I). Heeren has given in the Appendix to bis work 
Bilanus. Still a knowledge of Carthaginian on Carthage, 
must have been a rare accomplishment ; which K Philinus of Agrigentum. 
makes as won. In- at the introduction of speeches " Bosilus of Lacedsnion, ami Bilanus or Si- 
in that language upon the Soman stage, as in lenus. V'ul. Cornel. Nepot. in Hannibal, 13. 
the Poenulus of Plautus. It seems to me by no ,B VI. 51. 



Chap. XXXIX.] WEAKNESS OF THE CARTHAGINIANS. 423 

never conducted so ably as when the popular party was most predominant; nor 
have any governments ever shown in war greater feebleness and vacillation and 
ignorance than those of Sparta, and, but too often, of England. 

A great commercial state, where wealth was largely gained and highly valued, 
was always in danger, according to the opinion of the ancient ^^ ^ s „ t rf 
philosophers, of losing its spirit of enterprise. But in this Car- the^cnrthaginian gov. 
thage resembled the government of British India ; necessity at first 
made her merchants soldiers ; and when she became powerful, then the mere 
impulse of a great dominion kept up her energy ; she had much to maintain, and 

tt she already possessed gave her the power, and with it the temptation, of 
liring more. Besides, it is a very important point in the state of society in 
the ancient world, that the business of a soldier was no isolated profession, but 
mixed up essentially with the _ ordinary life of every citizen. Hence those who 
guided the counsels of a state were ready also to conduct its armies ; and mil- 
itary glory was a natural object of ambition to many enterprising minds which, 
in modern Europe, could only hope for distinction in the cabinet or in parlia- 
ment. The great families of Carthage, holding amongst them a monopoly of all 
the highest offices, might safely calculate on obtaining for all their members 
some opportunity of distinguishing themselves : if the father fell in the- service 
of his country, his son not unfrequently became his successor, and the glory 
of finishing what he had begun was not left to a stranger. Thus the house 
of Mago for three generations conducted the Carthaginian invasions of Si- 
cily : and thus Hamilcvr Barca, according to his own expression, 19 reared his 
three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago, as lion's whelps to prey upon the 
Romans. 

History can produce no greater statesmen and generals' than some of the 
members of the Carthaginian aristocracy. But the Carthaginian . . . ' ■ 

P i-ii -ir-r! Inferiority of the Car. 

people were wholly unfit to contend with the people ot Kome. thagmian people as aoi. 

£ r 11 • • 'ii i diers. Want of fortresses 

No muitary excellence in arms or tactic is ever ascribed to them; in the Carthaginian ter- 
nor does it appear that they were regularly trained to war, like 
the citizens of Rome and Italy. The Carthaginian armies were composed of 
Africans and Numidians, of Gauls and Spaniards, but we scarcely hear of any 
Carthaginian citizens except as generals or officers. With this deficiency in na- 
tive soldiers, there was also a remarkable want of fortresses ; a point of no small 
importance at all periods, but especially so in ancient warfare. The walls exist 
in Italy to this day of many towns whose very names have perished ; but we 
know that, small as they were, they could have delayed the progress of an inva- 
der ; and how inestimable were the services rendered to the Romans in their 
greatest danger by the fortifications of Nola and Casilinum ! But in the Cartha- 
ginian territory aa invader found nothing but a rich and defenceless spoil. 
Agathocles conquered 200 towns 20 with scarcely any opposition ; and Hannibal 
himself, after one defeat in the field, had no resource but submission to the con- 
queror. Had a French army ever effected a landing in England during the last war, 
the same want of fortresses would have enabled the enemy to overrun the whole 
country, and have taught us by fatal experience to appreciate in this respect 
the improvidence of Carthage. 

Thus, with abler leaders and a richer treasury, but with a weaker people, an 
unguarded country, and with subjects far less united and attached Carthage was unequal 
to her government, Carthage was really unequal to the contest foRwne - 
with Rome. And while observing this inequality in the course of our story, we 
shall have more reason to admire that extraordinary energy and genius of Hamil- 
car Barca and his family, which so long struggled against it, and even in spite of 
nature, almost made the weaker party victorious. 

» Valerius Masimus, IX. 3. *> Diodorus, XX. 17. 



CHAPTER XL. 

FIRST PUNIC WAR— THE ROMANS INVADE SICILY— SUBMISSION OF HIERO— 
THE ROMANS CREATE A NAVY— NAVAL VICTORIES OF MYLiE AND ECNO- 
MUS— EXPEDITION OF M. REGULUS TO AFRICA; HIS SUCCESSES, HIS ARRO- 
GANCE IN VICTORY, HIS DEFEAT AND CAPTIVITY— WAR IN SICILY— SIEGE OF 
LILYILEUM AND NAVAL ACTIONS CONNECTED WITH IT— HAMILCAR BARCij^fc 
EIRCTE AND ERYX— NAVAL BATTLE OF THE JSGATES— PEACE CONCLUDE^ 
A. U. C. 490 TO 513— A. C. 264 TO 241. 



Mc\tT)'](roiJL£v Kal >';//£?s iv ir\lovi XP^ V V r " vaunted, Kal orav Ttjv nriaT^^ijv tg rb icrov KaTaorijoidiiev, 
Tij ye ev^vxlq &V kov TTtpieadyitSa' 8 yap ^£is £^o//£i/ <pbaei dyaSdv, indvois ovk uv yevoiro Si&axjj' 
8 6' eKelvoi eirtarnfiri Trpov%ovat, KaSaipereov t'mlv ion /itXirj). — ThUCYD. I. 121. 



The first Punic war lasted, without intermission, for more than two-and-twenty 
a. u. c 490. a. c. years, 1 a longer space of time than the whole period occupied by 
the his'oryof c tb« n fir'st the wars of the French revolution, if we omit to reckon the nine- 
Pumcwar. teen months of the peace or rather truce of Amiens. And we 

have now, for the first time, the guidance of a careful and well-informed histo- 
rian, who, having been born little more thirty years after the end of the war, 2 
had studied the written accounts given of its events by each of the contend- 
ing parties, had learned something, no doubt, concerning it, from the mouths 
both of Romans and Carthaginians, and who judged what he had heard and read 
with understanding, and for the most part impartially. The actions, then, of this 
war may be known, and some of them deserve to be described particularly ; nor 
does it indeed seem possible to communicate any interest to history, if it must 
only record results and not paint actions. But in military matters, especially, 
much that may and ought to be told at length by a contemporary historian, 
ought not to be repeated by one who writes after an interval of many centuries : 
and therefore I must, of necessity, pass over slightly many baitles and sieges, in 
order to relate others in full detail, and yet avoid the fault of too great pro- 
lixity. 

It was the eleventh year after the defeat of Pyrrhus at Beneventum, and Ap- 
The Mftmertinea of P' us Claudius Caudex and M. Fulvius Flaccus were consuls, when 
fcSSrt&fcSE a deputation 3 arrived at Rome from the Mamertines of Messina, 
thoginiuas and Hiero, praying that the Romans, the sovereigns of Italy, would not suf- 
fer an Italian people to be destroyed by Greeks and Carthaginians: Hiero, king 
of Syracuse, was their open enemy ; the Carthaginians, under pretence of saving 
them from his vengeance, were trying to get possession of their citadel ; but the 
Mamertines, true to their Italian blood, sought to put themselves under the pro- 
tection of their own countrymen, and it greatly concerned the Romans not to 
allow the Carthaginians to become masters of Messana, and to gain a station for 
their fleets within thirty stadia of the coast of Italy. 

Six years had not elapsed since the Romans had extirpated the brethren and 

1 From tlic middle, perhaps, of the year 490 be deducted, which extends from October, 1S01, 

to the middle of the year 513; nearly twenty- to May, 1803. 

three years, if we reckon from the arrival of the ,J The exact year of Polybius' birth is uticer- 

first Mainertine embaSS] at home, to the con- tain. He was under ;'•»» in 573, but as he was 

elusion of the definitive treaty. The whole pe- appointed ambassador to Egypt in that year, lie 

riod of the revolution wars, from April, 1792. to could not nave been many years youngor. Sec 

July, 1815, is butu very little longer, and it be- Fynes ( Sfinton, Fasti rlellen. Vol. 111. p. 75. 

comes very much shorter if the interval of peace s Polybius, 1.10. Zonaras, VJ11. 8. 



Chap. XL.] C. CLAUDIUS CROSSES TO MESSANA. 425 

imitators of the Mamertines, who had done to Rhegium what the The senate hesitates to 
Mamertines had done to Messana ; and Hiero, king of Syracuse, 6™ ntlt - 
had zealously aided them in the work, and, as it appears, 4 Avas actually at this 
time their ally. The Mamertines were a horde of adventurers and plunderers, 
who were the common enemies of mankind, and whose case the Romans had pre- 
judged already by their exemplary punishment of the very same conduct in the 
Campanians of Rhegium, while Hiero and the Carthaginians were the friends and 
allies of Rome. The senate, therefore, we are assured, 5 after long debates, could 

K;solve to interfere in such a quarrel, 
t the consuls, who, if true to the hereditary character of their families, 
both of them ambitious men and unscrupulous, brought the „ , . .. . 
petition of the Mamertines before the assembly ot the people. Ihe tribea resolve to assist 
ready topics of aiding the Italian people against foreigners, and of 
restraining the power of Carthage, whose establishments in Corsica, Sardinia, 
and the Liparsean islands, were already drawn, like a chain, round the Roman 
dominion, were, no doubt, urged plausibly ; it might have been said too that the 
Carthaginians had already undertaken to protect the Mamertines, so that they 
could not reproach the Romans for upholding the very same cause. Besides, 
the Roman people had a fresh remembrance of the assignations of land, the rich 
spoil, and lucrative employments which had followed from their late conquests 
in Italy ; the fertility of Sicily was proverbial ; and the well-known riches of 
Carthage made a war with her as tempting a prospect to the Romans as a war 
with Spain has been ere now to Englishmen. So the Roman people resolved to 
protect the<Mamei tine buccaneers, and to receive them as their friends and allies. 

The vote of the comitia was, by the actual constitution of Rome, paramount 
to every other authority except the negative of the tribunes; and c.ciaudraserossesover 
as the tribunes did not interpose, the hesitation of the senate- •s e f t „ 8S t l l " e 11 ^™; i ) , e ^ ul T; 
availed nothing. Accordingly the senate now resolved to assist t heaidofRome - 
the Mamertines ; and Appius Claudius was ordered to carry the resolution into 
effect. But before he could be ready to act with a consular army, C. Claudius, 
with a small force, was sent to the spot with orders to communicate as quickly 
as possible with the Mamertines. In a small boat 6 he crossed the strait to 
Messana, and was introduced before tlie Mamertine assembly. With the language 
so invariably repeated afterwards whenever a Roman army appeared in a foreign 
country, C. Claudius assured the Mamertines that he was come to give them 
their freedom, and he called on the Carthaginians either to evacuate the city, for 
since the Mamertine embassy to Rome they had been put in possession of the 
citadel by their partisans in Messana, or to explain the grounds on which they 
occupied it. His address received no answer; upon which he said, " This silence 
proves that the Mamertine people are not their own masters, and that the Car- 
thaginians have .no just defence of their conduct to offer. For the sake of our 
common Italian blood, and because our aid has been implored, we will do the 
Mamertines justice." 

But the strait of Messana, guarded by a Carthaginian fleet, was a barrier not 
easy to surmount. The Romans, since their conquest of Tarentum The R „ man fleet> in 
and their possession of all the coasts of Italy, seem to have given g t "au, p l ns re°juS 'by 
up their navy altogether, and we hear at this time of no duumviri flw Carthaginians. 
or naval commanders as regular officers of the commonwealth. From the Greek 
cities in their alliance, Neapolis, 1 Velia, and Tarentum, they obtained a few tri- 
remes and penteconters ; but they had not a single quinquereme, the class of 
ships which may be called the line-of-battle-ships of that period. Their attempt 
to cross to Sicily was therefore easily baffled, and some of their triremes, 8 with 

4 Zonaras, VIII. 8. Dion Cassius, Fragm. 7 Polyoma, I. 20. 
Vaticali. LVIII. 8 Dion Cassius, Fragm. Vatic. LIX. Zonaras, 

6 Polybius, I. 11. VIII. 8. 

6 Zonaras, VIII. 8. Dion Cassius, Fragm. Va- 
tican. LVIII. - ■ \ 



126 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

the soldiers whom they "were transporting, fell into the hands of the Cartha- 
ginians. 

Hanno, the Carthaginian governor of Messana, sent back the ships and the 
ciaudiu 3 agaiu crosses prisoners to the Romans, calling upon them not to break the peace 
die^cSha'-iniun^gov- Wli ^ 1 Carthage, nor to venture again on the hopeless attempt of 
emor to a c on /ereD? e . cross i n g th e strait in defiance of his naval superiority. 9 C. Clau- 
dius rejected his overtures, and repeated his determination to deliver Messana. 
Hanno exclaimed, that since they were so arrogant, he would not suffer the Ro- 
mans to meddle with the sea so much as to wash their hands in it. Yet his vigi- 
lance did not justify this language, for Claudius with a few men effected his jJJ 
sage, apparently in a single ship, and finding the Mamertines- assembled at^ro 
harbor to receive him, he again proceeded to address them, professed his wish 
to leave their choice of protectors to their own free decision, and urged that 
Hanno should be invited to come down from the citadel, that the Roman and 
Carthaginian commanders might each plead the claim of his own country to be 
received as the ally and defender of Messana. 

With this proposal Hanno 10 was induced to comply, as overscrupulous, it 
seems, to remove every ground of suspicion ao-ainst the p'ood faith 

The governor is trea- „ r . , / -^ 1 ,• 1 • • i i • • 

cherousiy seized, and ot Carthage as Claudius was unscrupulous in serving the ambition 
to purchase tis^'free- of Rome. When the Carthaginian governor appeared, the discus- 
sion began ; neither party would yield, and at last Claudius or- 
dered his soldiers to seize Hanno and detain him as a prisoner. The Mamertines 
applauded the act, and Hanno, to procure his liberty, engaged to withdraw his 
garrison from the citadel, and to leave Messana in the hands of the Romans. 
The Carthaginian council of elders," always severe in its judgments upon mili- 
tary commanders, ordered Hanno forth to be crucified ; and dis- 
thfjoTrft forcTofcw patched another officer of the same name with a fleet and army 
to Sicily. Hiero, provoked by the treachery of the Romans, con- 
cluded an alliance with Carthage against them, and the two allied powers jointly 
blockaded Messana. Hiero lay encamped on the south side of the town, Hanno 
stationed himself on the north, and his fleet lay close by, at the headland of Pe- 
lorus, where the strait is narrowest, to prevent the Romans from reinforcing their 
garrison. 

Things were in this state 12 when Appius Claudius, with his consular army ar- 
Arrius Claudius crosses rived at Rhegium. After some fruitless attempts at negotiation, 
iSur'a^y^nddefeata h e prepared to force his passage. We want here a consistent 
thesyracusaus. account of the details ; but negligence there must have been on 

the part of the Carthaginians, 13 to allow an army of twenty thousand men to be 
embarked, conveyed over the strait, and landed on the coast of Sicily, without 
loss or serious interruption. The landing was effected at night, and on the south 
of Messana, near the camp of the Syracusans. Appius immediately led his sol- 
diers to attadk Hiero, who, confounded at the appearance of the Romans, and 
believing that the Carthaginians must have betrayed the passage, still marched 
out to meet the enemy. The Syracusan cavalry supported its old renown, and 
obtained some advantage, but the infantry were never much esteemed, and on 
this occasion they were, probably, inferior in numbers. Hiero was defeated and 
driven to his camp, and the very next night, suspecting his allies, and perceiving 

8 Zonaras, VIII. 9. Dion Cassius, Fragni. aa<j>a\hrnra. It is not easy to ascertain the _ex- 
Vatio. LIX. act meaning of Zonaras 1 Greek, but 1 believe 

10 ZonarOS, VIII. 9. Dion Cassius, FragQl. that ■ khtu npdtpaatv i/iiropitis dues not mean "un- 

Vatic. I.X. der pretence of trafficking," but when "they 

" Zonaras, VIII. 9. Polybius, I. 11. Dio- had an occasion of trafficking." Compare in 

dorus, Fragm. Hoescbe 1 . XXIII. 2. Thucydides, VII. 13, ^n-' airojioXfus -pouWo-tt. 

•* PolybniH, 1. 11. Diodorus, Fragm. Hoe- [t would seem then that the Carthaginian sail- 

sclicl. XXII I, 2.4. Zonaras, VIII. 9. ore were trafficking in tie port of Messana when 

13 Zonaras Bays of Appius, J>{ clpc ovx>'ov( they ought to have been at sea. watching the 

aiirdv noWuxii xura vp<S(f>'iow Ip-ropi.ii iWi/mi- movements of the Komai 



n, 



Chap. XL.] SECOND CAMPAIGN IN SICILY. 427 

that he had ventured on an ill-advised contest, he raised the siege and retreated to 
Syracuse. 

Thus delivered from one enemy, Appius next attacked the Carthaginians. 14 
Their position was strong, and he was repulsed ; but this success 

o' i ■ ' j^ e defeats the Cartha- 

tempted them to meet him on equal ground, and they were then gmians, raises the S ie S e 

1 /» . 1 • ii tl g- ill i* ij_i of Messana, and pursues 

defeated with loss. Messana was now completely relieved ; the Hie™ under the waiis 
Carthaginian army retreated, and was divided into detachments to 
garrison the towns of the Carthaginian part of the island. Appius overran the 
open country in every direction, and the soldiers, no doubt, congratulated them- 
selves on their decision in the comitia at Rome, which, in so short a time, had 
enriched them with the plunder of Sicily. But an attempt to take Egesta was 
repulsed with considerable slaughter, and when Appius advanced even to the 
very walls of Syracuse, and pretended to besiege the city, he found that he could 
not always be successful ; his men suffered from the summer and autumn fevers 
of the marsh plain of the Anapus, and he retreated to Messana, with the Syra- 
cusan army pressing upon his rear. The Syracusans, however, long accustomed 
to regard the Carthaginians as their worst enemies, were unwilling to support the 
evils of war in their cause ; the Syracusan advanced posts held frequent commu- 
nications with the Romans, and although Hiero could not yet consent to make 
peace with the protectors of the Mamertines, yet the manifest disposition of his 
subjects was not to be resisted, and the Romans reached Messana in safety. 
Appius left a garrison there, and returned with the rest of his army to Rome ; 
the strait was now clear of the enemy's ships, for in ancient warfare a fleet was 
dependent upon land co-operation, 15 and could not act without great difficulty 
upon a coast which was wholly in the possession of an enemy. 

When Appius returned to Rome, he found that the war with Volsinii was at 
an end, for his colleague, M. Fulvius Flaccus, triumphed for his 
victories over the Volsinians on the first of November. 16 The sicii". HiTro M makea 
whole force of Rome was therefore now at liberty, and as the Car- aTu. d*49i. aTc! 
thaginians seem to have despaired of defending the straits of Mes- 
sana, two consular armies, 17 amounting to about 35,000 men, crossed over into 
Sicily in the spring of 491. All opposition was overborne, and Hiero, after hav- 
ing lost sixty-seven towns, 18 was glad to obtain peace on condition of restoring 
all the Roman prisoners without ransom, of paying a large sum of money, and of 
becoming the ally of the Roman people. He had the wisdom to maintain this 
alliance unbroken to the hour of his death, having found that the friendship of 
Rome would secure him from all other enemies, whereas the allies of Carthage 
were exposed to suffer from her tyranny, but could not depend on her protec- 
tion. Hiero retained nearly the same extent of territory which h^.d belonged to 
Syracuse in old times, before the tyranny of the first Dionysius ; but all the rest 
of his dominion was ceded to the Romans. 

Having now only one enemy to deal with, 19 and having the whole power of 
Syracuse transferred from the Carthaginian scale to their own, the Roman gen- 
erals went on prosperously. Many towns were taken from the Carthaginians, and 



14 Zonaras, VIII. 9. Polybius, I. 12. Dio- land forces solely, after they had effected their 
dorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. 4. landing in safety. 

15 The failure of Pompey's fleet in either pre- 16 Fasti Capitolini. 
venting Caesar from crossing the Ionian sea " Polybius, I. 16. 

from Brundusium, or in effectually cutting off 1B Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. 5. The 
his communications with Italy afterwards, is terms of the peace with Hiero are variously re- 
one of the most striking instances of the defects ported. Diodorus says that he obtained a peace 
of the ancient naval service. But with respect lor fifteen years on giving up his Roman pris- 
to the invasion of Sicily from Italy, we must re- oners without ransom, and on paying 150,000 
member that not even the British naval force, drachmas ; Polybius makes the sum 100 talents, 
while every point in Sicily was in our posses- and says nothing of any term when the peace 
sion, could prevent the French from throwing was to expire ; Zonaras names no specific sum, 
across a division of about 3000 men, in Septem- and Orosius and Eutropius set it at 200 talents. 
ber, 1810, whose defeat was effected by our K Polybius, I. 17-20. 



428 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

ThM «nd fourth cam. in the following year, 492, Agrigentum 20 was reduced after a long 
ISi. S T^jJ.irS an( i obstinate siege, and all the inhabitants sold for slaves. The 
ru!c! 4 b 92-3. H A!c: consuls of the year 493 were no less successful, but the Cartha- 
262,261. ginians had at last begun to exert their naval power effectually; 

many towns on the Sicilian coasts 01 which had yielded to the Roman armies were 
recovered by the Carthaginian fleets ; the coasts of Italy were often ravaged, so 
that the Romans found it necessary to encounter their enemy on his own element : 
they resolved to dispute with the Carthaginians their dominion of the sea. 

Immediately at the close of the year 493, they began to fell their timber. But 

no Italian shipwright knew how to build the line-of-battle shipapf 
toei? ships, Tnd^traia that period, called quinqueremes, and their build was so different 

from that of the triremes, that the one would not serve as a model 
for the other. Shipwrights might have been procured from the king of Egypt, 
but to send thither would have caused too great a delay. It happened that a 
Carthaginian quinquereme 22 had run ashore on the Bruttian coast when Appius 
Claudius was first crossing over to Sicily, and it was noted as a curious circum- 
stance that the Roman soldiers had taken a ship of war. This quinquereme, 
which had probably been sent to Rome as a trophy, was now made the ship- 
wright's model, and a hundred ships were built after her pattern, and launched 
in two months after the first felling of the timber. 23 The seamen, partly Roman 
proletarians, or citizens of the poorest class, partly Etruscans, or Greeks from the 
maritime states of Italy, were all unaccustomed to row in quinqueremes, and the 
Romans had, perhaps, never handled an oar of any sort. While the ships were 
building, therefore, to lose no time, the future crew of each quinquereme 24 were 
arranged upon benches ashore, in the same order, that to us undiscoverable 
problem, in which they were hereafter to sit on board ; the keleustes, whose 
voice or call regulated the stroke in the ancient galleys, stood in the midst of 
them, and at his signal they went through their movements, and learned to keep 
time together, as if they had been actually afloat. With such ships and such 
crews the Romans put to sea early in the spring, to seek an engagement with 
the fleet of the first naval power in the world. 

An English reader is tempted here either to suspect extreme exaggeration in 

the accounts of the Roman inexperience in naval matters, or to 

entertain great contempt for the fleets and sailors of the ancient 
world altogether. There are no braver men than the Austrians, but there would 
be something ludicrous in the idea of an Austrian fleet, manned chiefly by peas- 
ants from the inland provinces of the empire, and commanded by officers of the 
land *?rvice, venturing a general action with an English or American squadron. 
But me accounts of these events are trustworthy ; and had the Romans encoun- 
tered the Athenian navy in the days of its greatness instead of the Carthaginian, 
the result, in the first years of the war at least, would probably have been dif- 
ferent. However, there is no doubt that the naval service of the ancient nations 
was out of all proportion inferior to their land service ; the seamen were alto- 
gether an inferior class, and the many improvements which had been made in 
the military art on shore seemed never to have reached naval warfare. Ships 
worked with oars were still exclusively used as ships of war; and although the 
use of engines, well deserving the name of artillery, was familiar in sieves," yet it 
had never been adopted in sea-fights, 25 and the old method of attempting to sink 

20 Polybius, I. 18, 19. Orosius, IV. 7. Zo- locked up in the ice, and the French cavalry 

naraa. Vlll. 10. took- them without any resistance. 

■' Polybius, I. 20. » Pliny, Histor. Natur. X\'I. § 198. Floras, 

B PolybiuB, 1. 20. AuotordeViris lllustrib. II. 2. 

in A.ppio (,'hiinl. Caudic. " qninqueremem hoa- M Polybius, I. 21. 

timn copiis pedestribas cepit." Bointbeinva- * Vegetans, writing in the fourth century 

sion of Holland in 1795, the French triumphed after the Christian era, speaks of the use <>i'ar- 

greathj in the capture of Borne Dutch Bhips of tillery in Bea-fights us a thing of conim m prao* 

war by a party ot their cavalry : the ships were tice ; but 1 do not recollect any mention ol it as 

early as the l'unic wars. 



ancient 



Chap. XL.] INGENUITY OF THE ROMANS. 420 

or disable an enemy's vessel by piercing her just below the water with tbe brazen 
beak affixed~to~eyery ship's bows, was still universally practised. The system of 
fighting, therefore, necessarily brought the ships close to one another; and 11 the 
fighting men on one side were clearly superior to those on the other, boarding, 
if it could be effected, would insure victory. The fighting men in the ancient 
ships, as is well known, were quite distinct from their rowers or seamen, and their 
proportion to these varied, as boarding was more or less preferred to manoeuv- 
ring. In the Ionian revolt, about 500 b. c, we find forty soldiers 26 employed on 
each of the China ships out of a crew of 200 ; the Corinthians and CorcyrEeans, 
about seventy years afterwards, had nearly as many, 27 but the Athenians, in the 
mosi flourishing state of their navy, had commonly no more than ten. In the 
quinqueremes now used, we find the Romans employing on one occasion dOO 
seamen and 120 soldiers ; this, however, was perhaps something above their usual 
proportion ; but there can be no doubt that the soldiers on board of each ship 
were numerous, and if -they could board the enemy their victory over what Nie- 
buhr justly calls the mere rabble of an African crew was perfectly certain. 

The object of the Romans was therefore to enable their men, in every case, to 
decide the battle by boarding. For this purpose they contrived Machine inveil ted by 
in each ship what may be called a long drawbridge, thirty-six feet S^HSSdu^ 
long, by four wide, with a low parapet on each side of it. This my - 
bridge was attached by a hole at one end of it to a mast twenty-four feet high, 
erected on the ship's prow, and the hole was large and oblong, so that the bridge 
not only played freely all around the mast, but could be drawn up so as to lie 
close and almost parallel to it, the end of it being hoisted by a rope passing 
through a block at the mast-head, just as our cutters' booms are hoisted by what 
is called the topping lift. The bridge was attached to the mast at the height of 
about twelve feet from the deck, and it had a continuation of itself reaching down 
to the deck, moving, I suppose, on hinges, 28 and serving as a ladder by which it 
might be ascended. Playing freely round the mast, and steered by the rope 
above-mentioned, the bridge "was let fall upon an enemy's ship, on whatever 
quarter she approached ; and as a ship's beak was commonly her only weapon, 
an enemy ventured without fear close to her broadside or her stem, as if she 
were there ' defenceless. When the bridge fell, a strong iron spike, fixed at the 
bottom of it, was driven home by the mere weight of the fall into the deck of the 
enemy's ship, and held it fast ; and then the soldiers, in two files, rushed along 
it by an inclined plane down upon the deck of the enemy, their large shields and 

26 Herodotus, VI. 15. fixed on the enemy's ship I can only suppose, 

27 Thucydides, I. 49. He says that the ships then, that what Polyhius nils "the first twelve 
had many heavy-armed soldiers on hoard, and feet of the ladder" served a» apermanent ascent 
many archers and dartmen, after the ancient from the deck to the end of the bridge, where 
fashion. That the number of fighting men on it went round the mast, and that it was so far 
board the Athenian ships in the most flourish- distinct from the bridge, that it remained in its 
ing state of their navy was no more than ten, own place when the bridge was lowered, al- 
appears from a comparison of several passages though, when the bridge was hoisted up to lie 
in Thucydides, II. 92, 102. III. 95, and IV. 76, close to the mast, both it and the bridge seemed 
101. to be a continuation of each other. 

28 This is the difficult part of Polybius' de- Folard's engraving and description of this 
scription, I. 22, which he by no means makes machine are altogether erroneous : but he men- 
very intelligible. " The ladder, or bridge, was tions a story which well illustrates the object 
put round the mast after the first twelve feet of of attaching' the bridge to the mast at a height 
its own length :" the object being apparently to of twelve feet above the deck. " The Maltese 
attach it to the mast at such a height above the seamen," he says, " have been known to mount 
deck, as to make it form an inclined plane down on the main-yard preparatory to boarding, and 
to the deck of the enemy. But unless the lower when the ship runs on board of the enemy, one 
end of the ladder had been fixed to the deck, yard-arm is lowered, and the men are thus 
the men could not have ascended by it ; and dropped one after another on the enemy's 
had it been all one piece with the upper part, deck." I will not answer for the truth of the 
the moment the bridge was lowered to fall on story, but it evidently contains the same notion 
the enemy's deck, the lower part must imme- of boarding by an inclined plane, which appears 
diately have gone up into the air. And, of to have suggested to the Eomans the arrange- 
course, it is absurd to suppose that the men ment of their bridge. 

could have gone upon the bridge before it was 



430 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XT. 

the parapet of the bridge together completely sheltering their flanks from the 
enemy's missiles, while the two file leaders held their shields in front of them, 
and so covered the bridge lengthways. So with these bridges drawn up to their 
masts, and exhibiting a strange appearance, as the regular masts were always 
lowered previously to going into action, the Roman fleet put to sea in quest of 
their enemy. 

It was commanded by one of the consuls, Cn. Cornelius Scipio, 29 but as he 
allowed himself to be taken with seventeen ships, in an ill-advised 
the Rom»n n«?. m s"a- attempt on the Liparsean islands, his colleague, C. Duilius, the de- 
scendant probably of that upright and moderate tribune who took 
so great a part in the overthrow of the decemvirs' tyranny, was sent for from his 
army to conduct the fleet. He found the Carthaginian fleet under the command 
of Hannibal, the same officer .who had defended Agrigentum in the late siege, 
ravaging the coast of Mylse, the modern Melazzo, on the north coast of Sicily, 
not far from the strait of Messana. The Carthaginians advanced in the full con- 
fidence of victory, and though surprised at the masts and tackle on the prows of 
the Roman ships, they yet commenced the action boldly. But the thirty ships 
which formed their advanced squadron, including that of Hannibal himself, were 
immediately grappled by the Roman bridges, boarded and taken. Hannibal es- 
caped in his boat to his main battle, which was rapidly advancing ; but the dis- 
aster of their first division startled them, and when they found, that even if they 
approached the Roman ships on their broadside or on their stern, still these 
formidable bridges were wheeled round and lowered upon them, they were seized 
with a panic and fled. Their whole loss, including that of the advanced squad- 
ron, 30 amounted to about fifty ships sunk or taken, and in men to three thousand 
killed and seven thousand prisoners. 

The direct consequence of this victory was the raising of the siege of Egesta, 31 
Results of the battle, which the Carthaginians had well-nigh reduced to extremity, and 
Du1iius. nore The°Duiiian the taking of Macella by assault. But its moral results were far 
™ lumn - greater, inasmuch as the Romans were now confident of success 

by sea as well as on shore, and formed designs of wresting from the Carthagin- 
ians all their island possessions, Sardinia and Corsica no less than Sicily. Duilius, 
as was to be expected, obtained a triumph, and he was allowed 3 ' 2 for" the rest of 
his life to be escorted home with torches borne before him, and music playing 
whenever he went out to supper, an honor which he enjoyed for many years after- 
wards. A pillar also was set up in the Forum to commemorate his victory, with an 
inscription recording the amount of the spoil which he had taken ; and an ancient 
copy of this inscription, 33 retaining the old forms of the words, is still preserved, 
though in part illegible. 

The events of the three next years may be passed over briefly. Towns were 
ind«is,ve war m siciiy. taken and retaken in Sicily, much plunder was gained, enormous 
coZl anf s! i rdini£ havoc made, and many brave actions 34 performed, but with no 
conspiracy at Rome. " decisive result. Hamilcar, one of the Carthaginian generals, de- 

™ Polybius, I. 21. M Polybius, I. 23. temple had been begun by him, and was only 

31 Polybius, I. 24. completed by his successor. 

M Cicero, de Senectute, 13. It appears that 34 Such as that noble actof a military tribune 

this continuation of his triumph during his in the army of the consul A. Atilius Calatimis, 

whole life was bis own act, and that it was in the year 4'J6, who sacrificed himself an. 1 a 

thoughl right and proper, as he had done such cohort of 400 men to cover the retreat of the 

good service; " qusesibi nullo exemplo privatus army out of a dangerous defile m which they 

sumpserat: tantura licentiffi dabat gloria." This had'been surprised by the enemyi ffato com- 

no doubt if more correct than those other state- plained of the injustice of fortune which had 

ments which represent it as an honor specially given so scanty a share of fame to this tribune, 

conferred upon him by the Benate or people. while Leonidas for an act of no greater heroism 

33 A temple of Janus, built by C. Duilius at had acquired such undying glory, uj tact, the 

this time, was restored in the early part of the tribune's very name is uncertain, for we find 

ror Tiberius. (Tacitus, An- the action asoribedto three different persona 

nal. II. 490 u 1S possible that thecolumn and Sec A. GelliuB, III. T, who (motes at Length the 

its inscription may have been restored in the passage of the Origines in wniohCato describee 

reign of Augustus; for the restoration of the the action. 



Chap. XL.] ROMAN EXPEDITION TO AFRICA. 431 

stroyed the town of Eryx and removed its inhabitants to Drepanum, a place on 
the sea-side close beneath the mountain where they had lived before, and pro- 
vided with an excellent harbor. 35 It was not far from Lilybseum, and these two 
posts both being strongly fortified were intended to be the strongholds of the 
Carthaginian power in Sicily. On the other hand, the Romans invaded Sardinia 
and Corsica 36 and carried off great numbers of prisoners. But as they extended 
their naval operations they unavoidably became acquainted with the violence of 
the Mediterranean storms ; and the terrors of the sea were very dreadful to the 
inland people of Italy, who were forced to furnish seamen to man the Roman 
fleets, a service utterly foreign to the habits of their lives. Thus in the year 495 31 
some Samnites, who were waiting in Rome till the fleet should be ready for sea, 
entered into a conspiracy with some slaves who had been lately carried off as cap- 
tives from Sardinia and Corsica, to make themselves masters of the city. The 
seamen, however, of the ancient world were always chosen from the poorest 
classes of freemen, and their making common cause with the slaves showed at 
once that their attempt had nothing of the character of a national revolt. In 
fact, their own Samnite commander informed the Roman government of their 
conspiracy, which was thus prevented and punished. The higher classes in the 
allied states, who served as soldiers, liked the war probably as much as the Ro- 
mans did ; and with one doubtful exception, 38 we read of no symptoms of disaf- 
fection to Rome during the whole coui-se of the war. 

Besides their expeditions to Sardinia and Corsica, and their naval co-operation 
with the consular armies engaged in Sicily, the Romans gained an Nayal action off the 
advantage over the Carthaginian fleet in the year 497, off the Li- "p*™-"^* 
parsean islands, 39 for which the Consul C. Atilius obtained, like Duilius, a naval 
triumph. 

This sttccess, although in itself very indecisive, yet encouraged the Romans 
to attempt operations on a far grander scale, and to carry the war Great ftrmameil t f th» 
into Africa. Great efforts were made during the winter, and a Romims - 
a fleet of 330 ships was prepared, 40 manned by nearly 300,000 seamen, exclu- 
sive of soldiers or fighting men. This vast number could scarcely 

O m O w t t ** A U. C 498. A*C> 256- 

have been furnished either by Rome itself or its Italian allies; but They prepare t» invade 
the thousands of captives carried off from Corsica and Sardinia, 
or from the cities of Sicily, no doubt were largely employed as galley-slaves ; 
and if they worked in chains, as is most probable, the free rowers who were in 
the ships with them would be a sufficient guard to deter them from mutiny. The 
two consuls for the ensuing year were L. Manlius Vulso and Q. Csedicius ; but 
Q. Csedir.ius died soon after he came into office, and was succeeded M. Atilius 
Regulus. The two consular armies had apparently wintered in Sicily ; for the 
fleet sailed through the strait of Messana, doubled Cape Pachynus, 41 and took 
the legions on board at Ecnomus, a small place on the southern coast, between 

85 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. Zona- in gratitude for his escape from destruction, 

ras, VII. 11. This is noticed in his epitaph, " Dedit tempesta- 

S6 Zonaras, VIII. 11. Polybius, I. 24. The tibus sede merito," and also by Ovid in his 

Fasti Capitolini record L. Scipio's triumph over Fasti. 

the Sardinians and Corsicans in the year 494, 3B Polybius says that in 495 or 496, the allies 

that is, according to the common reckoning, quarrelled with the Eomans in Sicily, complain- 

495 ; and they record also a triumph of C. Sul- ing that their services in the field were not suf- 

picius over the Sardinians in the year follow- ficiently acknowledged, and that they conse- 

ing. The Lucius Scipio who triumphed over quently encamped apart from the Eomans, and 

the Corsicans was the son of L. Scipio who was were attacked in their separate position by the 

defeated by the Gauls in the third Samnite war. Carthaginian general, and cut to pieces, I. 24. 

His epitaph has been preserved, as well as his But it does not appear that these were the Ital- 

father's, and it tells of him, how "he won Cor- ian allies of Kome, and it is possible that they 

sica and the city of Aleria." Aleria is the Ala- may have been the Mamertines. 

lia of Herodotus, an old Greek colony founded si Polybius, I. 25. Fasti Capitolini. Zonaras, 

by the Phocaeans when they fled from the gen- VIII. 12. 

erals of Cyrus. *° Polybius, I. 25. Each Roman ship had on 

37 Zonaras, VIII. 11. Scipio on his return from board 300 rowers and 120 fighting men. 

Corsica in 495 had encountered a violent storm, 41 Polybius, I. 25. 
and built a temple to the powers of the weather 



432 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

Gela and Agrigentum. Forty thousand men were here embarked, and the Car- 
thaginians, who had assembled a still larger fleet of three hundred and fifty ships, 
had already crossed over to Lilybseum, and from thence, advancing eastward 
along the Sicilian coast, were arrived at Heraclea Minoa, and w r ere ready to give 
the Romans battle. Both consuls were on board the Roman fleet ; the Cartha- 
ginians were commanded by Hanno, who had been defeated at Agrigentum 
during the siege of that town, and by Hamilcar, who had so lately founded 
Drepanum. 

The Roman fleet at Ecnomus contained 140,000 men, while less than 20,000 
Battle of Ecnomus. Do- British seamen were engaged at Trafalgar. Yet it is not only in 
^ t fl e f et h off < the th S our generation, when Trafalgar and its consequences are fresh in 
coast of suiiy. our memory, that its fame will surpass a hundred-fold the fame 

of the battle of Ecnomus. For the twenty-seven ships which Nelson com- 
manded at Trafalgar, by crushing the naval force of France, changed the destiny 
of all Europe; whilst the three hundred and thirty ships which fought at Ecno- 
mus produced only a brief result, which within five years was no more perceiva- 
ble. A fleet that could be built in a few months was no irreparable loss if 
destroyed ; and the poor slaves who worked at the oar might be replaced by the 
plunder of the next campaign. The battle of Ecnomus was obstinately contested, 
but at last the Romans were completely victorious. They lost twenty-four 
ships, 42 in which not more than 2S80 soldiers could have perished, if we suppose, 
what rarely happened, that not a man was picked up by the other ships ; but 
they destroyed thirty of the enemy's fleet, and took sixty-four with all their 
crews. The Carthaginians with the rest of their ships made all speed to reach 
Carthage, that they might be still in time to defend their country against the ex- 
pected invasion. 

The way to Africa was now open, and the consuls, 43 after having victualled their 
The consuls cross over ships w T ith more than their usual supplies, as they knew not what 
£af arfd'b°egiD Py to C iny P ort would next receive them, prepared to leave the coast of Sicily 
waste the country. an{ j to cross the open sea to an unknown world. The soldiers 
and even one of the military tribunes murmured ; 44 they had been kept from 
home during one whole winter, and now they were to be carried to a strange 
country, into the very stronghold of their enemy's power, to a land of scorching 
heat, and infested with noisome beasts and monstrous serpents, 45 such as all stories 
of Africa had told them of. Regulus, it is said, threatened the tribune with 
death, and forced the men on board. The fleet did not keep together, and thirty 
ships reached the African shore unsupported, 46 and might have been destroyed 
before the arrival of the rest, had not the Carthaginians in their confusion neg- 
lected their opportunity. .When the whole fleet was reassembled under the 
headland of Hermes, Cape Bon, they stood to the southward along the coast, 
and disembarked the legions near the place called Aspis or Clypea, 47 in English, 
shield — a fortress built by Agathocles about fifty years before, and deriving its 
name from its walls forming a circle upon the top of a conical hill. They imme- 
diately drew their ships up on the beach, after the ancient manner, and secured 
them with a ditch and rampart ; and having taken Clypea, and dispatched mcs- 

n Polybius, T. 27, 28. creatures besides." IV. 191. This description 

43 Polybius, 1. "'■'. is very remarkable, following, as it does, a de- 

44 Floras, 11. -J. tailcd'and most exact account not only of all the 
v - "Libya to the west of the lake Tritonis," African tribes on the coast from Egypt to the 

that is, the present pashalik of Tunis, the an- lesser Synis, but also of those in the interior, 

cient territory of Carthage, "is very hilly," But the Carthaginian territory was rendered so 

mis, "and overgrown with woods, inaccessible to foreigners, that all soris ofexag- 

and full of wild beasts. For here are tht man- gerations and fables were circulated respecting 

straw strventa, and the lions, and the elephants, it. Herodotus seema to have known nothing 

and the bears, and 1 with of ite fortuity, but only of its woods and its wild 

horns, and the dog-heads, an. I the .•natures beasts, the terrors of which the Carthaginians 

with no heads, whose eyes are in their breasts, no doubt purposely magnified. 

atleastasthe Libyans Vav, and the Wild men ll5 Diodorus, I , -cam XXIII. 3. 

and the wild women, and a great many other 41 Polybius,!. 89. Strabo, XVII. p. 834. 



Chap. XL.] DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 433 

sengers to Rome with the news of their success, and to ask for further instruc- 
tions, they began to march into the country ; and the ravages of forty thousand 
men were spread far and wide over that district which, for its richness and flour- 
ishing condition, was unmatched probably in the world. 

From Cape Bon, the Hermean headland, the African coast runs nearly north 
and south for as much as three degrees of latitude as far as the „ . - • 

. mi ■ i i-ii • , Description of the coivn- 

bottom of the lesser Syrtis. This was the most highly prized try south of Carthage. 

. •*. 1 .. fni • 1 i • ^ O ne consul returns 

country of the Carthaginian dominion, filled with their towns, and home. Reguius is left 
covered with the villas of their wealthier citizens. In their old 
commercial treaties 43 with Rome no Roman vessel was allowed to approach this 
coast ; they wished to keep it hidden from every foreigner, that its surpassing 
richness might not tempt the spoiler. Here grew those figs which Cato the 
censor showed in the Roman senate, to prove how the fruits of Italy were out- 
done by those of Africa ; and here grew those enormous harvests of corn which 
in later times 49 constantly fed the people of Rome. But now the aspect of the 
country resembled the approach to Genoa, or the neighborhood of Geneva, or 
even the most ornamented parts of the valley of the Thames above London. 
Everywhere were to be seen single houses 50 standing in the midst of vineyards, 
and olive-grounds, and pastures ; for as in Judea in its golden days, every drop 
of rain was carefully preserved in tanks or cisterns on the high grounds, and a 
plentiful irrigation spread life and freshness on every side, even under the burn- 
ing sun of Africa. On such a land the hungry soldiers of the Roman army were 
now let loose without restraint. Villas were ransacked and burnt, cattle and 
horses were driven off in vast numbers, and twenty thousand persons, many of 
them doubtless of the highest condition, and bred up in all the enjoyments of 
domestic peace and affluence, were carried away as slaves. This havoc, continued 
for several weeks, till the messengers sent from Rome returned with the senate's 
orders. One of the consuls, 51 with one consular army and forty ships, was to 
remain in Africa ; the other was to return home with the second consular army, 
the fleet, and the plunder. L. Manlius accordingly embarked, and arrived safely 
at Rome with his division of the army, and with the spoil. M. Reguius, with 
15,000 foot and 500 horse, was left in Africa. 

The defenceless state of the country, and the apparent helplessness of the Car- 
thaginian government, seem to have encouraged the Roman sen- „ ,. „ „. 

Oo m ' , o -He defeats the Cartna- 

ate to hope that a single consular army might at any rate be able gimaus, and fixes his 

t tit 1 ■<■ ■ 1 i head-quarters at Tunes. 

to maintain its ground and harass the enemy, even 11 it could not 
force them .; submission. And the example of Agathocles, who, during four 
years, had set ihe power of Carthage at defiance, no doubt increased their con- 
fidence. The incapacity of the Carthaginian government and generals was enough 
indeed to embolden the Romans. Their army, strong in cavalry and elephants, 
kept on the hills 52 where neither could act, and were attacked and defeated, and 
their camp taken by the Romans. Reguius then overran the whole country 
without opposition ; the Romans 63 boasted that he took and plundered more than 
three hundred walled villages or towns, but none of these deserved the name of 
a fortified place ; and even Tunes 54 itself, within twenty miles of 'Carthage, fell 
into their hands with little resistance. Here Reguius established his head- 
quarters, and here he seems to have remained through the winter. 55 

48 See Polybius, III. 22, 23. times, but still the soil is described as extreme- 

49 Horace's expressions are well known, ly fertile. Sir G. Temple counted ninety-seven 
"Frumenti quantum metit Africa," "quiequid shoots or stalks on a single plant of barley, 
de Libycis verritur areis," &c. See also Taci- which was by no means one of the largest in 
tus, Annal. XII. 43. the field ; he was assured that plants were often 

60 See the description of this country as it seen with three hundred. Excursions in the 

appeared to the soldiers of Agathocles. Pnodo- Mediterranean, Vol. II. p. 108. 
rus, XX. 8. The irrigation is especially no- 61 Polybius, I. 29. 62 Polybius, I. 30. 

ticed, iroWGv vbdriav &Ui>XET£.Vjihu>v Kal irdvra rdnov 63 Florus, II. 2. 
Ap&EvdvTwv. It is the neglect of this which has so 54 Polybius, I. 30. 
reduced the productiveness of Africa in modern 55 Zonaras, VIII. 13. 
28 



434 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

Meanwhile, to increase the distress of the Carthaginians, the Numidians, 55 or 
a. u.c.498 499. a. c. the roving tribes of the interior, then as now always ready to attack 
hi' wis t^edTiS' aQ d plunder the civilized settlers of the sea-coast, joined the Ro- 
Distree. of Carthage. ma ns, and, like the Cossacks, being most expert in such desultory 
and plundering warfare, they outdid the Romans in their devastations. From 
all quarters fugitives from the country crowded into Carthage, and it was feared 
that the city was unable to feed so great a multitude as were now confined with- 
in its walls. Alarm and distress prevailed, and the council of elders sent three 
of its own members to the Roman consul to sue for peace. 

Regulus, like Fabricius and Curius, was in his own country a poor man ; it is 
Reguius imposes intoi- a well-known story 57 that he complained of the loss which his small 
cartha-muns on who portion of land must sustain from his absence, and that the senate 
come toeue for peace, promised to maintain his wife and children till his return. Such 
a man's head could not but be turned by his present position, when the plunder 
of Africa had given him the power of acquiring riches beyond all his concep- 
tions, and when the noblest citizens of the wealthiest state in the world came as 
suppliants to his head-quarters. He treated them with the insolence shown by 
some of the French generals during the revolution to the ambassadors of the 
old sovereigns of Europe. Carthage 58 must evacuate Sicily and Sardinia, ransom 
all her own prisoners, and give up without ransom all those whom she had taken 
from the Romans ; must make good all the expenses of the war, and pay a yearly 
contribution besides ; above all, she must follow wherever the Romans should 
lead, and make neither alliance nor war without their consent ; she must not send 
to sea more than a single ship of war on her own account, but if the Romans 
required her aid she must send them a fleet of fifty ships. The Carthaginian 
ambassadors protested against terms so extravagant. " Men who are good for 
any thing," replied Regulus, " should either conquer or submit to their betters." 59 
And with threatening and insolent expressions to the ambassadors personally, he 
ordered them to begone with all speed from the Roman camp. 

The council of the elders called together the great council on this emergency ; 60 

and the whole body of the aristocracy of Carthage with one voice 

rejected conditions so intolerable. But great was the danger, and 
great the general alarm. The gods were to be propitiated by no common sac- 
rifices, and those horrid offerings to Moloch, which had been made when Agatho- 
cles was threatening Carthage with ruin, were now again repeated. The figure 
of the god stood with outstretched arms to receive his victims ; young children 
of the noblest families were placed in the hands of the image, and from thence 
rolled off into a furnace which burnt before him. Nor were there wanting 
those who with something of a better spirit threw themselves into the fire, will- 
ing to pay with their own lives the atonement for their country. 

In the midst of this distress, an officer returned 61 who had been sent to Greece 

to engage Greek soldiers of fortune in the Carthaginian service. 
iwidiorf^arrives" at Among others he brought with him a Spartan named Xanthippus, 
tha operations of The a man who had been trained in his country's discipline, and had 

added to. it much of actual military experience. He might have 

60 Polvbius, I. 31. Diodorus, Fragm. Vat- of the human sacrifices offered in such emergen- 

ican. XXIII. 4. cies, see Diodorus, XX. 14. 

. « Auctor de Viris Illustrib. in Eegul. Valer. 61 Polybius, I. 32. Some years afterwards, 

Maxim. IV. 4, § 6. when Ptolcmv Euergetes overran the whole 

68 Dion Caseins, Fragm. Urein. rXTAMII. kingdom of Seleucus Callinicus, he committed 
Regulus was so elated by his successes, that lie his conquests beyond the Euphrates to the cave 
■wrote home to the senate to say that " he had of l A'n/i/ij>j'i/.i, oncofhistwogcnerals-in-chief." 
sealed up the gates of Carthage by the terror of Jerome, in Daniel, XI. 9. Could this Xantippus 
his arms." Zonaras, VI i I. 18. ' or Xanthippus be the conqueror of Regulus, 

69 Diodorus. Fragm. Vatican. XXIII. 4. whose glory in Africa recommended him to the 
60 Polybius, I. 31. Diodorus. Fragm. Vati- notice of the king of Egypt after his return 

can, XXllI. 4. And for a particular description from Carthage, so that he Became a general hi 

the Egyptian armies ? 



Chap. XL.] TOTAL DEFEAT OF THE ROMANS. 435 

fought with Acrotatus against Pyrrhus in that gallant defence of Sparta ; and in 
all likelihood he had followed king Areus 6 ' 2 to Athens to save the city from the do- 
minion of Antigonus, when Sparta and Athens fought for the last time side by side 
in defence of the independence of Greece. Xanthippus 63 condemned the conduct 
of the Carthaginian generals in the strongest terms ; his reputation gave weight 
to his words ; the government sent for him, and he so justified his opinion and 
explained so clearly the causes of their defeats, that they intrusted him with the 
direction of their forces. Hope was already rekindled ; but when he reviewed 
the soldiers without the walls, and made them go through the movements which 
were best fitted to meet the peculiar tactic of the Romans, loud shouts burst 
from the ranks, and there was a universal cry to be led out to battle. The 
generals of the commonwealth did not hesitate to comply, and although they had 
no more than 12,000 foot, yet relying on their cavalry, four thousand in number, 
and on their elephants, amounting to no fewer than a hundred, they boldly 
marched out, and no longer keeping the high grounds, encamped in the open 
plain, and thus checked at once the devastation of the country. 

Regulus was obliged to risk a battle, 64 for as soon as he ceased to be master of 
the field, his men would be destitute of provisions. He encamped He prepares to give bat- 
within little more than a mile, of the enemy, and the sight of the Ue t0 the Romans - 
Roman legions, so long victorious, made the resolution of the Carthaginian gen- 
erals waver. But the soldiers were clamorous for battle, and Xanthippus urged 
the generals not to lose the precious opportunity. They yielded, and requested 
him to form the army on his own plan. Accordingly, he placed his cavalry on 
the flanks, together with some of the light-armed mercenaries, slingers perhaps 
from the Balearian islands, and archers from Crete. The heavy-armed merce- 
naries, we know not of what nation, whether Gauls, or Spaniards, or Greeks, or 
a mixed band of all, were on the right in the line of battle ; the Africans, with 
some Carthaginian citizens, were on the left and centre ; the whole line being 
covered by the elephants, which formed a single rank at some distance in advance. 
The Romans were in their usual order, their cavalry on the wings, and their 
velites or light-armed troops in advance of the heavy-armed soldiers ; but their 
line was formed of a greater depth than usual, to resist the elephants' charge. 

When the signal was given, the Carthaginian cavalry and elephants imme- 
diately advanced, and the Romans, clashing their pila against the 
iron rims of their shields and cheering loudly, rushed on to meet tw t0 R%l\wVt£ 
them. The left wing, passing by the right of the line of elephants, k6n prl80ner- 
attacked the Carthaginian mercenaries and routed them ; Xanthippus rode up to 
rally them, 65 threw himself from his horse, and fought amongst them as a com- 
mon soldier; Meantime his cavalry had swept the Roman and Italian horse from 
the field, and then charged the legions on the rear ; while the elephants, driving 
the velites before them into the intervals of the maniples, broke into the Roman 
main battle, and with irresistible weight and strength and fury trampled under 
foot and beat down and dispersed the bravest. If any forced their way forwards 
through the elephants' line, they were received by the Carthaginian infantry, 
who, being fresh and in unbroken order, presently cut them to pieces. Two 
thousand men of the left of the Roman army escaped after they had driven the 
mercenaries to their camp, and found that all was lost behind them. Regulus 
himself, with 500 more, fled also from the rout, but was pursued, overtaken, and 
made prisoner. The rest of the Roman army was destroyed to a man on the 
field of battle. 

The few fugitives from the left wing made their escape to Clypea ; Tunes, it seems, 
was lost immediately, and, except Clypea, the Romans did not re- 
tain a foot of ground in Africa. We have no Carthaginian histo- RejolcmgsatCart °*' 

62 See Justin, XXVI. 2. Pausanias, III. 6, 64 Polybius, I. 33. 
§ 8. « Diodorus, Fragm. Vatic. XXIII. 5. 

68 Polybius, I. 32. ' e 



436 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

rian to describe the triumphant return of the victorious army to Carthage ; how 
the Roman prisoners and Regulus, lately so insolent, were led through the streets 
bound and half naked ; how the bands of noble citizens met at their public tables, 
sworn companions and brethren to each other in peace and war, and remembered 
with joyful tears their comrades who had fallen ; how the whole city was full of 
festivity, 66 and every temple was crowded by wives and mothers offering their 
thanksgivings for this great deliverance. The feasting, after the Carthaginian 
manner, continued deep into the night ; but other sounds and other fires than 
those of revelry and rejoicing were to be seen and heard amid the darkness ; the 
fires of Moloch again were blazing, and some of the bravest of the prisoners were 
burnt alive as a thank-offering. 

Xanthippus, crowned with glory, 61 and no doubt richly rewarded, returned to 
Greece soon after his victory, before admiration and gratitude had 

A. U C- 499. A. C. * ^ 

255. The' Romans send time to be changed to envy. Clypea was besieged, but the Ro- 
reimiins o£ r ttfir°army man garrisonheld out desperately, and the senate no sooner learned 
the disaster of their army, than they sent a fleet to bring off the 
survivors. The Carthaginians, dreading a second invasion, raised a fleet to meet 
the enemy at sea, but the number of their ships was greatly inferior, and they 
were completely defeated. The Romans, however, had no intention of landing 
again in Africa ; so total a destruction of their whole army impressed them with 
a dread of the. enemy's elephants,- which they could not for a long time shake 
off: they contented themselves with taking on board the garrison of Clypea, and 
sailed back to Sicily. 

The Romans had now for five years sent fleets to sea, and had as yet had lit- 
tle experience of its terrors. This increased their natural confi- 
its retum off the south deuce, and they thought that Romans 68 might sad at any season, 
and that it was only cowardice which was restrained by pretended 
signs of bad weather. So, in the month of July, in spite of the warnings of their 
pilots, they persisted in coasting homewards along the southern coasts of Sicily, 
at the very time when violent gales from the south and southwest make that coast 
especially perilous. The fleet was off Camarina when the storm came on, and 
taught the Romans that fair-weather seamen may mistake ignorant presumption for 
courage. Above 260 ships were wrecked, which must have had on board 78,000 
seamen, without counting the soldiers, who were probably at least as many as 
25.000, and the whole coast from Camarina to Pachynus was covered with wrecks 
and bodies. The men 69 who escaped to shore were most kindly relieved by 
Hiero, who fed and clothed them, and conveyed them to Messana. 

This great disaster encouraged the Carthaginians to redouble their efforts in 

Sicily. Carthalo, an able and active officer,' 10 immediately recov- 

gentum recovered by ered Agrigentum, and Hasdrubalwas sent over with 140 elephants, 

!r,L p'anor- to take the chief command of all the Carthaginian forces in the 

island. But the Romans, with indomitable spirit, fitted out a new 

fleet of 220 ships in the space of three months ; and the consuls of the following 

* Polybius, I. 36. For the description of the were consuls when they were sent out to bring 

Carthaginian human sacrifices after a victory, off the garrison of Clypea, and we can hardly 

see Diodorus, >!\. 65. extend the operations of Regains in Africa to a 

61 Polybius, I. 86. Niebuhr supposes that period. of a year and a half. 

ated towards the end of the ca Polybius, 1. :'.?. 

consular year 499, so that the sea-fight oil' (ly- ca Pio'dorus, Fragiu. lloesehel. XXIII. 14. 

pea took place earlj in the consulship of Cn. The language of these fragments must surely 

Cornelius and A. Atil'ms, that is, in the consular be very modern, for in this passage the writer 

year 500. He thinks thai Ber. Fulviua and M. says that along the whole coast, ™ oiZpaTu nut 

JSmilius were already proconsuls when they ru aXoya nal rd vavdyta ckuyto ' ra aXoya must 

obtained their victory, because it appears from here mean "the horses," which is the common 

the Fasti Capitolini that they were proconsuls meaning of the word in modern Greek, but no 

When they obtained their triumph. But it is writer of the Augustan age would have so used 

more probable that they were DOth employed it. 

as proconsuls in Sicily for a whole year after "° Diodorus. Fragm. Hocschcl. XX1I1. 14. 

their consulship, and thus that their triumph Polybius, I. 88. 
was delayed. Zonaras says expressly that they 



Chap. XL.] THE ROMAN FLEETS WRECKED. 437 

year, A. Atilius and Cn. Cornelius, crossing over to Messana, and A . Di c 493 A . C- 
there being joined by the remnant of the other fleet which had 261- 
escaped the storm, sailed along the northern coast of Sicily, took Cephaloedium, 
and although obliged by Carthalo to raise the siege of Drepanum, yet they be- 
sieged and took the important town of Panormus, obtained a sum of nearly 470 
talents from those of the inhabitants who could afford to pay the stipulated ran- 
som, and sold 13,000 of the poorer class as slaves. A garrison was left in Pa- 
normus, and several other smaller places revolted also to the Romans. 

For this service Cn. Cornelius justly obtained a triumph. 71 But we are sur- 
prised to find the same honor bestowed on one of his successors, 
C. Sempronius Blcesus. For Sempronius and his colleague, Cn. Another Roman fleet is 
Servilius Caepio, 72 having carried their fleet over to the coast of n^^andthe^oastof 
Africa, made some descents and plundered the country near the tay ' 
sea, but were able to effect nothing of importance ; and after having been obliged 
to throw all their plunder overboard to enable their ships to float over the shal- 
lows of the Lesser Syrtis, they were finally, when sailing across from Panormus 
to the Lucanian coast, overtaken by another storm, which wrecked more than 
150 of their ships. Upon this the Romans resolved to attempt the sea no more, 
and to keep only a fleet of sixty ships, to supply their armies with provisions, and 
to protect the coasts of Italy. 

The two following years were full of discouragement to the Romans. Their 
armies remained in Sicily, but did little to advance the conquest A . u. c . 502 A c 
of the island; because the terror of the elephants was so great i 52 c. 251. The 0, 5 
that their generals were afraid to risk a general action. Such a *T" L ™„ s *l oa J< 
state of things is very injurious to the discipline of an army, and pUl 
we find that the service was so unpopular that 400 of the Roman horsemen, 73 
all of them men of birth and fortune, refused to obey the consul, C. Aurelius 
Cotta, when he ordered them to work at some fortifications, and were by him 
reported to the censors, who degraded them all from their rank, and deprived 
them of their franchise of voting. And on other occasions Cotta ordered two of 
his officers to be scourged publicly by his lictors for misconduct ; 14 one of them a 
kinsman of his own, and the other a military tribune, and a patrician of the noble 
name and house of the Valerii. Yet with the aid of some ships which he pro- 
cured from Hiero, he attacked and reduced the island of Lipara, the largest of 
the Liparseans ; 15 and for this and the capture of Therma, which had risen up 
on the site of the ancient Himera, he obtained after all a triumph. 

In the spring of the third year, when C. Atilius Regulus and L. Manlius Vulso 
were chosen each for the second time consuls, the Romans resolved A u. c . 604 . A c 
somewhat to extend their naval operations, and to build fifty new 25 °- 
ships. 16 But before the consuls left Rome, the tidings came of a most complete 
victory in Sicily, and of the total destruction of the dreaded Carthaginian ele- 
phants. Resuming then all their former confidence, the Romans increased their 
fleet to two hundred ships, 77 and sent out both consuls with two consular armies 
to form at once the siege of Lilybceum, the strongest and almost the only place 
still held by the Carthaginians in Sicily. 

This most brilliant and seasonable victory had been won by L. Caecilius Metel- 
lus, who had been consul in the preceding year ; and when his Battle of Panc , mu8 . 
colleague, C. Furius, had gone home at the end of the campaign, b 5 y e L/M t Siu3 tai o n ver 
Metellus 78 was left in Sicily with his own army as proconsul. It ^^\i e $£ t ?£; 
appears that Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian general, was taunted for 



e in 
bad state of disci- 



taken. 



71 Fasti Capitolini. 75 Dioclorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. 15. 

72 Polybius, I. 39. Zonaras, VIII. 14. Oro- Zonaras, VIII. 14. Polybius, I. 39. 
sins, IV. 9. 70 Polybius, I. 39. 

73 Valerius Maximus, II. 9, § 7. Frontinus, 77 Polybius, I. 41. 

Strategem. IV. 1, § 22. 78 Zonaras, VIII. 14. Polyb. I. 40. 

74 Frontinus, Strategem. IV. 1, § 30, 31. Val. 

Max. II. 7, § 4. . 



438 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

his inactivity ; 19 and relying, besides, too much on the terror of his elephants, 
he crossed the mountains from Selinus, and descended into the plain of Panor- 
mus. Metellus kept close within the walls of the town, till Hasdrubal, not con- 
tent with having laid waste the open country, advanced towards Panormus, and 
drew out his army in order of battle, as if in defiance. Then the proconsul 80 
keeping his regular infantry within one of the gates on the left of the enemy, so 
that by a timely sally he could attack them in flank,, scattered his light troops in 
great numbers over the ground immediately in front of them, with orders, if 
hard pressed, to leap down into the ditch for refuge. Meantime all the idle 
hands in the town were employed in throwing down fresh supplies of missile 
weapons at the foot of the wall within the ditch, that the light troops might not 
exhaust their weapons. The elephants charged, drove the enemy before them, 
and advanced to the edge of the counterscarp, or outer side of the ditch. Here 
they were overwhelmed with missiles of all sizes ; some fell into the ditch, and 
were there dispatched by thrusts of pikes ; the rest turned about, and, becoming 
ungovernable, broke into the ranks of their own army, which was advancing 
behind them, and threw it into great confusion. Philinus, 81 who favored the 
Carthaginians, said that the Gauls in their army had indulged so freely in the 
wines which foreign traders sent to Sicily to tempt the soldiers to traffic with 
their plunder, as to be incapable of doing their duty. But there was no need of 
drunkenness to increase the disorder, when more than a hundred elephants, 
driven to fury by their wounds, were running wild amidst the Carthaginian ranks. 
Then Metellus sallied, attacked the enemy in flank, and completely defeated them. 
Ten elephants were taken with their drivers still mounted on them ; 82 the rest had 
thrown off their drivers, and the Romans knew not how to take them alive, till 
Metellus made proclamation that any prisoner who should secure an elephant 
should be set at liberty. This induced the drivers to exert themselves, and in 
the end all the elephants were secured, and conveyed safely to Rome, 83 to be ex- 
hibited in the conqueror's triumph. And the device of an elephant, which is 
frequent on the coins of the Ceecilian family, shows the lasting sense entertained 
by the Metelli in after-times of the glory of their ancestor's victory. 

The battle of Panormus was fought about midsummer, and Metellus returned 
to Rome with his army and his trophies, and triumphed on the 
qiTen?L[iors n of lietei- seventh of September. 84 The captured elephants were exhibited 
in the circus maximus, 85 and hunted up and down it by men armed 
only with pointless spears, to teach the people not to be afraid of them ; after 
w'nic i they were shot at with real weapons and destroyed. Metellus must have 
lived for nearly fifty years after his triumph, 86 full of honors and glory. He was 
a second time chosen consul, he was appointed once master of the horse, and 
once dictator, and he was also created pontifex maximus, in which last office he 
acquired a new glory, by rescuing the sacred palladium from the temple of Vesta 
when it was on fire, at the risk of his life, and to the actual loss of his sight. For 
this act of piety he was allowed ever after to be drawn to the senate in a chariot, 
an extraordinary honor, as the chariot was accounted one of the marks of kingly 
state, and therefore not to be used by the citizen of a commonwealth. 

Thirteen noble Carthaginians 87 had been taken' at Panormus, and had been led 

10 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIII. 15. Strategem. I. 7, § 1. Pliny, Hist. Natur. VIII. 

m PolybiuB, 1.40. §16. 

B1 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoesohel. XXIII. 15. M Fasti Capitolini. 

M Polybius, I. 40. Zonaras, VIII. 14. M Pliny, llistor. Natur. VIII. § 17. 

83 They were carried across the straits on 80 He lived to the age of a hundred years 

rafts composed of a number of casks lashed to- (Pliny, Histor. Natur. VII. § 157), and we ran 

gether, with a sort of flooring fastened together scarcely suppose him to have been much more 

upon them. The flooring or deck was fenced than fifty when he obtained his first consulship, 

in with high bulwarks, and covered over with For his other honors Bee Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII. 

earth, so that the elephants were not aware §13'.). He was appointed dictator jnst after the 

of their situation, and were conveyed over tho Gaulish invasion of 529. See Fasti Capitolini. 

sea quietly. Zonaras, VIII. 14. Frontuius, m Livv, Epitom. XIX. Zonaras, \ 111. 15. 

Orosius, IV. 10. 



Chap. XL.] SIEGE OF LILYBJEUM. 439 

in the triumphal procession of the conqueror. The Carthaginians, 

. , . , r x ,, i,i c xi • -x- x Embassy from Car- 

wishing to recover these and others 01 their citizens, sent an em- thage to propose an em- 
bassy to Rome to propose an exchange of prisoners, and M. Regu- Reguius accompanies 

, « ,. , x x 1 1 1 1 1 • . it. His magnanimous 

ius was allowed to accompany the ambassadors, upon his promise counsel. Remm to 
given to return, with them to Carthage if the negotiation failed. " asean 
Pyrrhus had given a similar permission to his Roman prisoners, with the hope, 
no doubt, that in order to avoid returning to captivity, they would use their influ- 
ence to procure the acceptance of his terms. But Reguius, thinking that the 
proposed exchange would be to the advantage of the Carthaginians, nobly dis- 
suaded the senate from consenting to it ; he himself would be ill-exchanged, he 
said, for a Carthaginian general in full health and strength, for the Carthaginians, 
he believed, had given him a secret poison, 88 and he felt that he could not live 
long. The exchange was refused ; Reguius returned to Carthage, and soon 
after died. His springs of life had been poisoned, not by the deliberate crime of 
the Carthaginians, but by mortification, shame, a pining after his country, and 
the common miseries of a prisoner's condition, at a period when the courtesies 
of war were unknown. Afterwards the story prevailed, that the Carthaginians, 
in their disappointment, had put him to a death of lingering torment ; whilst the 
Carthaginians told a similar story of the cruel treatment of two noble Carthaginian 
prisoners 89 by the wife and sons of Reguius, into whose hands they had been 
given as hostages, and Reguius' natural death was made, according to the story, 
the pretext for wreaking their cruelty upon the unfortunate Carthaginians in their 
power. We may hope that these stories are both untrue ; but even if the Car- 
thaginians had exercised towards Reguius the full severity of the ancient laws of 
Avar, it ill became the Romans to complain of it, when their habitual treatment, 
even of generous and magnanimous enemies, was such as we have seen it exem- 
plified in the execution of the Samnite, C. Pontius. 

Never had the prospects of the Romans been fairer than when, in the autumn of 
the fifteenth year of the war, the consuls, C. Atilius and L. Man- The Romans form the 
lius, began the siege of Lilybseum. This place and Drepanum were "egeofLUybaum. 
the only two points in Sicily still retained by the Carthaginians ; and here they 
concentrated all their efforts, destroying even Selinus, 90 their earliest conquest 
from the Greeks, and removing to Lilybasum its inhabitants and its garrison. But 
from this time forward to the very end of the war the victories of the Romans 
ceased, and during a period of eight successive years the Fasti record not a single 
triumph, a blank not to be paralleled in any other part of the Roman annals. 
Lilybeeum and Drepanum remained unconquered to the last, after the former had 
sustained a siege which for its length and the efforts made both by besiegers and 
besieged is not to be surpassed in history. 

The general difficulty of ascertaining precisely the position of the ancient towns 
and harbors is felt particularly when we attempt to fix the topog- SituatLon of Lu y b ffi um 
raphy of Lilybseum. It seems that the ancient city, covering S^PSotathSto 
more ground than the modern town of Marsala, must have occu- to" 168 "^- 
pied the extreme point of Sicily, now called Cape Boeo ; and to have had two 
sea fronts, one looking n. w. and the other s. w., while on the land side the 
wall ran across the point from sea to sea, facing eastwards, and forming the base 
of a triangle, of which the two sea fronts meeting at the point of Cape Boeo formed 
the sides. Polybius speaks of the harbors of Lilybseum, as if there were more 
than one ; and as the ancient harbors were almost always basins closed by arti- 
ficial moles, it is probable that there would be one at each sea front of the town. 
But the principal harbor looked towards Africa, on the s. w. side of Lilybseum, 
and its entrance was very narrow, because at a little distance 91 from the shore 

88 A. Gellius, VI. 4. Zonaras, VIII. 15. 91 See Captain Smyth's Hydro-graphical Ee- 

89 Diodorus, Fragm. de Virtut. et Vitiis, marks on the coast of Sicily, p. xxvi., and_ his 
XXIV. A. Gellius, II. 4. plan of the anchorages and shoals in the neigh- 

60 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. borhood of Trapani, in his Sicilian Atlas. 



440 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

there extends a line of shoals nearly rising in some places to the water's edge, 
and running parallel to the coast, and the passages through these shoals, or round 
their extremity, were exceedingly narrow and intricate. The land side was for- 
tified by a wall with towers at intervals, 92 and covered by a ditch ninety feet wide 
and sixty deep. The garrison consisted at first of ten thousand regular soldiers 
besides the inhabitants, and the governor Himilcon was an able and active officer, 
equal to the need. The Romans employed in the siege two consular armies, and 
the seamen of a fleet of two hundred ships of war, and a great multitude of small 
craft ; so that as the seamen worked regularly at the trenches, the besieging 
force may well have amounted to 110,000 men. 93 

The Romans attacked the land front of the town in form : 94 they carried mounds 

across the ditch, and battered the towers in succession ; whilst a 
mansT'stopup'theen- formidable artillery covered their operations, and played upon the 

( j e ^ en( j erg Q £ ^ e wa j] g _ Q n |.| ie gea g jj e t key endeavored to block 

up the harbor by sinking stone ships in the channels through the shoals, but a 
violent storm 95 raised such a sea that every thing was swept away, and the har- 
bor still remained open. 

But material fortifications, however strong, must yield at last to a persevering 

enemy. The real strength of Lilybaeum lay in the courage and 

tempts of the earth*- ability which the long war had at last enkindled among the Car- 

ginian naval officers to , .•' . », ° -, i, J • J 

throw succors into the tbaginian officers ; so that now all was energy and wisdom, in 
complete contrast to the weakness and timidity of former gen- 
erals. Himilcon was defending Lilybaeum with the utmost ability and vigor ; 
Adherbal, a man no less brave and able, had the command at Drepanum, and 
had with him a worthy associate in Carthalo ; while Hannibal, one of his inti- 
mate friends, was sent from Carthage to carry succors to Himilcon. And here, 
for the first time, the Carthaginians displayed the combined skill and coolness of 
true seamen. Hannibal sailed from Carthage 96 with fifty ships, and lay waiting 
his time at the small iEgusan islands which lie to the north of Lilybseum. At 
length the wind blew fresh from the north, setting full into the harbor's mouth ; 
Hannibal placed his soldiers on the decks ready for battle, hoisted every sail, and 
knowing the channels well, he ran down before the wind to the entrance between 
the shoals, dashed through the narrow passage, whilst the Romans in astonrsh- 
ment and awkwardness did not put out a single ship to stop him, and amidst the 
cheers and shouts of the whole garrison and people of L ; lyba3um, who had 
crowded to the walls to watch the event, he landed ten thousand men in safety 
within the harbor. Other officers of single ships passed several times backwards 
and forwards with equal success, 91 acquainting the Carthaginian government with 

82 Diodorus, Fragrn. Iloescli. XXIV. 1. Po- would be glad to know the exact spot at which 

lybius, I. 42. these stones were weighed up ; nut Captain 

93 The amount given by Diodorus, XXIV. 1. Smyth does not mention it. See his Survey of 

•* Diodorus, Fragm. Iloeschel. XXIV. 1. Sicily, p. 234. 
Polyliius, I. 42. % Polybius, I. 44. It is not easy to ascertain 

v ' s Diodorus, Fragm. Iloeschel. XXIV. 1, whether Hannibal ran into the harbor on the 

copying, probably, from Philinus. Polybius n. w. front of Lilybteum, or into that on the 

ascribes the failure of the work to the depth of s. w. front. Probably it was the latter, so that 

the sea and the force of the current in the nar- he passed between Cape Boeo and the shoals 

row channels. F>ut for more than a mile off the which lie a little off the land, and so ran on in 

land the water is shallow, nowhere exceeding a direction parallel to the line of the coast till he 

four fathoms, and it is inconceivable that in came to the actual entrance between the moles 

fair weather such a depth of water could have in the harbor. 

been a serious impediment to a people like the " 7 Polybius, I. 46, 47. There is a passage in 

Romans, when they had at their command the this description which, if we could discoverthe 

labor of a hundred thousand men. According line of the ancient walls ofLilybeeum, might 

to Captain Smyth, some of the stones thrown in determine the position of the harbor. The way 

by the Romans in this Biegc have been weighed to enter the harbor, says Polybius, was •• to ap- 

by an English wine merchant residing near proach it from the' side towards [tall . and to 

Marsala, and have, been used by him to build a bring the tower on the sea-shore in a line with 

very respectable mole opposite to his own es- all the towers of the wall looking towards Af- 

tabushment, nearly at what must have beenthe rica, so as to cover them all." 1. 47. The 

Southeast corner of the ancient town. One "tower on the sea-shore" must mean the tower 



Chap. XL.] SUFFERINGS OF THE ROMANS. 441 

every particular of the siege, and confounding the Komans by their absolute 
command, as it seemed, of the winds and waves. 

But the courage of the Roman soldiers was as firm as ever. Immediately 
after Hannibal's arrival, Himilcon made a general sally 98 to destroy 
the works of the besiegers, but the Komans maintained their ground They bum the Roman 
and he was repulsed with loss. The land wall of the town was 
carried," but Himilcon, meanwhile, had raised a second wall within, parallel to 
the first ; so that when the first was taken the Romans had to begin all their 
approaches over again ; and a second attempt 100 to burn the works, being favored 
by a strong wind, was completely successful. All the Roman engines, their 
covered galleries, and towers, were burnt to ashes, and the consuls, in despair, 
turned the siege into a blockade. 

During the winter the sufferings of the Romans were very great. Thousands 
of men had perished in the course of the siege, 101 and the loss of „ . „ t . _ 

* . 1 . a , -. Sufferings of the Ro- 

seamen had been so great, as they, it seems, were chiefly employed mans during the win- 
in the works, that the fleet was useless for want of hands to work 
it. Besides, the troops were ill-supplied with corn, and were obliged to subsist 
chiefly on meat ; 10 ' 2 a change of diet most unwelcome and hurtful to the Ro- 
mans, who were accustomed then as now to live almost wholly on their polenta 
and on vegetables. Fevers broke out amongst them, and were very fatal ; but 
Hiero again came to their assistance, and supplied them with corn. But no prog- 
ress was made with the siege, when the following summer brought the new con- 
sul, P. Claudius, to Sicily to take the command. 

P. Claudius was the son of Appius Claudius, the famous censor, and he inher- 
ited, even in over measure, the pride and overbearing temper of u c ^ A c 
his family. He loudly reproached the former consuls for their inac- p." cimuiuis' takes the 

. . lri :> i i • • i i t • t r l command al Lilvba-um 

tivitv , and complaining that the discipline or the army was arone Hesaiuto attack Ad- 

J .' , • i i P -j.' n 11- herbal at Dreiianum. 

to ruin, he exercised the greatest seventies on all under his com- His obstinacy and pro- 
mand, whether Romans or Italians. He renewed with equal ill-suc- 
cess the attempt to block up the entrance to the harbor, and being impatient to dis- 
tinguish himself, he no sooner received a reinforcement of 10,000 seamen from 
Rome than he i*esolved to put to sea and attack Adherbal, who was lying with the 
Carthaginian fleet in the harbor of Drepanum. It seems that his own officers 104 
foreboded the failure of his attempt, but none could hope to move a Claudius from 
his purpose. The consul's pride disdained alike the warnings of gods and men ; 
as he was going to sail it was reported to him that the omens were unfavorable, 
for the sacred chickens refused to eat. " Then they shall drink," was Claudius' 
answer, and he ordered them immediately to be thrown into the sea. 

Adherbal did not expect the attack ; 105 but so great was his promptitude, that on 
the first sight of the enemy he manned all his ships with his sea- Battlo ot Drepan uni. 
men and soldiers, and keeping close under the land, stood out of ba? a oTe i ? to tL of Roman 
the harbor while the enemy were actually entering it. Claudius, fleet imder p - Claudius - 
confounded at this, ordered his ships to put about and stand out to sea again. 
Some ran foul of each other in doing this, but at last he got clear of the harbor 

nearest to the extreme point of Cape Boeo, but 102 Kpein^opovvri:; \16vov els rfiv vSaov eirnrrov. 

whether the line of towers looking towards Af- Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. We 

rica followed the line of the coast, so that to may compare the distress of Caesar's soldiers on 

bring them into a line with the " tower on the the coast of Epirus, when, although they had 

sea side," a vessel must advance in a course meat in plenty, yet they wanted corn, and no- 

nearly s. e., or whether they ran due eastward thing could make up to them for the loss of 

from Cape Boeo, in the direction of the modern their bread. Caesar, Bell. Civil. III. 40. 

Marsala, and therefore did not follow the line of 103 Diodorus, Fragm. de Virtut. et Vitiis, 

the coast, can hardly be ascertained without a fur- XXIV. Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. Polybius, 

ther and more careful examination of the ground. I. 49. 

98 Polybius, I. 45. • 104 Cicero de Nat. Deor. II. 3. Valer. Maxim. 

33 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. I. 4, § 3. 

100 Polybius, I. 48. loi Polybius, I. 49-51. Orosius, IV. 10. Dio- 

101 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. dorus, F'ragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. 
Polybius, I. 49. 



442 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

and formed his fleet under the land, with the ships' heads turned to the sea. 
Adherbal, "who had brought his own fleet safely into the open sea, now formed 
his line of battle and attacked the Romans. We hear no more of Duilius' bridges 
for boarding ; whether the Carthaginians had discovered some means of baffling 
them, or whether the practised soldiers now on board the Carthaginian ships 
rendered such a contrivance no longer formidable. Adherbal's victory was com- 
plete ; Claudius escaped with only thirty ships, and the rest, amounting to ninety- 
three, were taken ; with a loss in men, although some escaped to land, of not 
fewer than 8000 killed and 20,000 prisoners. The conquerors did not lose a 
single ship, and the number of their killed and wounded was very inconsiderable. 
They followed up their victory with vigor. 106 Thirty ships sailed to Panormus, 

and carried off from thence the Roman magazines of corn, which 
low u" thfiT a S ucces3 were sent to supply the garrison of LilybaBum. Carthalo arrived 

with seventy ships from Carthage, and being reinforced by Adher- 
bal, attacked the remains of the Roman fleet which had been drawn up on shore 
at Lilybaeum under the protection of the army, carried off five ships and destroyed 
others. Meanwhile the other consul, L. Junius Pullus, had sailed from Rome with 
a large fleet of ships laden with corn and other supplies for the army at Lily- 
baeurn, which he convoyed with a hundred and twenty ships of war. Being 
himself detained at Syracuse to wait for some of the ships of his convoy, and to 
collect corn from some of the districts in the interior of the island, he intrusted 
about four hundred of the corn-ships with some of his ships of war to his quaes- 
tors, and sent them on to Lilybceum, where the want of corn was severely felt. 
Carthalo was lying at Heraclea, near Agrigentum, looking out for the Roman 
fleet ; and when he heard of their approach he put out to sea to intercept them. 
The quaestors being in no condition to fight, fled to the small bay of Phintias, 
not far from Ecnomus, the scene of the great naval battle seven years before, 
and there mooring their ships at the bottom of the bay, and mounting the artil- 
lery of the town on the cliffs on each side of them, they waited for the enemy's 
attack. Carthalo was disappointed to find them so well prepared, and as their re- 
sistance was obstinate, he only carried off a few of the corn-ships, and returned to 
Heraclea, watching for the time when they should venture to continue their voyage. 
He had not waited long when his look-out ships 107 announced that the rear- 
Two Rom™ fleets are division of the Roman fleet under the consul in person had doubled 
totally wrecked. Cape Pachynus, and was advancing along the southern coast of 

Sicilv. Wishing to meet these ships before they could join their other division 
in the bay of Phintias, he sailed in pursuit of them with all speed. The consul 
made for the shore near Camarina, dreading an open and rocky coast, and the 
danger of the southwest gales, less than an engagement with an enemy so supe- 
rior. Carthalo, not choosing to attack him in this situation, stationed his fleet 
off a headland between Phintias and Camarina, and there lay, watching the move- 
ments of both the Roman divisions. Meanwhile it began to blow hard from the 
south, and there were signs of a coming storm which were not lost on the expe- 
rienced Carthaginian pilots, who urged Carthalo to run in time for shelter. With 
great exertions he got around Cape Pachynus, and there lay safely in smooth 
water. But the storm burst with all its fury on the Romans, and overwhelmed 
both their fleets with such utter destruction, that all the corn-ships, amounting 
to nearly 800, and 105 ships of war, were dashed to pieces. With two ships of 
war only did the unfortunate consul arrive at Lilybasum. 

These accumulated disasters broke the resolution of the Romans. P. Claudius 

was recalled to Rome, los and required to name a dictator, that he 
una a a dic'utor »i4winu might himself be brought to trial for misconduct. He named one 

of his own clerks, M. Claudius Glicia, as if he delighted to express 

109 Diodorus, Fragm. Hoescliel. XXIV. 1. m Diodorus, Fragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 1. 
Polybius, 1. 62, 53. Polvbius. I. 53, 54. 

i* Livy, Epitom. XIX. Zonaras, VIII. 15. 



Chap. XL.] TRIAL OF P. CLAUDIUS. 443 

his scorn of his country when it no longer held him in honor. The senate obliged 
Glicia to resign his office immediately, and appointed by their own authority, as 
in ancient times, A. Atilius Calatinus. Atilius named L. Metellus his master of 
horse, and they both set out without delay to take the command in Sicily. 

P. Claudius was tried before the people for his profane contempt of the aus- 
pices : but, according to the most probable account, 109 the trial was 

* , „ , , <? 1 • -i • /- -it . A. TJ. C. 505, 506. A. 

broken off by a sudden storm, which if noticed by any one present c. 2-19, 24s. Trial of 

J • . t i • n vi vi j p - Claudius, 

obliged the comitia to separate. It was done, in all likelihood, on 
an understanding that the accused would by his own act satisfy the justice of the 
people ; and the Romans at this period shrank from shedding noble blood by the 
hands of the executioner. We only know that three years afterwards P. Clau- 
dius was no longer alive ; for his sister, being pressed by the crowd of spectators 
as she was going home from the circus, said aloud that she wished her brother 
could come to life, and command another fleet, that he might make the streets 
less crowded. For this speech she was impeached 1 ' by the aediles, and heavily 
fined : and this trial is recorded to have taken place three years after the defeat 
at Drepanum. 

• L. Junius 111 was not more fortunate than his colleague, although he had on 
shore endeavored to make up for his disasters at sea, and had BI1 d of his colleague, l. 
stormed and occupied the mountain and town of Eryx, immediately JtmiuB - 
above Drepanum. He too was tried for having put to sea in defiance of the 
auspices, and finding his condemnation certain he killed himself. 

It was about this period of the contest that Hamilcar Barca, 112 the father 
of the great Hannibal, was appointed to command the Cartha- a y c ^ a c 
ginian forces in Sicily. The Romans had resigned the sea to their *ii. 'HamiicaV Barca 

o "'••l-ii 1 • • .mi j.i_ is appointed to the com- 

enemy, but their superiority by land was at present irresistible ; the mand in sidiy. hu 

«■. i-i i i • i l iri'-i • 1 • j. system of warfare. 

terror of the elephants had vanished, and Sicily, m general, is not 
a country peculiarly suited to the action of cavalry. It was Hamilcar's object, 
which he pursued steadily to the end of his life, to form an infantry which should 
be a match for the Roman legions ; and this could only be done by avoiding for 
the present all pitched battles, and at the same time carrying on an incessant 
warfare of posts, in which his soldiers would be constantly trained, and learn to 
feel confidence in their general and in each other. This was the method by which 
alone Pompey could have resisted Caesar's veterans ; but Pompey, although he 
saw what was right, had not the firmness to persevere in it, and Pharsalia was 
the reward of his weakness. Hamilcar possessed patience equal td his ability, 
and his influence with the government enabled him to turn both to the best ad- 
vantage. 

During six years, therefore, Hamilcar made Sicily a training school for the 
Carthaginian soldiers, as he afterwards made Spain. He first oc- , TT _ „. rl , , 

it • p ii • -r-» ,1. A. U. C. 501 — 511. A. 

cupied the summit 01 a table-mountain near Panormus, 1 6 now „. 0.241-243. 

iii-nr T-»n • •• • vi 1 • ^ IS ' on ? 0ccu P atl0n °* 

called Monte Pellegnno, rising immediately above the sea, with the tawe-mountain near 

. ., ,.™ ° • 1 1 -.! 1 i p p -j Panormus, and of Eryx. 

precipitous chits on every side, and with a level surtace 01 consid- 
erable extent on the summit, and abundant springs of water. A steep descent 
led to a little cove where ships could be drawn upon the beach with safety ; 114 
and here he kept a light fleet always at hand, with which he made repeated 
plundering descents on the coasts of Italy, while by land he was continually 
breaking out and making inroads into the territory of the Roman allies, even as 
far as the eastern coast of the island. 115 Year after year the consuls were em- 

loa Valer. Maximus, VIII. 1, § 4. Eosolia's bones were said to have been found 

110 A. Gellius, X. 6. in 1624, and where a church has since been 

111 Polybius, I. 55. Cicero, de Natur. Deor. built in her honor. 

II. 8. "* Apparently the small bay of Mondello, be- 

112 Polybius, I. 56. Hamilcar seems to have tween Capo di Gallo and Monte Pellegrino. 
succeeded Carthalo. Zonaras, VIII. 16. " 6 A fragment of Diodorous speaks of Hamil- 

1M Polybius, I. 56. Monte Pellegrino is fa- car as making war in the neighborhood of Ca- 
mous in modern times for the cave in which Sta. tana. Pragm. Hoeschel. XXIV. 2. 



444 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL. 

ployed against him, but they never could gain any pretence for claiming a tri- 
umph. During the latter part of this remarkable warfare Hamilcar recovered, 
and fixed his head-quarters at the town of Eryx, 116 although the summit of the 
mountain above him was occupied by the Romans, and a Roman army lay also 
below him, nominally engaged in blockading Drepanum. It appears that the 
Romans still continued also to blockade or rather to be encamped before Lily- 
baeum ; but as the sea was perfectly open, their presence produced no effect on 
the garrison. 

We wish in vain to catch any glimpses of the internal state of Rome after 
twenty years of such destructive warfare. If the varyino- numbers 

Internal state of Rome. c . -. r oc1 P T . , .. , ■. , -^ ° . . 

Depreciation of the cop- ot the Mbb. oi Livy s 'epitomes can be trusted, the Roman citizens 
at the end of the war Avere fewer by one-sixth part than they had 
been ten years before: the census sank from 297,797 to 251, 222, U1 and the de- 
crease amongst the Latins and Italian allies must have been at least equal. We 
find also that the As towards the end of the war was reduced five-eighths of its 
original weight ; from having weighed twelve ounces it was brough^ down to 
two ; 118 and although it is certain that this reduction was gradual, inasmuch as 
Ases of several intermediate weights are still in existence, yet Pliny may be so 
far correct that the As, having weighed a full pound, or nearly so, down to the 
beginning of the first Punic war, was reduced to two ounces before the end of it. 
No rise in the value of copper could possibly have justified such a reduction, 
which could only have been one of the ordinary tricks of distressed governments ; 
it is clear also that the silver denarii coined a few }~ears before must have van- 
ished out of circulation, as otherwise, if the general payments of the government 
were made in silver, they would have gained nothing by the depreciation of the 
copper coinage. Besides, the constant employment of such immense armaments 
in Sicily must have drained Italy of its silver, as even the Sicilian states, and 
much more the foreign merchants, who always gathered in numbers where war 
was going on on a large scale, would have been unwilling to take the Roman cop- 
per money. And this great scarcity of money would perhaps explain the very 
low reported prices of provisions at Rome 119 on one or two occasions during the war, 
if those prices were indeed to be depended on ; for if the government did not 
want to make purchases of corn for its armies, a plentiful harvest would create a 
great glut of it in the market : the actual war, and the general jealousy of the 
ancient world on that point, making it alike impossible to dispose of it by expor- 
tation. 

Twenty years before, the Roman people, we are told, had voted for engaging 
Heavy taxation. Foim- i n the war with Carthage, while the senate sat hesitating; and the 
M&efaXgr^auS! plunder of Sicily, in the first campaigns, made them doubtless re- 
sigmuion ot i m „t s . j ice in their decision. At a later period, something was occasion- 
ally gained by the soldiers in the same way, but from the beginning of the siege 
of Lilybaeum it ceased altogether, and the warfare with Hamilcar was as un- 
profitable to the Roman armies as it was laborious and dangerous. Meanwhile 
the taxation must have been very heavy; for the building of such large fleets, 
though not to be measured by the cost of our ships of war, was still expen: ive, 
ami armaments of a hundred thousand men, including soldiers and seamen to- 
gether, such as were often sent out in the course of the war, must have greatly 

110 Polybhis, I. 58. Diodorus, Fragm. Hoe- understand the As before its depredation, or 

schel. XX' l\ . 2. rather that the reckoning was made according 

117 Livy, Epitoin. Will. XIX. to the old standard and not thelater and re- 

11S Pliny, ilir-t.Nnt. XXXIII. §44. duced one. It is very strange, however, that in 

•» Pliny, Hist. Natar. XVIII. § 17, quoting the very winter after this season of plenty, the 

from Varro, says that at the time of 1.. MTetelluB 1 Romans should have been in such great distress 

triumph, the modius or peck of corn sold for for com at Lilybseum. Bee p. 441. The low 

a single A>, and thai the congius of wine, and prices at the tune of Metellus' triumph were 

twelve pounds of meat, were Bold also al the not probably market prices, but merely the 

same jir'n'c Some accident must have occa- rate at which he made distributions of corn and 

sioned these prices, unless indeed we fcre to vine to the people iu honor of his Buccess. 



Chap. XL.] INTERNAL STATE OF ROME. 445 

drained the treasury. To all this was to be added, since the disasters of the 
Roman fleets, the ravage of the coast of Italy by the enemy ; for Hamilcar, from 
his stronghold near Panormus, more than once put to sea with his ships of war, 
and wasted not only the Bruttian and Lucanian coasts, but the shores of the gulf 
of Salernum, and even of the bay of Naples as far as Cumse. 120 On the other hand, 
private citizens were allowed to fit out the government ships of war on their own 
account, 121 and some plunder was thus taken, but very insufficient to make up for 
the losses of the war. Two or three colonies were planted, such as Alsium and Fre- 
genee on the Etruscan coast near the mouth of the Tiber, and Brundisium ; but 
these were more for public objects, the two in Etruria being founded probably 
as outposts to check the descents of the Carthaginian fleet, than for the relief 
of the poorer citizens. An accidental notice in Pliny 122 informs us that L. Me- 
tellus was in the course of his life appointed one of fifteen commissioners for 
granting out lands ; a larger number of commissioners than we find on any other 
occasion named for that purpose. It would be important to fix the date of this 
appointment, but this can only be done' by conjecture ; it could scarcely, however, 
have been as early as the great assignation of lands made after the fourth Samnite 
war, for that was twenty years before Metellus obtained his first consulship ; nor 
could it have been much later than the period of Hamilcar's warfare in Sicily, 
for in the beginning of the last year 123 of the war he was already pontifex maxi- 
mus, and in the year following he lost his sight in saving the palladium. The 
probability is, therefore, that an assignment of lands on the largest scale took 
place about the close of the war, either to the poorer citizens generally, or, as 
after the second Punic war, to the old soldiers who had undergone such hard 
and unprofitable service in Sicily. 

On the other side, Carthage maintained no large fleets since the Romans had 
laid aside theirs, purposely to avoid so great an expense. Hamil- Effeot3 of &e war on 
car's army could not have been very large, and the agriculture c * rtlia s e - 
and internal trade of Africa suffered little or nothing from the war. But the 
contest was tedious and wearing, and in Sicily it was almost wholly defensive, 
which in itself is apt to sicken a nation of continuing it ; nor were ordinary minds 
likely to enter into the views of Hamilcar, and await patiently the result of his 
system of creating an effective army. Besides, the unsoundness of the Cartha- 
ginian power in Africa was always felt in seasons of pressure ; and at this very 
time hostilities' -24 were going on against some of the African people, which, how- 
ever successful, were necessarily an expense and a distraction to the government. 
It seemed, therefore, that in spite of Hamilcar's ability, the possession of Lily- 
baeurn and Drepanum was held but by a thread, which a single unfortunate 
event might sever. 

The Roman government at last, in the twenty-fourth year of the war, roused* 
itself for one more decisive effort. But so exhausted was the A . u. c . 512. a. c. 
treasury, that a fleet could only be raised by a patriotic loan ; that 242 T " e to he 6 end m anofter 
is to say, one, two, or three wealthy persons, according to their fleettoeea - 
means, advanced money to build a quinquereme, which was to be repaid to them 
in better times. 125 In this way two hundred ships were constructed ; and the 
Romans had an excellent model in one of the best sailing of the Carthaginian 
ships, which had been taken some years before off Lilybseum. The consuls of 
the year were C. Lutatius Catulus and A. Postumius Albinus. Lutatius was 
the founder of the nobility of his house, and a man worthy to have been the an- 
cestor of that Q. Catulus whose pure virtue bore the hardest of trials, the triumph 
of his own party. Postumius belonged to a family scarcely second to the Clau- 
dii in overbearing pride ; and it was perhaps not without some suspicion of his 

120 Polybius, I. 56. ** Diodorus, Fragm. de Virtut. et Vitiis, 

121 Zonaras, VIII. 16. XXIV. Polybius, I. 73. 
123 VII. § 139. m Polybius, I. 59. 

123 Valerius Maximus, 1. 1, § 2. 



446 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL 

following the example of P. Claudius at Drepanum, that the pontifex maximus, 128 
Metellus, forbade him to take any foreign command, because, as he was flamen 
of Mars, his religious duties required his constant presence at Rome. The fleet 
therefore was intrusted to C. Lutatius. 

The anxiety for the success of this enterprise was naturally great. On such 
occasions omens and prophecies were never wanting ; and the con- 
sul himself longed to discover his future fate, and wished to con- 
sult the famous- lots kept in the temple of Fortune at Praeneste. 1 * 7 But the 
senate forbade him, resolving that the consul of the Roman people should go 
forth with no auspices but those vouchsafed to him by the gods of Rome. 

The fleet sailed at an unusual season ; for if Eutropius' date of the battle be 
correct, the ships must have left the Tiber as early as the month 
ri™ s u « a ith s the fleltTt of February. Lutatius, accordingly, found that the Carthaginian 
ships had all gone back to Carthage 128 for the winter, so that he 
occupied the harbor of Drepanum without opposition, and began vigorously to 
besiege the town. As Q. Valerius, the praetor, accompanied him to Sicily, it 
is probable that two consular armies were employed, and so large a force obliged 
Hamilcar to remain quiet in Eryx, and made it certain that Drepanum must fall, 
unless relieved by a fleet from Carthage. 

Lutatius, expecting to be attacked by sea, 129 was indefatigable in exercising his 
. seamen both in rowing and in manoeuvring, and he attended care- 
sent ove'E amm to fully to their food and manner of living, that they might be in 
the best possible condition. The Carthaginians, on their part, 
equipped a fleet with all haste, and appointed Hanno to command it, an officer 
who had acquired distinction by his services against the Africans. But they 
had lately so neglected their navy that their seamen and soldiers on board were 
alike, for the most part, without experience ; and the ships, besides, were heavily 
laden with provisions and other stores for the relief of Drepanum. 

Hanno first put in at the small island of Hiera, 130 which lies some miles out to 
catuina ia anxious to sea °ff tDe western point of Sicily. His hope was to dash over 
intercept them. unperceived to the coast of Drepanum, to land his stores, and to 

take Hamilcar and his veterans on board from Eryx ; which being effected, he 
would not fear to encounter the Romans. This Catulus was above all things 
anxious to hinder, and he resolved to bring on the action, if possible, before the 
enemy could communicate with Hamilcar. He had himself been badly wounded 
a little before in some skirmish with the garrison of Drepanum, and was unable 
to leave his bed ; but Q. Valerius, the praetor, was ready to take the command, 
and kept earnestly watching for the enemy. 

It was the morning of the 10th of March ; 131 the Roman fleet having taken on 



• 



board picked soldiers from the legions, had sailed on the preced- 
theyE ? «te 8 . t Greotvic- ing evening to the island of JEgusa, which lies between Hiera and 

the Sicilian coast, and had there spent the night. When day 
broke, the wind was blowing fresh from the west, and rolling a heavy sea in 
upon the land ; the Carthaginians took advantage of it, hoisted their sails, and 
ran down before the wind towards Drepanum. The Roman fleet, notwithstand- 
ing the heavy sea and the adverse wind, worked out to intercept them, and 
formed in line of battle with their heads to windward, cutting off the enemy's 
passage. Then the Carthaginians lowered their masts and sails, and prepared 
of necessity to fight. But their heavy ships and raw seamen and soldiers were 
too unequal to the contest, and the fortune of the day was soon decided. Fifty 
ships were sunk, and seventy taken ; the rest fled, and the wind, happily for 
them, shifting just in time, they again hoisted their sails, and escaped to Hiera. 

m Valerius Mnxim. I. 1, § 4. 23 ° Polybius, I. 60. Zonaras, VIII. 17. Valer. 

137 Cicero, de Divinat. II. 41. Maxim, ll. 8, § 2. 

m Polybius, I. 59. lsl Eutropius, II. Polybius, I. 60. 

129 Polybius, I. 59, 60. 



Chap. XL.] CONCLUSION. 447 

To continue the war was now impossible, and orders were sent to Hamilcar 
to negotiate for peace. 132 Lutatius, whose consulship was on the „,„•.. 

„ ..■*■ •,., -li- , -lii • ^ T" 6 Carthaginians sue 

point of expiring, readily received his overtures ; but he required for peace. Terms of 
that Hamilcar's army should give up their arms, and all the Ro- 
man deserters who had fled to them, as the price for being allowed to return to 
Carthage. This demand was rejected by Hamilcar with indignation: "Never," 
he replied, " would he surrender to the Romans the arms which his country had 
given him to use against them ;" and he declared that sooner than submit to 
such terms, he would defend Eryx to the last extremity. Lutatius thought of 
Regulus, and of the vengeance which had punished his abuse of victory, and he 
withdrew his demand. It was then agreed, "that the Carthaginians should 
evacuate Sicily, and make no war upon Hiero or his allies ; that they should 
release all Roman prisoners without ransom ; and pay to the Romans in twenty 
years 2200 Euboic talents." These were the preliminaries, which were subject 
to the approval of the Roman government ; the senate and people would not, 
however, ratify them, but sent over ten commissioners with full powers to con- 
clude a treaty. 133 These plenipotentiaries required that the money to be paid 
should be increased to 3200 talents, and the term of years reduced to ten ; and 
they insisted that the Carthaginians should also give up all the islands between 
Sicily and Italy. This clause was intended apparently to prevent their forming 
any establishments on the Liparsean Islands, which, although not at present in 
their power, they might after the peace have attempted to reoccupy, as some 
of them were uninhabited, and none possibly had been as yet formally occupied 
by the Romans. 

Hamilcar would not break off the negotiation on such points as these. His 
views were now turned to Spain, a wide field of enterprise which H amiicar evacuates si- 
might amply compensate for the loss of Sicily. And he wished cUy- 
to see his country relieved from the burden of the war with Rome, and enabled 
to repair and consolidate its resources. The peace, therefore, was concluded : 
Hamilcar evacuated Eryx, 134 and his troops were embarked at Lilybseum for Car- 
thage. But their unseasonable and bloody rebellion which immediately fol- 
lowed, and which for more than three years involved the Carthaginians in a war 
far more destructive than that with the Romans, deranged all his plans, and de- 
layed probably for many years the renewal of the contest between the two rival 
nations. 

Such was the end of the first Punic war, in which, although the contest was 
long and wearisome, yet both parties fought as it were at arm's 
length, and if we except the short expedition of Regulus, neither 
struck a blow at any vital part of his enemy. But the next struggle was sure 
to be of a more deadly character, to be fought, not so much for dominion as for 
life and death. In this new contest, the genius of Hamilcar and of his son de- 
termined that in the mortal assault Carthage should anticipate her rival ; and 
Italy for fifteen years was laid waste by a foreign invader. The state of the 
Roman supremacy in Italy, when it was exposed to this searching trial, the fate 
of the several Italian nations under the Roman dominion, and their dispositions, 
whether of attachment or of hatred, will form, therefore, the fit beginning of the 
succeeding portion of this history, which will embrace the third period of the 
Roman commonwealth ; the period of its foreign conquests, before Rome, 

" whom mighty kingdoms curtsied to, 

Like a forlorn and desperate castaway, 
Did shameful execution on herself." 

132 Polybius, I. 62. Diodorus, Fragm. Vatican. 133 Polybius, I. 63. 
XXIV. 4. Cornel. Nepos in Hamilcar, 1. 1M Polybius, I. 66. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

STATE OF ITALY AFTER THE ROMAN CONQUEST— POLITICAL RELATIONS OF 
THE INHABITANTS, AND DIFFERENT TENURES OF LAND— LATIN COLONIES. 



HoXtai yap — eTreX&dvTes, — Kal vavs kcii 'inirovs Kal jxtyi^v ixovcms ov bvvdfitvoi kirevtyKtiv ovti in toAi 
Tti'a.c ti utrafioXris to Sidtyopov auroTs, <3 TzpocrrjyovTO dV, ovt ck napaaKtvrjs ttoXXui Kprfocovs fores, aipaXXd 
ptvoi <5e to. irXriw, — t}Tr6povv. — Thucyd. VII. 55. 



The first and second Punic wars were separated by an interval of two-and- 
twenty years ; and the first Punic war, as we have seen, had 
Eoman dominion over lasted for a period of exactly the same duration. The end of 
the fourth Samnite war, and the final submission of the Samnites, 
Lucanians, and Bruttians, took place 1 eight years before the beginning of the 
contest with Carthage ; and the treaty which permanently settled the relations 
of Rome with the Etrurians was concluded eight years earlier still. 2 Thus, 
when Hannibal, in the spring of the year 537, invaded Etruria, few living Etru- 
rians had seen their country independent, except in their childhood or earliest 
youth ; and all who were still in the vigor of manhood had been born since it 
had become the dependent ally of Rome. And when, after his victory at the 
lake Thrasymenus, he marched into Samnium, and encouraged the Samnites to take 
up arms once more in their old national quarrel, fifty-five years had passed since 
the Samnites, abandoned by Pyrrhus, and having tried fortune and hope to the 
uttermost, had submitted to the consul Sp. Carvilius Maximus. So in Samnium, 
as well as in Etruria, the existing generation had grown up in peace and alliance 
with the Romans ; and many a Samnite may have been enriched by the plunder 
of Sicily, and must have shared with the Romans in the memorable vicissitudes 
of the first Punic war ; in the defeat of Drepanum, and the disastrous ship- 
wrecks which followed it ; in the five years of incessant fighting with Hanni- 
bal's father at Eryx and by Panormus ; in the long and painful siege of Lilybseum ; 
in the brilliant victory of S. Metellus, and in the final triumph of C. Lutatius at 
the iEgates. It is true, that fifty-five years of constrained alliance had not ex- 
tinguished the old feelings of hatred and rivalry ; and the Samnites joined Han- 
nibal, as a hundred and fifty years afterwards they joined the younger Marius, 
against the same enemy, the dominion of the Roman aristocracy. But that their 
rising was not universal, 3 nor persisted in with more desperate resolution ; that 
Etruria, with some doubtful exceptions, 4 offered no encouragement to the Car- 
thaginian general; that the fidelity of Picenum, of Umbria, of the Vestinians, 
Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, and Sabines never wavered ; that the "Latin 
name" remained true to a man ; and that even in Campania the fidelity of Nola 
and of Cuma was as marked as the desertion of Capua ; — all this is to be at- 
tributed mainly to the system of government which the Romans had established 
after their conquest of Italy, and which, so far as it can be traced, we must 
now proceed to examine in its complicated details. Not that we should by any 
means regard this system of government as a constitution founded upon justice, 

• 

1 In 4--.' \. i . o. S< e rihap. XXXYIII. p. 410. guished himself on the Roman side, in an ao- 

3 In 47-1 a. u. c. Sec chap. XXXYIII. p. 401. tion fought by M. Minucius against Hannibal, 

3 The Pentrian S:mmitrs, that is to say, the in the year preceding the battle of Cannae. 

Samnites on the north of the Matese, in 'whose Livy, XX11. 24. 

territory <Esernia had formerl] been, and who * Such as the alleged disaffection of the peo- 

still held Bovianum, 'lid not revolt from Some pie of Arretinm in the eleventh year of the seo- 

at all. See Livy, XXII. 61. A wealths Sum- ond Pnnio war, which how ever displayed itself 

nite of Bovianum, Numerius Decimius,'€istin- in no overt acts. Livy, XXVII. 21, 24. 



Chap. XLI] CONDITION OF THE ALLIES. 449 

and granting to all whom it embraced within its range the benefits of equal law. 
Its praise is rather, that it secured the Roman dominion, without adopting the 
extreme measures of tyranny ; that its policy was admirable, its iniquity and op- 
pression not intolerable. And so small a portion of justice has usually been dealt 
to the mass of mankind, that their highest hopes have commonly aspired to 
nothing more than an escape from extravagant tyranny. If life, and property, 
and female honor, and domestic, national, and religious feelings, have not been 
constantly and capriciously invaded and outraged, lesser evils have been con- 
tentedly endured. Political servitude, a severe conscription, and a heavy taxa- 
tion, habitual arrogance on the part of the governors, and occasional outbreaks 
of insolence and cruelty, have been considered no less incident to the condition 
of humanity, than the visitations of poverty, disease, and death. The dominion 
of the Romans over the people of Italy, therefore, as it allowed the ordinary 
enjoyment of many rights, and conferred some positive advantages, was viewed 
by its subjects, notwithstanding its constant absoluteness and occasional tyranny, 
as a condition quite as likely, if overthrown, to be changed for the worse as for 
the better. 

" The Lacedaemonians," says Thucydides, 5 " maintained their supremacy over 
their allies, by taking care that an oligarchy such as suited their '. . 
own interests should be everywhere their allies'.form of govern- of _ the Roman sov- 
ment." This also was one of the means by which the Romans 
secured their dominion in Italy. They universally supported 6 the aristocratical 
party, and thus made the principal inhabitants of every city willing instruments 
to uphold their sovereignty ; a fact which alone would prove, if the point were 
otherwise doubtful, that the constitution of Rome itself, even since the passing of 
the Hortensian laws, was much more an aristocracy than a democracy. 

I have said that the Roman dominion in Italy allowed its subjects the ordinary 
enioyment of many rights, and conferred on them some positive 

J J ,, t/0 . 11 , . , x ' -. Its advantages. 

advantages. Moreover, it held out to them hopes more or less 
definite of rising to a higher political condition hereafter. These three points will 
give us the fair side of the Roman sovereignty, and they shall now be considered 
in order. 

I. According to the general practice of the ancient world, the relation between 
Rome and her Italian subjects was nominally that of alliance ; and Ancient rights retained 
the very term alliance implies something of distinctness ; for the underit - 
members of the same commonwealth cannot be each other's allies. Thus it is 
understood at once, that most of the Italian states retained their municipal inde- 
pendence : they had their own magistrates ; they could pass laws for their inter- 
nal government ; and their ancient 1 laws of inheritance, and marriage, as well as 
their criminal law, were still preserved in full force. But this applies only to 
single states, or to the separate parts of a nation ; for every thing like a national 
council or diet was carefully prohibited. Arretium, Perusia, and Yolaterrse, 
might each legislate for themselves ; but we hear no more of any general con- 
gress of the Lucumones, or chiefs of the whole Etruscan nation, at the temple of 
Voltumna. Nay, in some recorded instances, 8 and probably in ■ many others not 

5 I. 19, 76, 144. lating to marriage, till they obtained the full 

6 In the second Punic war, Livy says, "unus Koman franchise after the great Italian war in 
velut morbus invaserat omnes Italia civitates, the middle of the seventh century. A. Gellius, 
nt plebes ab optimatibus disentirent ; senatis IV. 4. And their law of interest, being differ- 
Eomanis faveret, plebs adPcenos rem traheret." ent from that of Eome, enabled Eoman credit- 
XXIV. 2. So it was at Nola; Livy, XXIII. ors to evade their own law, by nominally trans- 
15. But we have the same thing already exist- ferring their debts to a Latin, who, according to 
ing in the Samnite wars : where some of the his law, might exact a greater rate of interest 
Ausonian aristocracy betray their cities to the than was permitted at Eome. Livy, XXXV. 7. 
Eomans, and the Lucanian aristocracy is at- e |As in the case of the Latins after the great 
tached to the Eoman alliance, while the popu- Latin war, Livy, VIII. 14; of the Uornicans. 
lar party favor the Samnites. Sec page 269 after their revolt, in the second Samnite war, 
of this history. Livy, IX. 43 ; and of the Macedonians, after the 

* The Latins retained some peculiar laws re- battle of Pydna, Livy, XLY. 29. 
29 



450 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLL 

recorded, the several states or districts of the same nation were so isolated from 
each other, that the citizens of one could neither intermarry with, nor inherit, 
nor purchase land, from those of another. Thus the allies were left in possession 
of their municipal independence ; but all free national action amongst them was 
totally destroyed. 

II. Besides the benefits which the Roman dominion did not take away from 

.its subjects, there were some others which it conferred upon them, 
and which they could not have enjoyed without it. The first and 
greatest of these was the extinction of internal war. From the Rubicon to the 
straits of Messana, there were no more of the intolerable miseries of a plundering 
border warfare, no more wasting of lands, driving aAvay of cattle, burning of 
houses, and carrying off the inhabitants into slavery. Those cities which had 
survived the Roman conquest, were thenceforward secure from destruction ; their 
gods would be still worshipped in their old temples ; their houses were no longer 
liable to be laid in ruins by a victorius enemy ; their people would not be mas- 
sacred, made slaves, or scattered over the face of the earth, and their very name 
and memory extinguished. The Americans feel truly that, whatever may be the 
inconveniences of their federal union, it has still the inestimable advantage of ban- 
ishing war from the whole of their vast continent ; and this blessing was con- 
ferred on ancient Italy by the .Roman dominion, and was so far even more valu- 
able, as wars between independent states in the ancient world were far more fre- 
quent than now, and produced a far greater amount of human misery. 

Again, the allies of Rome, while they escaped the worst miseries of war, were 
enabled by the great power of their confederacy to reap largely its advantages. 
In the plunder of Sicily the Italian allies and the Roman legions shared equally ; 
and after the fourth Samnite war the Campanians received as their share of 
the spoil a large portion of the coast 9 of the Gulf of Salerno, which had 
formerly belonged to the Samnites. Individuals also amongst the allied states 
might enjoy the benefits of an occupation of the Roman domain land ; a privi- 
lege which would naturally bind many of the wealthiest families throughout 
Italy to the Roman interest, some already possessing it, and others hoping to ob- 
tain it. 

III. With these actual benefits the Roman dominion also held out hopes to its 

subjects of rising sooner or later to a higher political condition. 

The regular steps appear to have been, that an allied state should 
first receive the Roman franchise without the right of voting ; and after the lapse 
of years these imperfect citizens gradually gained the full franchise, and were 
either formed into one or more new tribes, or were admitted into one of the tribes 
already existing. It is true that the first step in this process was generally an 
unwelcome one ; because it involved, under ordinary circumstances, the forfeiture 
of all municipal independence, and the entire adoption of a foreign system of law. 
But there were cases in which it was stripped of these degradations, and became, 
as far as appears, a mere benefit: such seems to have been the condition of a 
large portion of the Campanians at the beginning of the second Punic war. 
Capua at that time was, beyond all doubt, municipally independent : it had its 
own laws and magistrates, and its own domain lands: 10 yet it is no less certain 
that the Campanian aristocracy, at any rate, were Roman citizens in all respects, 
except in the right of suffrage." Other allied states might expect the same re- 
ward of their continued fidelity ; and from this condition the advance to the full 
franchise was always to be looked for in the course of time ; and would, in all 
probability, have been the reward of Capua itself, had the Campanians devoted 

This appears from the statement, that the nites, we. may conclude that the Campanians 

Roman colonies of Saleroom and liuxentuin, obtained it as tin or share of the spoil alter the 

founded after the second Panic war, were set- third or fourth Samnite war. 

tied on land which had belonged tovCapua. 10 Liw, XXIII. 3, foil. XXVIII. 46. 

Livy, XXXIV. 45. As the coasl ofthoGulf of " Livy, VIII. 14. SeoNiebuhr, Vol. II. note 

Salernum had originally belonged to the Sam- 136. 



Chap. XLL] CONDITION OF THE ALLIES. 451 

their whole strength to the support of Rome after the battle of Cannae, instead 
of opening their gates to Hannibal. 

Living in such a state, with so much not taken from them, with so much given 
to them, and with the hope of one day obtaining so much more ; . 

. ii- • i i-i .Its oppressiveness. 

and being further bound to their sovereigns by geographical posi- 
tion in all cases, and in most by something of an acknowledged affinity in race 
and language, the Roman allies had many inducements to acquiesce in their ac- 
tual condition, and to regard themselves as united indissolubly with Rome, 
whether for better or for worse. But they had also much to bear ; nor can we 
wonder if the descendants of C. Pontius, or Gellius Egnatius, or Stimius Statilius, 
or of the Calavii ©f Capua, should have thought life intolerable under the abso- 
lute dominion of that people, against whom their fathers had fought in equal 
rivalry. England, for many generations, upheld a system of domestic slavery in 
her colonies, while her own law so abhorred it, that any slave landed upon Eng- 
lish ground became immediately a freeman. What the four seas were to England, 
that the line running round the city at the distance of a mile from the walls, was 
to Rome : it was the boundary between law and despotism. Within this pre- 
cinct the sentences of the magistrates were the sentence of the law (legitima ju- 
dicia) ; and their power was controlled by the sacred interposition of the tribunes. 
But without this limit all was absolute dominion, imperium : there the magistrate 
wielded the sword with full sovereignty ; and judicial sentences were held to 
proceed not from the law, but from his personal power, so that their validity 
lasted in strictness no longer than the duration of his authority. Even Roman 
citizens had no present protection from this tyranny ; they had only the resource 
of seeking for redress afterwards from the courts of Rome. But the allies had 
not even this relief, except in cases of extraordinary atrocity : for the imperium 
of the Roman magistrates conferred a plenitude of dominion over the persons and 
property of the subjects of Rome : any thing might be done on the plea of the 
service of the Roman people, or of maintaining the dignity of its officers ; and 
the least opposition was held to be rebellion. Therefore, although barefaced 
robberies of private property were as yet mostly restrained by public opinion, 
which would not allow a magistrate to use his power for purposes of personal 
plunder ; yet acts of insolence and cruelty, far more galling than any mere spo- 
liations of property, were no doubt frequent from the very beginning of the Ro- 
man dominion over Italy, and arose partly out of the very position of the Roman 
officers with respect to the allies, and partly out of the inherent coarseness and 
arrogance of the Roman national character. 

Thus far we have considered the subjects or allies of Rome, in their relations 
to Rome generally, without noticing any differences in their condi- Differences in the con- 
tior which distinguished them more or less from each other; in- d LtionoftlieaUie8 - 
deed, in that distant view of the sixth centmy of Rome, which is all that we are 
permitted to enjoy, these differences are scarcely perceptible ; greatly as they 
must have affected the internal state of the Italian people, yet in their recorded 
outward movements we see scarcely any thing but the equal working of the Ro- 
man power, which all were alike obliged to obey. The treaties which fixed the 
relations of the several allied states with Rome, varied considerably in their con- 
ditions. Camerinum, in Umbria, and Heraclea, on the Ionian Sea, are noticed as 
having treated with the Romans on almost equal terms ; 1S and Etruria, making 
peace at the very moment when Pyrrhus was advancing victoriously upon Rome, 
must surely have secured more favorable conditions than could be obtained by 
the exhausted Samnites and Lucanians, when in utter helplessness they submitted 
to their triumphant enemy. But we neither know what these differences were, 
nor, if we did, would the knowledge be of much importance, without much fuller 

12 Livy, XXVIII. 46. Camertcs, quum aequo foedere cum Eomanis essent. Ou Heraclea, see 
Cicero pro Arch. c. 4. 



452 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLI. 

information on the other points than we can now ever recover. One great dis- 
tinction, however, claims the attention of the most general history, — that which 
separated all the other Italian allies from those of the Latin name. 

When Mago brought to Carthage the tidings of the victory of Cannse, and told 
the council how, not only the Bruttians and Apulians, but even some of the Lu- 
canians and Samnites, and above all, the great city of Capua itself, had in conse- 
quence of it joined the Carthaginians, the leader of the party opposed to Hanni- 
bal is represented as asking, whether a single people of the Latin name had re- 
volted, or a single citizen of the thirty-five tribes deserted to the enemy? 13 Un- 
faithfulness to Rome was thought to be not more impossible in her very citizens 
than in her Latin allies : Samnium and Capua might revolt ; t>ut the fidelity of 
the Latin name was never to be shaken. What, then, were the ties which bound 
the two nations together so indissolubly ? 

In order to answer this question, we must first explain what was meant in the 
m sixth century of Rome by the " Latin name." Now, if we remem- 

Tho Latin name. , , , J n i • ■ /■ • -r • i 

ber that almost all the cities or ancient Latium were long since 
become Roman, so that scarcely any except Tibur and Praeneste could any longer 
be included under the name of allies, we may wonder how the Latin name could 
still be spoken of as so powerful, or where could be found those eighty-five thou- 
sand Latins, who were returned as able to bear arms in the census of the great 
Gaulish war. 14 

The answer is, that the Latin name was now extended far beyond its old geograph- 
ical limits, and was represented by a multitude of flourishing cities 
scattered over the whole of Raty, from the frontier of Cisalpine 
Gaul to the southern extremity of Apulia. The people of the Latin name in the 
sixth century of Rome were not the Tibur tines merely and the Praenestines, 15 but 
the inhabitants of Circeii and Ardea on the old coast of Latium, of Cora and 
Norba on the edge of the Volscian highlands, of Fregellae and Interamna in the 
valley of the Litis, of Sutrium and Nepete under the Ciminian hills, of Cales, 
Suessa Aurunca, and Saticula on the edge of the Campanian plain, of Alba in 
the country of the Marsians, of iEsernia and Beneventum in the heart of Sam- 
nium, of Narnia and Spoletum in Umbria, of Luceria and Venusia in or close to 
the frontiers of Apulia, of Hadria and Firmum in Picenum, and finally of Brun- 
disium, far to the south, where the Adriatic opens into the Ionian Sea, and of 
Ariminum on the frontiers of the Cisalpine Gauls, where the Apennines first leave 
the shores of the Adriatic, and make room for the vast plain of northern Italy. 16 
All these states, with others which I have not noticed, formed the Latin name in 
the sixth century ; not that they were Latins in their origin, or connected with 
the cities of the old Latium : on the contrary, they were by extraction Romans ; 
they were colonies founded by the Roman people, and consisting of Roman citi- 
zens : but the Roman government had resolved, that in their political relations 
they should be considered, not as Romans, but as Latins ; and the Roman set- 
tlers, in consideration of the advantages which they enjoyed as colonists, were 
content to descend politically to a lower condition than that which they had re- 
ceived as their birthright. 

The states of the Latin name, whether cities of old Latium or Roman colonies, 
Privileges belonging to a ' 1 enjoyed their own laws and municipal government, like the 
other allies; and all were, like the other allies, subject to the sov- 
ereign dominion of the Romans. They were also so much regarded as foreigners, 
that they could not buy or inherit land from Roman citizens ; nor had they 
generally the right of intermarriage with Romans. But they had two peculiar 
privileges : one, that any Latin who left behind him a son in his own city, to per- 
petuate his family there, might remove to Rome, and acquire the Roman fran- 
chise ; the other, that every person who had held any magistracy or distinguished 

23 Livy XXIII. 12. 10 Livy. XXVI I. 9, 10. Bavigny, on the Jus 

" Poly bins, II. 24. Latii, in the Philological Museum. I. 5<i. 



Chap. XLI] THE LATIN COLONIES. 453 

office in a Latin state, might become at once a Roman citizen. So that in this 
manner all the principal families in the Latin cities had a definite prospect assured 
to them of arriving in time at the rights of citizens of Rome. 

Yet it is remarkable that when twelve of the Latin colonies, in the middle of 
the second Punic war, renounced the sovereignty of Rome, the , . 

. . . j. J Its relatlon t0 Rome. 

consuls, in their remonstrance with them, are represented, as ap- 
pealing, not to their peculiar political privileges, but to their sense of duty and 
gratitude towards their mother-country. " They were originally Romans, settled 
on lands conquered by the Roman arms for the very purpose of rearing sdns to 
do their country service ; and whatever duties children owed to their parents, 
were owed by them to the commonwealth of Rome." 17 And as no age made a 
son, according to the Roman law, independent of his father, but entire obedience 
was ever due to him, without any respect of the greater or less benefits which the 
son might have received from his kindness, so the Romans thought that the alle- 
giance of their colonies was not to depend on a sense of the advantages which 
their connection with Rome gave to them, but was a plain matter of duty. When 
they called on the Campanians not to desert them after the battle of Cannge, 
they appealed to their gratitude for the boon of political or social privileges : 
"We gave you," they said, "the enjoyment of your own laws, and to a great 
proportion of your people we communicated the rights of our own franchise." 18 
How different is this language from the simple admonition of the Latin colonies, 
" that they were the children of Rome, and should render to their parent a child's 
obedience !" 

Yet the sense of filial duty might have been quickened in the Latin colonies by 
a recollection of what they owed to Rome, and how much of their condition of the Latin 
political existence depended on her protection. The colonists of colomes - 
Beneventum and ^Esernia, of Luceria and Spoletum, were not the only inhabit- 
ants of those cities : they had not been sent as settlers into a wilderness, where 
every work of man around them was to be their own creation. According to 
the Roman notions of a colony, they had been sent to occupy cities already built 
and inhabited, to enter into the possession of lands which man's labor had long 
since made productive. They were to be the masters and citizens of their new 
city and its territory, while the old inhabitants were to be their subjects, and 
strangers, as it were, in their own land. And as long as they remained true to 
their duties as Roman colonies, the power of Rome would maintain their domin- 
ion : but if Rome no longer upheld them, there was no slight danger of their 
being expelled by the old population of the colony, aided, as the latter would 
soon be, by their countrymen in the neighboring cities; and Beneventum and 
JEsernia would then no longer be Latin colonies, but return to their old condition 
of independent states of Samnium. 

It may be asked, however, why the Romans refused to their own colonies the 
private rights, at any rate, of Roman citizens ; and as in some instances colonies 
of Roman citizens were founded, why was not this made the general rule, and 
why were the great majority of the colonies obliged to content themselves with 
the name and franchise of Latins ? I do not believe that any existing ancient 
writer has answered this question directly ; and the uncertain history of the early 
times of Rome embarrasses our conjectures. But it is probable that colonies 
founded during the equal alliance between Rome and Latium, such as Norba and 
Ardea, were properly Latin cities, to which the Latins sent colonists equally with 
the Romans ; so that they did not belong exclusively to Rome. It is more dif- 
ficult to understand why Sutrium and Nepete, colonies planted on the Etrurian 
frontier, and at a period when the old Latin alliance was virtually at an end, still 
received the Latin franchise, and not the Roman ; and why Cales, and the other 
colonies founded after the great Latin war, were colonies, not of the Roman, but 

a Livy, XXVII. 9. » Livy, XXIII. 5. 



454 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL! 

of the Latin name. We may suppose, perhaps, that in all these settlements the 
population of the colony was mixed from the beginning — colonists from Latin 
cities, some of which were always friendly to Home, being amongst the original 
settlers ; and after the Latin war, we may conceive that there were many Latins, 
whom, either as a reward or a precaution, the Romans may have been glad to 
establish in a colony out of their own country. We may understand also, that 
as the Roman colonists were often taken, not only from the class of poorer citi- 
zens, but also from the freedmen, the government would be glad to get them off 
from the roll of Roman citizens, which could only be done by their consenting to 
join a Latin colony, in consideration of its providing them with a grant of land. 
And generally, as the country of a Greek or a Roman was essentially a single 
city, it was natural that men leaving that city, and settling in another at a dis- 
tance, should, in the common course of things, cease to be citizens of their old 
country. In the Greek colonies the connection was broken off altogether : but, 
as this would have defeated the very purpose for which Rome founded hers, it 
was not entirely severed, but exchanged for the relation of subject and sovereign, 
or, in the Roman language, of child and parent. 

Besides the allies and the Latin name, there was yet a third class of Roman 

subjects, those who were Romans in their private rights, but not 

joyii^tVioweffranl in their political, who possessed the rights of intermarriage, and 

chise of the city, under r . -, . , 1 piii • j_" i • J 

the jurisdiction of prse- ot inheritance, or purchase ot land by mancipation, connubium and 
commercium, but had no vote in the comitia, and were ineligible 
to all public offices of authority. This condition, although it was often a pre- 
paratory step to receiving the full Roman franchise, was yet in itself considered 
far inferior to that of the allies or of the Latin name, inasmuch as it implied the 
complete forfeiture of all a nation's laws and institutions, and a complete adop- 
tion of the laws and customs of Rome. It was a natural consequence of this 
state, that it did away all municipal government. A people thus become subject 
to Rome had properly no magistrates, of its own; such public officers as it still 
retained had merely an honorary office : they were to superintend the sacrifices, 
preside at festivals, and direct other matters of pageantry and ceremonial. The 
administration of justice was vested in the hands of a prefect sent from Rome ; 
and districts so governed were properly called prefectures. These prefectures 
were probably very numerous all over Italy; for the magistrates of the cities 
had no jurisdiction beyond the city walls ; and even in the territories of the colo- 
nies themselves the country district was called a prefecture, although in these 
cases the prefect was not sent from Rome, but appointed by the colony. It is 
possible that this may explain what otherwise seems so puzzling, the application 
of the terms prefectura and municipium to the same places, and that too in 
cases where municipium undoubtedly expresses the existence of a municipal 
government, as at Cume, Fundi, and Formie. 19 In these instances the towns 
were municipia, and had their own magistrates ; but the country around them 
may have been a prefecture ; and the prefect was not appointed, as in the 
colonies, by the government of what may be called its local capital, but was sent 
immediately from Rome. 

This intermixture of different kinds of government, within the same geographi- 
cal limits, may lead us to consider another point of some import- 
ance : the variety of the tenures of land which the Roman con- 
quest had introduced into every part of Italy ; so that in each separate country, 
for instance in Etruria, Umbria, Samnium, or Lucania, as there were great differ- 
ences of political condition, so also was there the greatest diversity in the ten- 
ures of property. There might be found everywhere three sorts of land, — 1st, 
Land held by the old inhabitants, whether it had never been forfeited, or, if for- 
feited at the period of their conquest, formally restored to them by the Roman 

w Festus, v. Pr«fecturre. 



Chap. XLI] TENURES OF LAND. 455 

government ; 2dly, Land held by a Roman or Latin colony, by grant from the 
Roman people ; and 3dly, Land still held by the Roman people as domain, whether 
it was let or farmed by the government, or was in the occupation of individuals, 
whether Romans, Latins, or Italians of other nations. We have no Domesday- 
book of Italy remaining, which would enable us to determine the relative propor- 
tion of these three kinds of land ; but the amount of the third kind, or domain 
land, was absolutely enormous ; for the Roman people retained their full right 
of property, as we have seen before, in all land occupied (possessus) by individ- 
uals ; whereas a large proportion of the manors which Domesday-book records 
as belonging to the crown, when granted, as they soon were, to private persons, 
ceased to be domain, and became to all intents and purposes private property. 
Thus in England, and in other countries of modern Europe, the domain lands 
have become gradually less and less extensive ; but as at Rome nothing couTd 
alienate them except a regular assignation, and as various circumstances from 
'time to time added to their amount, on the whole their extent went on increasing 
rather than diminishing ; and we are astonished at the vast' proportion of domain 
land belonging to the commonwealth, even at the end of the seventh century, all 
of which would have come within the disposal of a general agrarian law. 

The later effects of these enormous tracts of domain land are well known, and 
will require our notice hereafter. But from the beginning they ^ ,-„.„. 

i i • • ii •• ivp /» t i m, 11 Effects of the domain 

must have greatly injured the spirit and life ot Italy. I he whole land on the ewe of 
spring of social and civil activity in the ancient world lay in 
its cities ; and domain land and cities could not exist together. Towns, there- 
fore, which had been taken at the first conquest of the country, and their inhabi- 
tants massacred or sold for slaves, becoming in many instances the domain of 
the conqueror, were condemned to perpetual desolation. Their old population 
was dispersed or destroyed ; and the wealthy Roman, who became the occupant 
of their territory, allowed a large part of it perhaps to lie waste, and settled the 
slaves whom'he employed in cultivating the remainder, rather in farm buildings or 
workhouses in the country, than in the houses of the old town. Thus a scanty 
and scattered slave population succeeded in the place of those numerous free 
cities, which, small as they were, yet well answered the great object of civil so- 
ciety, in bringing out at once the faculties and affections of mankind ; while by 
the frequent interposition of these large and blank districts, the free towns which 
were left became more isolated, and their resources diminished, because they too 
had lost a part of their territory to the conqueror. The larger cities had in 
many instances become Latin colonies, and were lost to their old nation : and 
thus, when the Samnites joined Hannibal, it was like the insurrection of a peas- 
antry, where all the fortresses are in possession of the enemy. Beneventum and 
^Eserina, the principal cities remaining in Samnium, were Latin colonies, or in 
other words Roman garrisons ; the Samnite towns were all inconsiderable ; and 
as soon as Hannibal's protection was withdrawn, the first Roman army which 
invaded the country recovered them almost without resistance. 

Many questions might be asked concerning the state of Italy, to which the 
above sketch contains no answer. Many, indeed, I could not answer satisfac- 
torily ; and the discussion of doubtful points of law or antiquities, where the 
greatest men have been unable to arrive at any certain conclusions, seems to me 
to encumber history, rather than illustrate it. Some points I have forborne to 
notice at present, because their bearing on the general course of the story is not 
yet manifest. I have wished, not to write an essay on the condition of ancient Italy 
in the abstract, but to connect my notices of it with the history of the period, 
that this chapter may catch some portion of the interest attached to Hannibal's 
great invasion ; whilst it may render the narrative of that invasion more intelli- 
gible, and may enable me to pursue it with fewer interruptions. 

Meantime we must follow the course of events abroad and at home, through 
the two-and-twenty years which still separate us from the beginning of the ex- 
pedition of Hannibal. 



CHAPTER XLIL 

GENERAL HISTOEY FEOM THE FIEST TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAE— ILLYEIAN 
WAR— GREAT GAULISH INVASION— MUSTER OF THE FOECES OF ALL ITALY- 
DEFEAT OF THE GAULS— EOM AN INVASIONS OF CISALPINE GAUL— M. MAR- 
CELLUS AND C. FLAMINIUS. A. U. C. 513 TO 535. A. C. 241 TO 219. 

Already at the end of the first Punic war some eminent Romans were in their 
Eminent Romans of tMs full manhood, whose names are enduringly associated with the 
^" ioi - events of the second. Q. Fabius Maximus, the great dictator, 

"who by his caution saved the Roman state," was consul eight years after the 
conclusion of the treaty with Carthage ; Q. Fulvius Flaccus, the conqueror and 
butcher of Capua, obtained his first consulship four years earlier, in the year 517 ; 
and M. Claudius Marcellus, the conqueror of Syracuse, must have been thirty 
years old at the end of the first Punic war, had already won honors by his per- 
sonal prowess as a soldier in Sicily, and had held the office of curule aedile. The 
earliest Roman historians, C. Fabius Pictor, and L. Cincius Alimentus, must have 
been at this time old enough to retain some impression of things around them ; 
Nsevius, the earliest known Roman poet, had served in the last war in Sicily ; 
Livius Andronicus, the oldest dramatist, brought his first piece upon the stage 
in the very year after the conclusion of the war. Hannibal him- 
self, whose genius was to be the mover and controller of the fu- 
ture invasion of Italy, was already born ; but he was as yet an innocent child, 
only six years old, playing in his father's house at Carthage. 

The transition from war to peace, which we remember five or six and twenty 
state of Rome afur the years ago, after a contest of very nearly the same length as the 
" war - first Punic war, brought, rather an increase than an abatement of 

embarrassment. A great stimulant was withdrawn ; but a great burden re- 
mained to be borne ; and the end is not yet manifest. But no sooner do the 
marks of battles pass away from the fields where they were fought, than the 
effects even of an exhausting war were shaken off in ancient times by nations not 
yet fallen into decline; because wars in those days were not maintained at the 
expense of posterity. The sole debt which Rome had contracted had been 
incurred for the building of her last fleet ; and this could be paid off immediately 
by the Carthaginian contributions. Population repairs its losses with wonderful 
rapidity ; and to the dominions which the Romans had possessed before the war, 
was now added the greatest portion of Sicily. Q. Lutatius, the brother and suc- 
cessor of the consu who had won the decisive victory of the ^Egates, passed the 
whole summer of his consulship in Sicily after the conclusion of the peace, and 
settled the future condition of the Roman part of the island. 1 Sicily was the 
earliest Roman province ; and in it was first exhibited that remarkable system of 
provincial government, which was gradually extended over so large a part of the 
ancient world. The peculiar character of this system did not consist in the ab- 
solute dominion of the Roman magistrates ; for their power was no less uncon- 
trolled in Italy itself, everywhere beyond the immediate precinct of Rome than 
it could be in the provinces. But the nations of Italy, like the allies of Lace- 
dsemon, aided the sovereign state with their arms, and paid no tribute; while the 
provinces were disarmed, like the allies of Athens, and served their sovereign 
with their money, and not with their men. Hence the perpetual difference in 
Roman law between land in Italy and land in the provinces; that the former 

1 Zonaras, VIII. 17. 



Chap. XLIL] THE PUBLICAN! 457 

might be held by individuals as their freehold, and was liable to no payments of 
tithe or land tax ; while the property of the latter was vested solely in the Ro- 
man people. When we hear that a Sicilian state had its forfeited lands restored 
to it, 2 this means only that they were restored subjected to the sovereign rights 
of the conqueror ; and therefore they were still burdened with the payment of 
tithes, as an acknowledgment that they were not held by their possessors in 
full property. 

No sooner was the provincial system established in Sicily, than the moneyed 
men of Rome, the famous Publicani, besran to flock over to the 

? . D l ' l Sources of wealth open- 

island to farm the tithes and the various other revenues which ed to the farmers of the 
came in from a province to the Roman people. Then were opened 
all those sources of acquiring wealth at the expense of the provincials, which rich 
or influential Roman citizens drained so unsparingly. Many Sicilian states were 
hindered from buying land in each other's territories ; 3 but the Roman cor.ld pur- 
chase everywhere ; and competition being thus restricted, he was enabled to 
purchase at greater advantage. If any state, or any individual in it, had sus- 
tained losses which disabled them from paying what they owed to the government 
at the appointed time, a wealthy Roman was always ready to lend them money ; 
and as the Roman law of interest did not extend to the provinces, he lent it on 
his own terms, and availed himself of the necessities of the borrower to the 
utmost. Even in common commercial transactions the Roman merchant in 
the provinces came into the market with great advantages. If he wished to 
buy, a provincial would often be afraid to bid against him : if he sold at a high 
price, the provincial dealers in the same commodity would be afraid to undersell 
him. The money thus gained by Roman citizens in the provinces gave them 
influence at Rome ; and this again made their friendship or enmity of importance 
to the Roman provincial governors. Thus they were armed not only with the 
general authority of the Roman name, but with the direct countenance and sup- 
port of the Roman magistrates ; and those magistrates held the lives and proper- 
ties of the provincials at their absolute disposal. 

While the wealthy had these means afforded them of becoming more wealthy, 
the end of a lono- war seemed a fit season for rewarding the faith- m . v 

O , , o t Two new tubes, raising 

ful services of som :>f the poorer citizens, and of the subjects ot the number to thu-ty- 
the commonwealth I have already noticed the large assignation 
of lands which tooK place somewhere about this period, and for the direction of 
which no fewer than fifteen commissioners were appointed. And the censors of 
the year 513 created two new tribes of Roman citizens, the Quirinian and the 
Velinian,' 1 containing, as the names show, the Sabines of the neighborhood of 
Cures and of the valley of the Velinus, and the people possibly of some other 
towns and districts also. These new tribes raised the whole number of tribes to 
thirty-five : and none were ever added afterwards. Nearly sixty years had 
elapsed since the last creation of two tribes, the Aniensian and Terentine, 
between the second and third Samnite wars. But before another period of 
sixty years could elapse, Hannibal's invasion had so changed the state of Italy 
and of the Roman people, that the old practice was never again repeated : and 
thus the Roman tribes remained fixed at the number of thirty-five, rather from 
accident, as I believe, than from deliberate design. 

But the remedy in human affairs is seldom commensurate with the evil. 
Neither the assignation of lands by the fifteen commissioners, nor . , . , 

, - ,, °f. ,, T-, ~ J , . . , ,. ■[.,■, Destruction of ngricul- 

the grant ot the tull Koman tranchise to a portion ot the isabine wai laborers supplied 
people, could compensate to Italy for the wide destruction of the 
poorest classes of free citizens occasioned by the naval losses of the first Punic 
war. " The Romans," says Polybius,* " lost in battle and by shipwreck, in the 
course of the war, no fewer than 700 quinqueremes." They lost besides, at one 

9 Cicero in Verrem, III. 6. 4 Livy, Epitom. XIX. 

3 Cicero in Verrem, II. 50, III. 40. 6 I. 63. 



458 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLII. 

time, nearly 800 corn ships in the great storm which •wrecked the two fleets of 
L. Junius, on the south coast of Sicily, in the year 505. Now the seamen, as 
is well known, were taken exclusively from the poorest class of freemen; from 
those who, in many instances no doubt, like the corresponding class in Greece, 
lived only by their labor; who in Etruria, especially, and elsewhere, resembled 
the Coloni, so well known from the law books of the latter empire, a class of men 
humble and dependent, but not slaves. As the war drained this class more and 
more, it had at the same time %upplied the slave market beyond all former ex- 
ample. Nor did the supply cease with the war against Carthage ; for several 
years afterwards we read of expeditions against the Ligurians, Sardinians, or 
Corsicans : s and every expedition brought off slaves as a part of its plunder. 
" Sardinians for sale" 1 became a proverb to express any thing of the least possible 
value ; and the Corsicans were' a race so brutish, according to the judgment of 
the slave dealers of the Augustan age, that they would fetch only the smallest 
price in the market. 8 These poor wretches therefore would not pay the expense 
of carrying them to the distant markets of Greece or Asia : they must be sold 
at home ; and their purchasers would commonly be the holders of large estates 
of domain land, who employed them there in the place of free laborers. Thus 
began that general use of slave labor in Italy, which in the course of a hundred 
years had in some places almost extirpated the free population. 

At the end of the summer of 513, the consul Q, Lutatius returned home from 
war witii the Fails- the settlement of Sicily : but before he went out of office in the 
eans- following spring, both he and his colleague, A. Manlius, were 

obliged to employ the whole force of the commonwealth against an enemy scarcely 
thirty miles distant from the walls of Rome. These enemies were the Falis- 
cans, or people of Falerii : 9 a name which has not been heard of in Roman his- 
tory for more than a hundred and fifty years ; when it is said that the four new 
tribes created after the recovery of Rome from the Gauls, in the year 3GS, were 
composed partly out of the inhabitants of the territory of Falerii. What could 
tempt a single city to bi'ave the power of Rome at a period when there Avas no 
foreign war to make a diversion in its favor, we know not, and can scarcely con- 
jecture. But the Romans thought the example so dangerous, that they exerted 
their whole force to put an immediate stop to it ; and in six days the Faliscans, 
after a desperate resistance, were obliged to submit at discretion. They were 
forced to surrender all their arms, horses, and movable property, and half of 
their domain land : their city was destroyed ; and they were removed to another 
spot less strongly situated ; a condition similar to that which had be'en imposed 
on the people of Yolsinii, four-and-twenty years earlier. For this conquest both 
consuls obtained a triumph. 

With the exception of this six days' war, the three years which followed the 
Employments during treaty with Cartilage were to Rome a period of perfect peace. 
•>»••*•«" While the Carthaginians in Africa were struggling for their exist- 

ence against their revolted subjects and their rebellious mercenary soldiers, the 
Roman annals record nothing but friendly embassies, works of internal improve- 
ment, new festivals, and new kinds of amusement. Ambassadors were sent to 
Ptolemy Euergetes, king of Egypt, to offer him the aid of Rome against the king 
of Syria ;'" but it was declined with thanks, as the war was already at an end. 
A carriage road was made to the top of the Aventine by the a^diles, L. and M. 
Publicius, witli the fines which they had recovered from persons convicted o[ 
pasturing their cattle illegally on the domains of the commonwealth: with 
another portion of these same fines was defrayed the expense of the games ot 

■ Zonaras, \ III. 18. ' Ktnil.o, V. p. 224 

* Sardi venules. AureliuB Victor, de Vir. HI. * Livy, Epitom. XIX. Zonaras, VIII. 18. 

o. LVII. attributes the oriffin of this saying to Polybius, I. 65. Eutropius, 11. 28. Orosius, 

the time of the conquest ofBardinia by Tiberius IV. 1 1. 
Gracchus. 10 Eutropaus, 111. 1. 



Chap. XLIL] NEW DISPUTES. 459 

Flora, 11 now for the first time instituted, and celebrated from henceforward every 
year, beginning on the 28th of April: and in 514, as I have already mentioned, 
the first regular drama was exhibited at Rome by L. Livius Andronicus. 12 It 
may be noticed as a curious coincidence, that the next year, 515, witnessed the 
birth of Q. Ennius, who may be called the father of the existing poetry of the 
Latin language. 

This season of peace appears to have infused a spirit of unwonted mod- 
eration and honesty into the Roman councils. Some Italian ves- Friendly relation, with 
sels carrying corn to the African rebels were interrupted by the Cflrtha s e - 
Carthaginians, and the crews thrown into prison. 13 The Romans sent an em- 
bassy to require their liberation, which the Carthaginians granted; and this 
ready compliance so gratified the Roman government, that they released without 
ransom all the Carthaginian prisoners still left in their hands, permitted supplies 
of all kinds to be carried to Africa for the use of the Carthaginians, while they 
strictly forbade all traffic with the rebels ; and even, it is said, allowed the Car- 
thaginians to levy soldiers in their dominions ; that is, to enlist, as they had been 
wont in times long past, Lucanian, or Samnite, or Bruttian mercenaries. Nor 
was this all ; for when the mercenaries in Sardinia revolted from Carthage, and 
called in the Romans to their aid, their request was not listened to ; and when 
the people of Utica, dreading the vengeance of the Carthaginians, offered to give 
themselves up to Rome, the Romans rejected this offer also. 

But when Hamilcar's genius had delivered his country from its extreme peril, 
when the rebel mercenaries were destroyed, and when Utica and Beginning of new di*- 
the other revolted towns and people of Africa had been obliged pute3 ' 
to submit at discretion, when perhaps also rumors were already abroad of Hamil- 
car's intended expedition to Spain, then the jealousy of the Romans seems to 
have revived, and their whole conduct towards Carthage underwent a total 
change. The mercenaries of Sardinia, after having revolted from Carthage, and 
applied at that time vainly for the aid of the Romans, were overpowered by the 
natives and obliged to fly from the island. 14 They took refuge in Italy, and had 
probably never ceased soliciting the Roman government to espouse their quarrel, 
and take possession of Sardinia for themselves. But now the Romans began to 
listen to them ; and it was resolved to send over a fleet to Sardinia to restore 
them. The Carthaginians meanwhile, having recovered their dominion in Africa, 
were proceeding to reduce the revolted islands ; and an armament was prepared 
to attack Sardinia. Then the Romans complained that the Carthaginians, while 
employing their fleet to prevent the African rebels from receiving 
supplies by sea, had committed many outrages upon Roman sub- 
jects sailing to and from Africa ; that this had manifested their hostile feeling 
towards Rome ; and that the armament, prepared ostensibly for the recovery of 
Sardinia, was intended t; attack Italy. Accordingly, the senate and people 
passed a resolution for war with Carthage. The Carthaginians, utterly unable 
to engage in a new contest, offered any terms for the sake of peace ; and the 
Romans not only obliged them to make a formal cession of Sardinia, but required 
them to pay 1200 talents, in addition to the sum stipulated by the last treaty, 
as a compensation for the injuries sustained by the Roman merchants, and a pen- 
alty for their meditated aggression. 15 Hamilcar advised compliance with these 
demands ; but he hastened, no doubt, with tenfold eagerness, the preparations 
for his expedition to Spain. 

When all was ready, the general performed a solemn sacrifice, to propitiate the 
gods for the success of his enterprise. 16 The omens were declared . 
favorable ; Hamilcar had poured the libation on the victim, which 

11 Ovid, Fast. V. 279-294. Festus, v. Pub- " Polybius, I. 29. 

licius. 16 Polybius, 1. 88. Appian de Eeb. Punic, c. 5. 

B Cicero, Tusc. Queest. 1. 1. Brut. 18. 16 Polybius, III. 11. 
13 Polybius, I. 83. « 



460 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIL 

was duly offered on the altar, when on a sudden he desired all his officers, and 
the ministers of the sacrifice, to step aside to a little distance, and then called 
his son Hannibal. Hannibal, a boy of nine years old, went up to his father, and 
Harailcar asked him kindly, if he would like to go with him to the war. The 
boy eagerly caught at the offer, and with a child's earnestness implored his 
father to take him. Then Hamilcar took him by the hand, and led him up to 
the altar, and bade him, if he wished to follow his father, lay his hand upon the 
sacrifice, and swear "that he would never be the friend of the Romans." Han- 
nibal swore, and never to his latest hour forgot his vow. He went forth devoted 
to his country's gods as the appointed enemy and destroyer of their enemies ; 
and the thought of his high calling dwelt ever on his mind, directing and con- 
centrating the spirit and enthusiasm of his youth, and mingling with it the fore- 
cast, the great purposes, and the deep and unwavering resolution of the ma- 
turest manhood. 

This story of his solemn vow was told by Hannibal himself many years after- 
Renewed disputes with wards to Antiochus, king of Syria; but, at the time, it was heard 
Carthage. -fay no other ears than his father's ; and when he sailed with Ha- 

milcar to Spain, none knew that he went with any feelings beyond the common 
light-hearted curiosity of a child. But the Romans viewed Hamilcar's expedition 
with alarm, and were probably well aware that he would brook his country's 
humiliation only so long as he was unable to avenge it. More than once they 
renewed their complaints that the Carthaginians annoyed their merchants at sea, 
and that .they were intriguing with the Sardinians, to excite them to revolt from 
Rome. A fresh sum of money was paid by Carthage ; but the complaints still 
continued ; and the Romans, for the second time it is said, passed a resolution for 
a. u. c. 519. a. c. v, ~ ar - Embassy after embassy was sent to Rome by the Cartha- 
235- ginian government, to deprecate a renewal of the contest ; 17 and at 

last ten of the principal members of the council of elders were appointed ambas- 
sadors, if perhaps their rank and dignity might at once move the Romans to pity, 
and inspire confidence in the peaceful intentions of Carthage. Still the Romans 
were for a long time inexorable ; till Hanno, the youngest of the ambassadors, 
and, if lie w::s. as is probable, the famous opponent of Hannibal, himself sincerely 
inclined to maintain the peace, remonstrated with the senate plainly and boldly. 
" If you will not have peace with us," he said, " then give us back Sardinia and 
Sicily ; for we yielded them to you, not to purchase a brief truce, but your last- 
ing friendship." 18 Then the Romans were persuaded ; and the treaty of peace 
was again renewed and ratified. This was in the year of Rome 519, in the con- 
sulship of T. Manlius Torquatus and C. Atilius Bulbus. It was, apparently, to 
assure the Carthaginians that the peace thus ratified was to be sincere and lasting, 
that the old ceremony of shutting the gates of Janus was now performed ; 19 for 
the first time, it was said, since the reign of King Numa; for the last time also 
until they were closed by Augustus after his conquest of Egypt. 

But in this very year, as well as for several years before and after it, the Ro- 
m. a. e. man aims found employment against barbarian enemies in Sardinia, 
sas. Direnwus. m Corsica, in Liguria, and in Cisalpine Gaul.' 20 These wars served 
to exercise the citizens in arms, to furnish the consuls with an occasion of tri- 
umphs, and to bring fresh multitudes of slaves into Italy. Q. Fabins Maximus, 
afterwards bo famous, was consul for the first time in 521, and obtained a tri- 
umph for his victories over the Ligurians. 21 

Twelve years after the end of the first Punic war, and six after the solemn con- 
firmation of the treaty, a Roman army was sent, for the first time, across the Ionian 

17 Zonaras.VTn. is. Orosius, IV. 12. Maximus, VI. 8, § 8 ; Etatropius, III. W For the 

'" Dion CassiuB. Fragm. (Train. <'L. war in Liguria, Dion Cassias, rregm. I 

19 Eutropiaa, III. ■'•. Orosius, IV. !•_>. XLV.; ana for that in Cisalpine Gaul, lvlybiua, 

20 For tlic wars in Corsica and Sardinia, see II. 21. 

Zonaras, VJ4|. 28; Livy, Epit. XX.; Valerius 21 Plutarch, Fabius, 2. 



Chap. XLIL] THE ILLYRIANS. 461 

gulf. More than forty years had now passed since the death of r Fhe Eoman3 cr0S3 the 
Pyrrhus ; his family in the second generation had become ex- A,lliati0 - 
tinct ; and the Epirots were governing themselves without a king. But their 
power had sunk almost to nothing ; and the only name now dreaded in those 
parts was that of the Illyrians. 

The various tribes of the Illyrian nation occupied the whole eastern coast of 
the Adriatic, from its most northern extremity to its mouth. Their . 

extent inland can scarcely be determined : in the later Roman ge- 
ography, the name of Illyricum was applied to the whole country between Ma- 
cedonia and the Danube, 22 while the early Greek writers distinguished the Illyr- 
ians from the Pseonians or Pannonians, and appear to have confined the Illyrian 
name to the tract of country more or less narrow where the streams flow into the 
Adriatic ; and placed other nations, the Triballians, Preonians, and Thracians, in 
the country beyond the watershed, where the streams run northward to the 
Danube. In truth, all these nations were probably connected with each other ; 
and their language, if it belonged, as seems likely, to the Sclavonic branch of the 
great Indo- Germanic family, was not wholly foreign either to the Hellenic, spoken 
on their southern borders, or to the various dialects of Italy, from which they 
are so little distant on their western frontier. The Illyrians on the Adriatic coast, 
and on the western border of Upper Macedonia, were held by the Greeks in 
great respect for their courage ; but, like most barbarians, they loved to maintain 
themselves by plunder instead of labor ; and the innumerable harbors along their 
coast tempted them to plunder by sea rather than by land. Seventy years before 
this, they were already formidable to all who navigated the Adriatic : but now, 
since the fall of the Epirot power, the coast to the southward lay unprotected ; 
and their vessels made frequent plundering descents, not only on Epirus, but 
even on the western shores of Peloponnesus, on Elis, and on Messenia. This 
brought them more in the way of the merchant ships of Italy, which were en- 
gaged in traffic with Greece and the East ; and complaints of the Illyrian pira- 
cies had been frequently brought before the Roman government. A . u. c . 525 . A . c. 
These were for a time neglected, but at last they became more 229- 
numerous and pressing ; and they were further supported by the people of the 
island of Issa, a Greek colony, who, being attacked by the Illyrians, sent to im- 
plore the protection of the Romans. 

The senate accordingly sent, as was its custom, three ambassadors to Illyria, 
to learn the state of the Illyrian power, 23 and to find out what Ambassadors sent ton- 
friends the Romans would be likely to have within the country lyria put t0 deattl - 
itself, if they should have occasion to declare war. The ambassadors found the 
king of the Illyrians dead ; and his widow, Teuta, as the Illyrian law permitted, 
was governing in the name of her step-son, Pinnes, who was still a child. At the 
moment when the ambassadors arrived, the Illyrian queen was besieging Issa, 
and was highly elated with the recent success of her fleet, which had returned 
loaded with spoil from a plundering expedition against Epirus. She was in no 
mood therefore to brook the peremptory language always used by Roman am- 
bassadors ; and one of the three so offended her, that she sent one of her ships 
after them on their return home, to seize them. Two of them were killed, and 
the third was brought to the queen, and thrown into prison. 24 

The Romans, without delay, declared war against the Illyrians, and both con- 
suls, Cn. Fulvius Centumalus and L. Postumius Albinus, were 
sent across the Adriatic with a fleet and army such as had rarely 
been seen in those parts. As usual, they found allies within the countiy ; Derne- 

22 Zonaras, VIII. 19. Appian, iilyr. I. Pliny, XXXIV. 11, says that statues (tripedanece) 

23 Polybms, II. 8. Dion, Fragm. ITrsin. CLI. were raised by the republic to P. Junius and 
Zonaras, VIII. 19. Titus Coruncancius, who were killed by Teuta, 

24 Polybius, II. 8, gives Caius and Lucius queen of the Illyrians. " Hoc a republica tribui 
Coruncancius as the names of the ambassadors, solebat injuria ctesis." 



462 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLII. 

trius, a Greek of the island of Pharos, who was holding Corcyra for the Illyrian 
queen, surrendered it at once to the Roman fleet, 25 and guided the consuls in all 
their subsequent operations. A Roman fleet of two hundred quinqueremes, and 
a regular consular army of 22,000 men, were, as opposed to the piratical barks 
and robber soldiery of Queen Teuta, like a giant amongst pigmies. Town after 
town, and tribe after tribe, yielded to them, and Teuta, having taken refuge in 
Rhizon, which was almost her last remaining stronghold, was glad to obtain 
peace on the conqueror's terms. The greater part of her former dominion was 
bestowed on Demetrius ; she was to pay a fixed tribute to the Romans, and 
was never to allow more than two of her ships together, and these not armed 
vessels, to sail to the south of the port of Lissus, the last place in the Illyrian 
dominions. 26 In the course of this short war, not only Corcyra, but Apollonia 
also, and Epidamnus, submitted to the Romans at discretion, and received 
their liberty, as was afterwards the fate of all Greece, as a gift from the Roman 
people. 

The Illyrian war having been settled rather by the Roman fleet than by the 
Roman embassies into army, Cn. Fabius, who had commanded the fleet, returned home 
Greece - alone to obtain a triumph ; while his colleague, L. Postumius, was 

left with a small force at Corcyra. He sent ambassadors to the ^Etolians 
and the Archaean league, to explain the grounds on which the Romans had 
crossed the sea, and to read the treaty which had been concluded with the Illyri- 
ans. As all the Greeks had suffered from or dreaded the Illyrian piracies, the 
Roman ambassadors had met with a most friendly reception, and were welcomed 
as the benefactors of Greece. Soon afterwards the Romans sent other embas- 
sies to Corinth and to Athens, with no other object, so far as appears, than of in- 
troducing themselves to some of the most illustrious states of the Greek name, 
which many of the Romans had already learnt to admire. At Corinth they re- 
ceived the solemn thanks of the Corinthians for the services they had rendered 
to the Greek nation ; and the Romans were allowed to take part in the Isthmian 
games, as if they were acknowledged to have some connection with the Hellenian 
race. 27 The Athenians, it is said, went further, granted to the Roman people the 
honorary franchise of Athenian citizens, and admitted them to the Eleusinian 
mysteries. That this honor was not despised by the highest Roman nobility may 
be concluded from the fact, that A. Manlius Torquatus, who was censor in 506, 
and consul in 509 and 512, has the surname of Atticus, in the Capitoline Fasti, 
a name borne, so far as we know, by no other member of his family, either before 
or afterwards. 

Nearly about the time when the consuls, Cn. Fulvius and L. Postumius, left 
Rome on their expedition to Illyria', the Romans must have heard 

Death of Hamilcar. ^ ^.^ Qf ^ ^^ q£ JJ^^.^ FrQm fa fi rst landing in 

Spain he had advanced with uninterrupted success, training his army in this con- 
stant warfare with the bravest of barbarians, and gaining fresh popularity and 
influence both at home and with his soldiers, by his free distribution of his spoils ; 
spoils not to be estimated by the common poverty of barbarians, but rich in sil- 
ver and gold, the produce of the still abundant mines of Spain. In the ninth 
year of his command he had reached the Tagus, when he was killed in a battle 
with the Vettonians, a tribe who dwelt between the Tagus and the Douro, and 
was succeeded by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal. 28 

The work which Hamilcar had begun by the sword, was continued and consoli- 

iia.Kirubai'5 fro^ dated by the policy of his successor. Hasdrubal was one of those 

■ <k» Ro55 men wno are especially fitted to exercise an ascendency over the 

toefaMkhba minds of barbarians f* his personal appearance was engaging; he 

understood the habits and feelings of the Spaniards, and spared no pains to 

» Polybius, II. 11. M Polybius, II. 1. Zonaras, VIII. 19. Ne- 

98 Polj bine. I F. 12. pos, Diodor. Eel. lib. XXV. 

*» Polybius, 11. 12. Zonaras, VIII. 19. w Polybius, II. 13, 86. Appian, VL 4, 6. 



Chap. XLIL] THREATENED INVASION. 463 

accommodate himself to them. Thus the native princes, far and near, sought 
his friendship, and were eager to become the allies of Carthage ; A . n . c . 626 A , c 
while by the foundation of New Carthage, or Carthagena, a place m - 
possessing one of the best harbors in the Mediterranean, and naturally strong on 
the land side, he was enabled to command the heart of Spain, from a position 
close at hand, instead of beginning his operations from a distant corner of the coun- 
try, like Gades. The Romans observed his progress with no small alarm ; but 
their dread of an approaching Gaulish invasion made them unwilling to provoke 
a war at this moment with Carthage. They endeavored therefore to secure 
themselves by treaty, and concluded a convention with Hasdrubal, by which he 
bound himself not to extend his conquests to the north of the Iberus or Ebro. 30 
By this stipulation the Romans hoped to keep him at a sufficient distance, not 
from Italy only, but from their old allies, the people of Massalia, some of whose 
colonies had been founded south of the Pyrenees, along the coast of what is now 
Catalonia. Nor were they abandoning to him the whole country southward of 
the Iberus ; for they had lately formed an alliance with the Saguntines, a people 
partly of Greek, or at any rate not of Spanish extraction, who lived near the 
coast between the Iberus and the Sucro, and who, in their fear of the Cartha- 
ginian power, had put themselves under the protection of Rome. 31 The treaty 
concluded with Hamilcar, at the end of the first Punic war, had contained a 
clause forbidding either of the contracting parties to molest the allies of the 
other; 32 Saguntum, therefore, was safe from attack; and the Romans hoped, no 
doubt, to secure their footing in Spain through its means, and from thence, so 
soon as the Gaulish war was over, to sap the newly formed dominion of Car- 
thage, by offering their aid to all the native tribes who might wish to escape 
from it. 

But these hopes and fears for their dominion in Spain were overpowered at 
present by a nearer anxiety, the dread of a Gaulish invasion. The Twtenmgs of an m- 
Cisalpine Gauls had for the last ten years resumed their old hos- vasion by the Gauk ' 
tile dispositions, which before that time had slumbered for nearly forty-five years, 
since their great defeat by the consul Q. iEmilius Papus, two years before the 
invasion of Pyrrhus. 33 In that interval they had seen two Roman colonies founded 
on the land which had formerly been theirs ; Sena, immediately after the war, 34 
and Ariminum, about fourteen years afterwards, or four years before the begin- 
ning of the war with Carthage. But neither of these occupations of what they 
must have considered their own land, provoked them, as it seems, to attack the 
Romans ; and they remained quiet through the whole of the first Punic war, 
when the Romans, engaged year after year in Sicily, would have resisted them 
at the greatest disadvantage. But three years after the peace with Carthage, 
we find the Roman consuls invading the territory of the Gauls. It is difficult to 
believe that these renewed hostilities were wholly owing, as Polybius says, 35 to 
the innate restlessness of the Gaulish character, and to the rising up of a new 
generation who had forgotten the defeats of their fathers. But this new gener- 
ation must have been ready for war at least ten years earlier ; and their impa- 
tience would scarcely have waited so long only to break forth at last when the 
favorable opportunity was over. 

The Cisalpine Gauls called in their brethren from beyond the Alps to aid 
them; but these new-comers excited jealousies ; and on one occa- p re p arations of the 
sion there was a regular battle fought between them and the Cis- Gaulsforwar - 
alpine Gauls, with such slaughter on both sides as relieved the Romans from all 
present danger. 36 But afterwards, in the year 521, when Fabius Maximus was 
for the first time consul, an agrarian law was proposed and carried by C. Fla- 

30 Polybius, II. 13. III. 27, 9. SJ A. U. C. 472. Chap. XXXVII. p. 390 of 

31 Polybius, III. 15, 21, 30. this history. 

** Polybius, III. 21. "* Polybius, II. 19. 3a II. 21. 

38 Polybius, II. 21. 



464 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLII. 

minius, one of the tribunes, for a general assignation of the land between Arimi- 
num and Sena, 37 a measure -which not only ejected, perhaps, many of the old 
Gaulish inhabitants, who had still been suffered to enjoy their former possessions, 
but seemed an earnest of the intention of the Romans to extirpate the Gauls alto- 
a. u. c. 52s. a. c. gether from every portion of Gaulish territory which the fortune 
2iiC- of war might hereafter give them. Accordingly, there was now 

a unanimous cry amongst the Gauls for war, and for obtaining the aid of their 
Transalpine countrymen. Their preparations were made with unusual patience ; 
there was no premature movement ; but they endeavored to provide themselves 
with money, of which they had none of their own, by selling various commodi- 
ties, wool and hides, and, above all, captive slaves, to merchants who would pay for 
them in gold and silver. 38 Thus they were enabled to engage the services of a 
large body of Transalpine Gaule, whom they tempted besides with the prospect 
of a permanent settlement in Italy ; whilst the Romans, knowing full well that 
the storm was gathering, yet unwilling to provoke it by commencing hostilities, 
were kept year after year in a state of anxious preparation, till the invasion at 
last, as it seems, actually burst upon them unexpectedly. 

In this state of suspense, superstitious terrors possessed men's minds readily. 
The Capitol was struck with lightning, an unwonted prodigy ; and 
the Sibylline books were consulted in consequence. The books 
said, " When the lightning shall strike the Capitol and the temple of Apollo, then 
must thou, Roman, beware of the Gauls." 39 And another prophecy said that 
a time should come " when the race of the Greeks and the race of the Gauls 
should occupy the Forum of Rome." It is characteristic of superstition to trans- 
fer to its idols that mockery of truth which itself so delights in, and to believe 
that they care not for wickedness, if it be done to promote their service. A man 
and woman of the Gaulish race, with a Greek man and woman, were buried alive 
in the Forum Boarium, that the prophecy might be fulfilled in word, and might, 
so the Romans hoped, be proved to be in spirit a lie. 39 

It was the spring of the year 529, and the consuls chosen were L. iEmilius Papus 
and C. Atilius Regulus, son of that Regulus who had been so 
famous in the first Punic war. The Transalpine Gauls . had not 
yet crossed the Alps ; and, on the other hand, tidings arrived that the Sardinians, 
impatient of the dominion of a Roman praetor, to which they had now, for the 
first time, been made regularly subject, had broken out into a general revolt. 
Utoecordingly, C. Regulus, with one consular army, was sent over to Sardinia to 
put down the revolt. 40 

He was already arrived in his province, when the Transalpine Gauls, on the 
Preparations for the nrst melting of the snows, crossed the Alps ; and the Cisalpine 
great Gaulish war. Gauls, joining them with all their own disposable forces, the inva- 
sion of Italy was no longer delayed. The alarm was given at Rome ; and then 
was seen with what vast power and energy the Roman government could meet 
an emergency of real danger. The whole free population of Italy, of an age to 
bear arms, was reported to Rome in the returns of the census of the several 
a. i r. c. 527. a. c. states ; and in a contest with barbarians such as the Gauls, every 
state and every man could be depended on ; for no evil could 
equal the victory of such an enemy. Thus knowing the whole extent of its re- 
sources, the government prepared accordingly its active armies, and its armies of 
reserve, while every important city was duly provisioned, and provided with 

" ( to Mcctute, c. 4, places this law when Fabius was consul along with M'. Poin- 

in 526, when Q. Fabius, consul iterum, C. Fla- ponius Mutho. 

minio, quoad potuit, restitit, agrum Picentem M Zonaras, Vlll. 19. 

et Gallicum vintim contra senal tatem "See the fragments of Dion, published by 

dividentj. But from Polybius, II. 81, it ap- Mai, p. 185. 

, ;at the law was carried into effect by M. :! ''' Orosius, IV. 18. Plutareh, Marcell. 8. Zo- 

Lepidus, who was consul in 528; so that it naras, VIII. 19. 

must have been passed in the previo^te year, 40 Polybius, II. 23. Zonaras, VIII. 19. 



Chap. XLII] POSITION OF THE ROMAN" ARMIES. 465 

large magazines of arms, and the system being never forgotten of securing allies 
to act on the enemy's flank or rear, the friendship of the Cenomanians and Vene- 
tians was timely obtained, whose country, lying along the lower part of the course 
of the Po, and on the shores of the Adriatic, was in direct communication with 
the Romans at Ariminum, and commanded the whole eastern frontier of the hos- 
tile Gauls, so as to threaten their territory with invasion, as soon as their army 
should begin to march southwards. In fact, this desertion of the Gaulish cause 
by the Cenomanians and Venetians crippled the invasion at the very outset ; for a 
large force was kept at home to cover the frontier, and the invading army, ac- 
cording to Polybius, did not finally amount to more than 50,000 foot, and 20,000 
cavalry and war-chariots. 41 

Two roads led from Cisalpine Gaul into the heart of Italy ; the one by Arimi- 
num and Umbria, the other by Etruria. Of these the former was PoS iti 0Q f the Roman 
covered by a consular army of 27,000 men, by the disposable armie3- 
force of the Umbrians, amounting to 20,000 men, and by the Cenomanian and 
Venetian auxiliaries, who are computed at 20,000 men more. The Umbrians and 
the barbarian auxiliaries were stationed on the edge of the Gaulish frontier, west- 
ward, probably, of Sarsina, to be ready to pour down upon the Boian country, 
near the modern towns of Forli and Faenza ; while the consul, L. ^Emilius,. was 
posted at some point in the direction of Ariminum : but whether he was actually 
at Ariminum to defend the frontier, or in some position nearer to Rome, from 
whence he might more easily co-operate with the army covering Etruria, the 
narrative of Polybius does not state clearly. 42 On the other line, which led 
through Etruria, there lay an army of 54,000 Sabines and Etruscans, commanded 
by a Roman prsetor ; whilst Rome itself was covered by a reserve army of more 
than 50,000, under the command, we may suppose, of the prsetor of the city. These 
forces were actually called out and organized ; but the returns of the population 
capable of bearing arms, and which, in case of need, might recruit and support 
the troops already in the field, presented, it is said, a sum total, inclusive of the 
soldiers really enlisted, of no fewer than Y50,000. 43 . 

The invaders seem to have conducted their march skilfully ; for passing be- 
tween the Roman armies, they descended from the Apennines A u, c 62 9. a. c. 
into the valley of the upper Arno, followed it down nearly to f t m ri ™\nd ,1 are T de! 
Arretium, and from thence advanced towards Clusium, in the very feated - 
heart of Etruria, after having ravaged the whole country near the line of their 
march without any opposition. When the Roman praetor became aware that the 
enemy were between him and Rome, he put his army in motion to pursue them. 
The Gauls met him and defeated him, but were prevented from completing the 
destruction of his army by the sudden appearance of the consul L. ^Emilius, who 
had also hastened to the scene of action, when he heard that the enemy were in 
Etruria. 44 Then the Gauls, enriched, but at the same time encumbered, with 
their plunder, and having been entirely successful hitherto, determined to carry 
off their prisoners and spoil in safety to their own country, and afterwards, when 
their army was again fit for action, to repeat their invasion. As the Roman 
armies were between them and the Apennines, they resolved to retreat by the 
coast road into Liguria, and descended into the valley of the Ombrone with that 
object. But when they had reached the coast, and were marching northwards 
towards the mouth of the Arno, they suddenly encountered a new enemy. The 
consul, C. Regulus, having been recalled from Sardinia, had just landed at Pisa, 
and was now on his march by the very same coast road towards Rome. 45 The 
Gauls were thus placed between two enemies ; for L. ^Emilius was hanging on 

II. 23. icj)'' oui 'Avi'['/?nj, Aa'rrous £x u)V Sitx^vpiiov. iirefiaXcv 

42 Atbiciov Al/iiXiov . . . l^imidTtiXav ais fir' el; t)v 'lraXiav. 
' A p i n i v o v. u Polybius, II. 25, 26. 

** Polybius, II. 24. Eutropius, III. 5. Po- * Polybius, II. 27. 
lybius, after giving this enormous muster, adds, 
30 



466 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. LXII. 

their rear ; and they were obliged to engage both the consular armies at once. 
The battle was long and bloody, and the Romans lost one of their consuls, C. 
Regulus ; but in the end they Avon a complete victory, and the Gaulish army 
•was almost destroyed. 46 Immediately after the victory, L. ^Emilius hastened to 
invade the Gaulish territory by the same road which the Gauls had intended to 
make their line of retreat ; and as the Gauls were mostly on their other frontier, 
to oppose the Umbrians and their barbarian allies, the consul overran the coun- 
try without resistance. He returned to Rome and triumphed ; and the golden 
chains worn by the Gauls round their necks and arms were hung up as a splen- 
did monument of the victory in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. 47 

This great success encouraged the Romans to press the war against the Gauls 
conquest of the Boians with the utmost vigor, in the hope of completing their destruction, 
and insubriaus. an( j effecting- the conquest of their country. Trusting to their 

treaty with Hasdrubal, they thought they should have time to deal with then- 
nearer enemies, before they turned their attention seriously to the affairs of Spain. 
Accordingly for the next three years both consuls were each year employed in 
Cisalpine Gaul, and with such success, that the Boian and Insubrian nations, 
whose country stretched from the Apennines to the Alps across the whole plain 
of Northern Italy, and extended from the neighborhood of Ariminum westward 
as far as the Ticinus, were obliged one after the other to submit at discretion. 48 
The details of battles fought with barbarians are rarely worth recording ; but 
among the consuls of these three years were men whose personal 
fame attracts our notice ; and some of the circumstances connected 
with their military proceedings will lead us naturally to a subject of far deeper 
interest, the political state of Rome on the eve of the second Punic war. 

The consuls of the year 530, who succeeded L. JEmilius and C. Regulus, had 
both of them been consuls before, and censors ; and in their censorship they had 
been colleagues, as now in their second consulship. These were T. Manlius Tor- 
quatus and Q. Fulvius Flaccus, men of kindred character : Manlius possessing all 
the traditional sternness oi his race, and Q. Fulvius, in his unyielding and unre- 
lenting nature, rivalling the proudest patricians in Rome. They were made con- 
suls together, in the hope that the Gaulish war, under their conduct, would be 
brought to a speedy conclusion ; but in this they disappointed their countrymen ; 
for although they reduced the Boians to submission, yet they could do nothing 
against the Insubriaus, owing to an unusually rainy season, which, filling all 
the streams, made the country about the Po impracticable, and occasioned epi- 
a. u. c. 530. a. c demic diseases among the soldiers. 43 The consuls were apparent - 
224- ly required to abdicate before the end of the year ; for the old and 

blind L. Metellus, the pontifex maximus, was named dictator, to hold the comitia ; 
and by him were elected the consuls of the following year, C. Flaminius Nepos 
and P. Furius Philus. 

Flaminius, as we have seen, had been tribune ten years before, and had then 
carried an agrarian law for a general assignation of the land for- 

Kliiminius uVfents tno , 1 i> i/-ii i • ■ x i 

Gaoifl and triumphi in merly conquered from the Gauls near Ariminum. It was perhaps 
from some expectation that, if he made fresh conquests, he would 
propose a similar assignation of them, that the people elected him consul : the 
senate, on the other hand, used their utmost endeavors to make his consulship 
wholly inactive. He was already in the held with his colleagues, and Jiad en- 
tered the enemy's country, when the senate sent orders to both the consuls to 
return instantly to Rome. Dreadful prodigies had been manifested ; three 
moons had been seen at once in the sky ; a vulture had haunted the Forum : and 
a stream in Picenum had run Mood. 51 The augurs declared that the omens had 

" Polvbius, II. 28-81. <0 Polybius, 11. 81. 

" Polvbius, II. 31. M Zonarae. V11I. 20. Orosius, IV. 13. 

iH PdlybiuB, II. 82-35. Zonaraa, VIII. 19. 
Orosius, IV. 18. 



Chap. XLIL] FLAMINIUS AND MARCELLUS. 4(57 

not been duly observed at the election of the consuls ; they must therefore be 
forthwith recalled. Flaminius, guessing the purport of the senate's dispatches, 
and receiving them when he was on the very eve of a battle, Avould not read 
them till the action was over ; and having gained a complete victory, he declared, 
when he did read them, that the gods themselves had solved the A-U . c 53I A c , 
senate's scruples as to the lawfulness of his appointment, and that 223, 
it was needless for him now to return. He continued his operations therefore till 
the end of the season with much success ; he took a great many prisoners, and a 
large amount of plunder, all of which he distributed to his soldiers ; and on his 
return to Rome he demanded a triumph. The senate, resenting his disobedience, 
refused it ; but he obtained it, as the popular consuls Horatius and Valerius had 
done 220 years before, by a decree of the comitia. 52 

Flaminius was through life the enemy of the aristocratical party ; and our 
accounts of these times come from writers whose feeling was 
strongly aristocratical. Besides, his defeat and death at Thrasy- 
menus made the Romans in general unfriendly to his memory ; as national pride 
is always ready to ascribe disasters in war to the incapacity either of the general 
or the government. But Flaminius was a brave and honest man, over-confident, 
it is true, and over-vehement, but neither a demagogue, nor a mere blind parti- 
san. Like many others of the noblest of the plebeians, he was impatient of that 
craft of augury, which he well knew was no genuine and simple-hearted super- 
stition, b#t an engine of aristocratical policy used by the nobility against those 
whom they hated or feared. Yet the time was not come when the people at 
large saw this equally ; and therefore Flaminius shared the fate, and incurred 
the blame, of those premature reformers, who, putting the sickle to the corn 
before it is ripe, reap only mischief to themselves, and obtain no fruit for the world. 

Flaminius and Furius were succeeded in the consulship by M. Claudius Marcel- 
lus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio. Marcellus, afterwards so famous, 

A TJ C I i ,l i A C 

was at this time nearly fifty years old, and in his natural charac- s-h. character am.*- 
ter seems greatly to have resembled Flaminius. Like him he was 
a brave and hardy soldier, open in his temper, active and enterprising in the 
highest degree ; but so adventurous and imprudent, that even in old age he 
retained the thoughtlessness of a boy, and perished at sixty by plunging into a 
snare which a stripling might have expected and shunned. But he attached him- 
self to the aristocracy, which Flaminius opposed ; and all his military successes 
met with their full share of honor and reward. In this his first consulship he 
encountered Britomarus, or Viridomarus, one of the Gaulish chiefs, in single com- 
bat, and slew him in the sight of his army. For this exploit he was ranked with 
Romulus and Cornelius Cossus, who, like him, when commanding the Roman 
armies, had slain the enemy's general with their own hand ; and he offered the 
Spolia Opima, or choice spoils, of the slain chief to Jupiter Feretrius, as the most 
striking part of the spectacle of his splendid triumph. 53 

The two following years, 533 and 534, were only marked by wars with new 
barbarian enemies : the Istrians, whose country ran out like a pen- 

. . ^ * A U. C 5*53 \ r ' 

insula into the Adriatic, at the very head of the gulf, to the east 221. 'war with 'the 
of the country of the Venetians, and the Gaulish or mixed Gaul- 
ish tribes, which lived to the north of the Insubrians, on the very roots of the 
Alps. The Istrians, a people of kindred race and habits to the Illyrians of the 
more southern parts of the Adriatic, were accused like them of having committed 
acts of piracy on the Roman merchant vessels. They were defeated, but not 
without a severe loss on the side of the Romans. One of the consuls employed 
against them was M. Minucius Rufus, so famous four years afterwards as master 
of the horse to the dictator Q. Fabius. 54 

02 Zonaras, VIII. 20. M Zonaras, VIII. 20. Orosius, IV. 13. Eutro- 

b3 Plutarch, Marcell. 7, 8. Livy, Epit. XX. pius, III. 1. 
Eutropius, III. 6. 



468 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLII 

The year of Rome 534 was marked by the censorship of L. iEmilius Papus 
censorship of Fiamin- an d. C. Flaminius ; a censorship distinguished by several memora- 
iu6- ble regulations and public works, and which throws great light 

on the character of Flaminius, and through him on the general state of parties 
in the commonwealth. In the first place, we may be quite certain that no mere 
demagogue, nor any one who was considered a bad or unwise man, would have 
been elected a censor at this period. The high dignity of the office repelled from 
it all but citizens of the very first reputation ; nor were the bravery and activity 
of a good soldier the qualities which most fitted a man to discharge its many 
important duties. Flaminius had carried an agrarian law, and had continued to 
command his army as consul, in direct opposition to the majority of the senate ; 
but he knew how to distinguish between the selfishness and jealousy of an aris- 
tocracy, and those aristocratical elements which are essential to all good govern- 
ment ; and the great measure of his censorship was a repetition of the regulation 
made by the famous censors Q. Fabius Rullus and P. Decius, about eighty years 
before : he removed all freedmen from the country tribes, and enrolled them in 
the four city tribes, the Palatine, the Esquiline, the Colline, and the Suburran. 

A single line in the epitome of Livy's twentieth book contains all our informa- 
Tmnster of the freed- tion respecting this measure, and it relates the fact merely, with- 
men to the «ty tribes. ou ^ a wor( j f explanation. We must suppose that the regulation 
of Fabius and Decius had been regarded as a remedy for a crying evil at a par- 
ticular time, and not as a general rule to be observed forever. I^j common 
times the freedman, being still closely connected with his old master, who was 
now become his patron, patronus, would be enrolled in his patron's tribe ; and 
this would seem the most natural course, when the particular case was con- 
sidered, without reference to the political consequences of the system, so soon as 
it was generally adopted. These consequences would be to give political influ- 
ence to a class of men in all respects unlike the old agricultural commons. The 
class of freedmen contained many rich citizens, and many poor ones ; but rich 
and poor alike lived by trade rather than by agriculture, — in Rome, rather than 
in the country. It is said that the freed negro in America is confined by public 
feeling to the exercise of two or three trades or callings only, and these humble 
ones ; but the freedman of the ancient world labored under no such restriction. 
He might keep a little stall in the Forum, or he might be a merchant trafficking 
with Egypt and with Carthage : or again, he might be a moneyed man, and live 
on the interest of his loans ; or he might go out as a farmer of the taxes to Sicily, 
and acquire an immense fortune at the expense of the province. But in no case 
were his habits like those of the agricultural citizen ; and Flaminius, like M. 
Curius, and P. Decius, and like C. Marius in later times, was an enemy to every 
thing which might elevate the mercantile and moneyed classes, and still more the 
.small shopkeepers and low populace of the city, above the proprietors and culti- 
vators of the land. 

It was probably in the same spirit that Flaminius shortly afterwards supported 
Bin to check the the bill of an unknown tribune, Q. Claudius, which forbade all 
•p^^oSgaTSsrJ senators and sons of senators from being the owners of a ship of 
a,ors- the burden of more than 300 amphorae. The express object of 

this bill was to hinder the Roman aristocracy from becoming, like the Venetian 
nobles, a company of wealthy merchants. The corn ships which the Istrians 
were accused of intercepting, belonged, no doubt, to some of the nobility, and 
were engaged in carrying the corn grown on their extensive occupation lands in 
Picenum and the coast of Umbria, to the markets of Greece and Macedonia. 
Flaminius thought that traffic was unworthy of the Roman nobility: perhaps he 
fancied that they who derived their wealth from foreign trade would be too much 
afraid of offending their customers, and would compromise their country's honor 
for the sake of their own profit. But on this occasion he stood alone in the sen- 
ate : neither Q. Fabius, nor T. Manlius, nor M. Marcellus, nor any of the Atilii, 



Chap. XLIL] HAXXIBAL SUCCEEDS HASDRUBAL. 469 

or Sempronii, or Sarvilii, supported him ; but as the comitia by the Hortensian 
law enjoyed the supreme legislative power, the opposition of the senate was vain, 
and the bill was passed. 55 

Yet, while Flaminius imitated Fabius and Decius in their political regulations, 
he rivalled Appius Claudius in the greatness of his public works. p uWi< . works . TheFia- 
He perfected the direct communication between Rome and Ari- mmianWa y- 
minum, 56 the great road, which, turning to the right after crossing the Milvian 
bridge, ascended the valley of the Tiber, leaving Soracte on its left, till it again 
joined the line of the modern road where it recrosses the Tiber and ascends to 
Ocriculum ; which then ascended the valley of the Nar to Narnia and Interam- 
nia, passed over the lofty ridge of the Monte Somma, descended on the newly 
founded colony of Spoletum, and passed through the magnificent plain beyond, 
till it reached Fulginia ; which there again penetrating into the green valley of 
the Calcignolo, wound its way along the stream to Nuceria ; which then, by an 
imperceptible ascent, rose through the wide upland plain of Helvillum (Sigillo) to 
the central ridge of the Apennines ; which, the moment it had crossed the ridge, 
plunged precipitately down into the deep and narrow gorge of the Cantiano, and, 
hemmed in between gigantic walls of cliff, struggled on for many miles through 
the defile, till it came out upon the open country, where the Cantiano joins the 
Metaurus ; which then, through a rich and slightly varied plain, followed the left 
bank of that fateful stream till it reached the shores of the Adriatic ; and which 
finally kept the line of the low coast to Ariminum, the last city of Italy, on the 
very edge of Cisalpine Gaul. This great road, which is still one of the chief 
lines of communication in Italy, and which still exhibits in its bridges, substruc- 
tions, and above all in the magnificent tunnel of Furlo, splendid monuments of 
Roman greatness, has immortalized the name of C. Flaminius, and was known 
throughout the times of the Commonwealth and the Empire as the Flaminian 

Wa ^ 

His other great work was the building of a circus in the Campus Martius, 

which was also called by his name, and which, like the Greek 

theatres, was used not only for the exhibition of games, but also 

occasionally for meetings of the senate and assemblies of the people, when they 

were held without the walls of the city. 

Flaminius, although opposed to the overbearing rule of the aristocracy, stood 
aloof, as we have seen, from the party of the populace, and wished G iwth of * lower de- 
to do no more than to tread in the steps of the best citizens of mocratical P arl >- 
former times, of Fabius Rullus and Decius, of M. Curius and Fabricius. But we 
find symptoms of the growth of another party, which, in the later times of the 
Commonwealth, was almost the sole representative of the popular cause, the party 
of the poorer classes within Rome itself, the Forum populace, as they were called, 
in whom the ancient political writers saw the worst form of democracy. By the 
influence of this party, it seems C. Tarentius Varro, a butcher's son, had already 
been raised to the qusestorship, and had been made plebeian and curule asdile, 
and was now looking forward to still higher distinctions. But the war with Car- 
thage crushed it for the present, and delayed its revival for nearly a hundred 
years, and established the power of the aristocracy on the firmest base, that of 
the public respect and love, feelings which their conduct in the great national 
struggle had justly earned for them. 

Hasdrubal had died in the year before Flaminius' censorship, having been 
assassinated in his tent by a Gaulish slave, in revenge for the death 
of his master. 51 The voice of the army had immediately called Hanmuai takes the 
Hannibal to the command, and the government of Carthage had ao«\ent'to Hannibal 
ratified their choice. (Re had made two campaigns, and had so 
put down all opposition to the Carthaginian dominion, that the Saguntines, ex- 

56 Livy, XXI. 63. ■ 67 Polybius, II. 36. Appian, Hispan. 8. 

66 Livy, Epit. XX. 



470 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIIL 

pecting to be attacked next, as the only people still left independent, sent earnest 
embassies to Rome, to request the interference of the Romans in their behalf. 55 
Towards the close of the year 534, Roman ambassadors visited Hannibal in his 
winter- quarters at New Carthage, warning him not to attack Saguntum, which 
was an ally of Rome, nor to carry his arms beyond the Iberus. Receiving unsat- 
isfactory answers, they proceeded to Carthage, and declared to the government 
that the Romans would consider any attack upon Saguntum, or any advance of 
the Carthaginians beyond the Iberus, as acts of direct hostility against Rome. 
They could not imagine that Carthage would dare to incur such a penalty ; she 
had paid money and ceded parts of her territory to escape the resentment of the 
Romans ; would she now voluntarily brave it by acts of aggression ? j Hannibal's 
party could not have obtained so complete an ascendency ; and his opponents 
would surely recover their influence, when his policy threatened to involve Ins 
country in the dreaded evils of another war with Rome. So L. ^Emilius Paullus 
and M. Livius were chosen consuls for the year 535, as if the peace would not 
be broken ; and they were both sent over to Illyria with two consular armies to 
chastise the revolt of Demetrius of Pharus, who, relying on his intimate connec- 
tion with the court of Macedon, had committed various breaches of treaty, and 
was setting the Romans at defiance. 59 

L. ^Emilius was a brave and able officer ; and he and his colleague did their 
a.d. c. 535. a. c. work effectually ; they reduced all the enemy's strongholds, took 
2i9. warinmyru. Pharus itself, and obliged Demetrius to escape for his life to 
Macedonia, and finally received the submission of all Illyria, and settled its 
affairs at their discretion. They returned to Rome at the end of the season, and 
obtained a triumph, the last that was for some years enjoyed by any Roman 
officer ; for already the falsehood of the Roman calculations was manifest ; Sa- 
guntum, unaided by Rome, had been taken and destroyed : war with Carthage 
was no longer doubtful ; and the seat of that war was likely to be no longer 
Spain, but Italy. 



CHAPTER XLIIL 

SECOND PUNIC WAR. 



HANNIBAL— MARCH OF HANNIBAL FROM SPAIN TO ITALY— PASSAGE OF THE 
ALPS— BATTLES OF THE TREBIA, AND OF TIIKASYMENUS— Q. FABIUS MAXI- 
MUS DICTATOR- BATTLE OF CANNJS— A. U. C. 535 TO 538. 

Twice in history has there been witnessed the struggle of the highest individ- 
ual genius ao-ainst the resources and institutions of a great nation; 

A U C 535» A. C. ^* ^ 

seoood p!mic and, in both cases, the nation has been victorious. For seventeen 
years Hannibal strove against Rome; for sixteen years Napoleon 
Bonaparte strove against England: the efforts of the first ended in Zama, those 
of the second in Waterloo. 

True it is, as Polybius has said, that Hannibal was supported by the zealous 
exertions of Carthage: 1 and the strength of the opposition to his 

Greatue*s of Hannibal. ■• 1 i •!. 11111 

policy lias been very possibly exaggerated by the Roman writers. 

88 Polybius, III. 15. Appian, Hispan. 11. °° Polvbius, III. 16, W. Zonarus, VIII. iO. 
Livy, XXI. 10. ' Polybius, 111. 10. 



Chap. XLIIL] THE GREATNESS OF ROME. 471 

But the zeal of his country in the contest, as Polybius himself remarks in another 
place, 2 was itself the work of his family. Never did great men more show them- 
selves the living spirit of a nation than Hamilcar, and Hasdrubal, and Hannibal, 
during a period of nearly fifty years, approved themselves to be to Carthage. It 
is not, then, merely through our ignorance of the internal state of Carthage that 
Hannibal stands so prominent in all our conceptions of the second Punic war : 
he was really its moving and directing power ; and the energy of his country was 
but a light reflected from his own. History therefore gathers itself into his sin- 
gle person : in that vast tempest which, from north and south, from the west 
and the east, broke upon Italy, we see nothing but Hannibal^ 

But if Hannibal's genius may be likened to the Homeric god, who in his hatred 
of the Trojans rises from the deep to rally the fainting Greeks, Greatness of Koine, 
and to lead them against the enemy ; so the calm courage with ba 3 Ven ce for °L R g™d 
which Hector met his more than human adversary in his country's ° fmivnkind - 
cause, is no unworthy image of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the 
aristocracy of Rome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so on the contrary 
Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even Scipio himself, are as nothing when com- 
pared to the spirit, and wisdom, and power of Rome. The senate which voted 
its thanks to its political enemy, Varro, after his disastrous defeat, " because he 
had not despaired of the Commonwealth," and which disdained either to solicit, 
or to reprove, or to threaten, or in any way to notice the twelve colonies which 
had refused their accustomed supplies of men for the army, is far more to be 
honored than the conqueror of Zama. This we should the more carefully bear 
in mind, because our tendency is to admire individual greatness far more than 
national ; and as no single Roman will bear comparison with Hannibal, we are 
apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that the victory was 
awarded to the least worthy of the combatants. On the contrary,jjaever was the 
wisdom of Cod's providence more manifest than in the issue of the struggle be- 
tween Rome and Carthage. It was clearly for the good of mankind that Han- 
nibal should be conquered : his triumph would have stopped the progress of the 
world. For great men can only act permanently by forming great nations ; and 
no one man, even though it were Hannibal himself, can in one generation effect 
such a work. But where the nation has been merely enkindled for a while by a 
great man's spirit, the light passes away withxhim who communicated it ; and the 
nation, when he is gone, is like a dead bodj|; to which magic power had for a 
moment given an unnatural life : when the charm has ceased, the body is cold 
and stiff as before. /..He who grieves over the battle of Zama, should carry on 
his thoughts to a pei'iod thirty years later, when Hannibal must, in the course 
of nature, have been dead, and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Car- 
thage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its 
laws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into 
an organized empire, and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dis- 
solved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe. 

Hannibal was twenty-six years of age when he was appointed commander-in- 
chief of the Carthaginian armies in Spain, upon the sudden death H anaibai takes sagun- 
of Hasdrubal. Two years, we have seen, had been employed in tum - 
expeditions against the native Spaniards ; the third year was devoted to the siege 
of Saguntum. Hannibal's pretext for attacking it was, that the Saguntines had 
oppressed one of the Spanish tribes in alliance with Carthage ; ? but no caution in 
the Saguntine government could have avoided a quarrel, which their enemy was 
determined to provoke. Saguntum, although not a city of native Spaniards, re- 
sisted as obstinately jas if the very air of Spain had breathed into foreign settlers 
on its soil the spirit so often, in many different ages, displayed by the Spanish 
people. ,,, Saguntum was defended like Numantia and Gerona- the siege lasted 

2 Polybius, IX. 22. s Polybius, in. 15. Appian, Hispan. XI. 



472 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

eight months ; and when all hope was gone, several of the chiefs kindled a fire 
in the market-place, and after having thrown in their most precious effects, leapt 
into it themselves, and perished. Still the spoil found in the place was very con- 
siderable : there was a large treasure of money, which Hannibal kept for his war 
expenses ; there were numerous captives, whom he distributed amongst his sol- 
diers as their share of the plunder ; and there was much costly furniture from 
the public and private buildings, which he sent home to decorate the temples 
and palaces of Carthage. 4 >~ 

It must have been towards the close of the_ year,Lbut apparently before the 
consuls were returned from IllyriaJ that the news of the fall of Sa- 

Ambassadors 6ent to -iit-» t j • ^ l l l 

canbage, who declare guntum reached Home, immediately ambassadors were sent to 
Cartilage ; M. Fabius Buteo, who had been consul seven-and- 
twenty years before, C. Licinius Varus, and Q. Basbius Tampbilus. Their orders 
were simply to demand that Hannibal and his. principal officers should be given 
up for their attack upon the allies of Rome, in breach of the treaty, and, if this 
were refused, to declare war. The Carthaginians tried to discuss the previous 
question, whether the attack on Saguntum was a breach of the treaty ; but to 
this the Romans would not listen. At length M. Fabius gathered up his toga, 
as if he was wrapping up something in it, and holding it out thus folded together, 
he said, " Behold, here are peace and war ; take which you choose !" The Car- 
thaginian suffete, or judge, answered, " Give whichever thou wilt." Hereupon 
Fabius shook out the folds of his toga, saying, "Then here we give you war;" 
to which several members of the council shouted in answer, " With all our hearts 
we welcome it." Thus the Roman ambassadors left Carthage, and returned 
straight to Rome. 

But before the result of this embassy could be known in Spain, Hannibal had 
Hannibal's preparations been making preparations for his intended expedition, in a manner 
forwar - which showed, not only that he was sure of the support of his 

government, but that he was able to dispose at his pleasure of all the military 
resources of Carthage. At his suggestion fresh troops from Africa were sent 
over to Spain to secure it during his absence, and to be commanded by his own 
brother, Hasdrubal ; and their place was to be supplied by other troops raised 
in Spain ; 6 so that Africa was to be defended by Spaniards, and Spain by Afri- 
cans, the soldiers of each nation, when quartered amongst foreigners, being cut 
off from all temptation or opportunity to revolt. So completely was lie allowed 
to direct every military measure, that he is said to have sent Spanish and 
Numidian troops to garrison Carthage itself £ in other words, this was a part 
of his general plan, and was adopted accordingly by the government Mean- 
while he had sent ambassadors into Gaul, and even across the Alps, to the Gauls 
who had so lately been at war with the Romans, both to obtain information as to 
the country through which his march lav, and to secure the assistance and guid- 
ance of the Gauls in his passage of the Alps, and their co-operation in arms when 
he should arrive in Italy. His Spanish troops he had dismissed to their several 
homes at the end of the last campaign, that they might carry their spoils with 
them, and tell of their exploits to their countrymen, and enjoy, during the winter, 
that almost listless ease which is the barbarian's relief from war and plunder. At 
length he received the news of the Roman embassy to Carthage, and the actual 
declaration of war; his officers also had returned from Cisalpine Gaul. "The 
natural difficulties of the passage of the Alps were great," they said, " but by no 
a. u. c. 536. a. c. means insuperable : while the disposition of .the Gauls was most 
Sl8 - friendly, and they were eagerly expecting his arrival.'" Then 

Hannibal called his soldiers together, and told them openly that he Avas going to 
lead them into Italy. " The Romans," he said, " have demanded that I and my 

4 Livy, XXI. 14. PolybiuB, 111. 18. 8 Pdybius, III. 33. Livy, XXI. 21. 

6 livy, XXI. IS "■"lvbius, III. 20. Zonaras, 7 Polvbius, 111. 3±. 
VIII. 32. 



His vision. 



Chap.XLIIL] HANNIBAL'S SACRIFICE AND VISION 473 

principal officers should be delivered up to them as malefactors. Soldiers, will 
you suffer such an indignity ? The Gauls are holding out their arms to us, in- 
viting us to come to them, and to assist them in revenging their manifold injuries. 
And the country which we shall invade, so rich in corn, and wine, and oil, so full 
of flocks and herds, so covered with flourishing cities, will be the richest prize 
that could be offered by the gods to reward your valor." One common shout 
from the soldiers assured him of their readiness to follow him. He thanked them, 
fixed the day on which they were to be recgly to march, and then dismissed them./ 
In this interval, and now on the very eve of commencing his appointed work, 
to which for eighteen years he had been solemnly devoted, and 

3 J I'll • i Hannibal's sacrifice. 

to which he had so long been looking forward with almost sicken- 
ing hope, he left the head-quarters of his army to visit G-ades, and there, in the 
temple of the supreme god of Tyre, and ill the colonies of Tyre, to offer his 
prayers and vows for the success of his enterprise. 8 He was attended only by 
those immediately attached to his person ; and amongst these was a Sicilian 
Greek, Silenus, who followed him throughout his Italian expedition, and lived at 
his table. When the sacrifice was over, Hannibal returned to his army at New 
Carthage ; and every thing being ready, and the season sufficiently advanced, for 
it was now late in May, he set out on his march for the Iberus. 

And here the fulness of his mind, and his strong sense 01 being the devoted 
instrument of his country's gods to destroy their enemies, haunted 
him by night as they possessed him by day. In his sleep, so he 
told Silenus, he fancied that the supreme god of his fathers had called him into 
the presence of all the gods of Carthage, who were sitting on their thrones in 
council. There he received a solemn charge to invade Italy ; and one of the 
heavenly council went with him and with his army, to guide him on his way. 
He went on, and his divine guide commanded him, " See that thou look not be- 
hind thee." But after a while, impatient of the restraint, he turned to look back ; 
and there he beheld a huge and monstrous form, thick-set all over with serpents ; 
wherever it moved, orchards, and woods, and houses fell crashing before it. He 
asked his guide in wonder, what that monster form was ? The god answered, 
" Thou seest the desolation of Italy ; go on thy way, straight forward, and cast 
no look behind." 9 Thus, with no divided heart, and with an entire resignation 
of all personal and domestic enjoyments forever, Hannibal went forth, at the age 
of twenty-seven, 10 to do the work of his country's gods, and to redijem his early 
vow. 

The consuls at Rome came into office at this period on the fifteenth of March : 
it was possible therefore for a consular army to arrive on the scene Miscalculations of the 
of action in time to dispute with Hannibal not only the passage of Romans - 
the Rhone, but that of the Pyrenees. But the Romans exaggerated the difficul- 
ties of his march, and seem to have expected that the resistance of the Spanish 
tribes between the Iberus and the Pyrenees, and of the Gauls between the Pyr- 
enees and the Rhone, would so delay him that he would not reach the Rhone 
till the end of the season. They therefore made their preparations leisurely. 

Of the consuls for this year, the year of Rome 536, and 218 before the Chris- 
tian era, one was P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of L. Scipio, who Their preparations for 
had been consul in the sixth year of the first Punic war, and the war " 
grandson of L. Scipio Barbatus, whose services in the third Samnite war are re- 
corded in his famous epitaph. The other was Ti. Sempronius Longus, probably, 
but not certainly, the son of that C. Sempronius Blaesus who had been consul in 
the year 501. The consuls' provinces were to be Spain and Sicily ; Scipio, with 
two Roman legions, and 15,600 of the Italian allies, and with a fleet of sixty 
quinqueremes, was to command in Spain ; Sempronius, with a somewhat larger 

8 Livy,XXI. 21. Compare Polybius, XXXIV. Valerius Maximus, I. 7,1, Externa. Zonaras, 
9. - VIII. 22. 

9 Cicero de Liv. I. 24. Livy, XXIV. 22. 10 Nepos, Hannibal, c. 3. 



474 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLIII 

army, and a fleet of 160 quinqueremes, was to cross over to Lilybseum, and from 
thence, if circumstances favored, to make a descent on Africa. A third army, 
consisting also of two Roman legions, and 11,000 of the allies, was stationed in 
Cisalpine Gaul, under the prsetor, L. Manlius Vulso." The Romans suspected 
that the Gauls would rise in arms ere long ; and they hastened to send out the 
colonists of two colonies, which had been resolved on before, but not actually 
founded, to occupy the important stations of Placentia and Cremona on the op- 
posite banks of the Po. The colonists^ sent to each of these places were no fewer 
than six thousand ; and they received notice to be at their colonies in thirty days. 
Three commissioners, one of them, C. Lutatius Catulus, being of consular rank, 
were sent out, as usual, to superintend the allotment of lands to the settlers ; and 
these 12,000 men, together with the praetor's army, were supposed to be capa- 
ble of keeping the Gauls quiet. 12 

It is a curious fact, that the danger on the side of Spain was considered to be 
so much the less urgent, that Scipio's army was raised the last, 
after those of his colleague and of the prsetor, L. Manlius. 13 In- 
deed, Scipio was still at Rome, when tidings came that the Boians and Insubrians 
had revolted, had dispersed the new settlers at Placentia and Cremona, and 
driven them to take refuge at Mutina, had treacherously seized the three com- 
missioners at a conference, and had defeated the praetor, L. Manlius, and obliged 
him also to take shelter in one of the towns of Cisalpine Gaul, where they were 
blockading him. 14 One of Scipio's legions, with five thousand of' the allies, was 
immediately sent off into Gaul under another prsetor, C. Atilius Serranus ; and 
Scipio waited till his own army should again be completed by new levies. Thus, 
he cannot have left Rome till late in the summer ; and when he arrived with his 
fleet and army at the mouth of the eastern branch of the Rhone, he found that 
Hannibal had crossed the Pyrenees ; but he still hoped to impede his passage 
of the river. 

Hannibal meanwhile, having set out from New Carthage with an army of 
Hannibal conquers the 90,000 foot and 12,000 horse, crossed the Iberus; 15 and from 
north of spam. thenceforward the hostile operations of his march began. He 

might, probably, have marched through the country between the Iberus and the 
Pyrenees, had that been his sole object, as easily as he made his way from the 
Pyrenees to the Rhone ; a few presents and civilities would easily have induced 
the Spanish chiefs to allow him a free passage. But some of the tribes north- 
ward of the Iberus were friendly to Rome : on the coast were the Greek cities 
of Rhoda and Emporia?, Massaliot colonies, and thus attached to the Romans as 
the old allies of their mother city : if this part of Spain were left unconquered, 
the Romans would immediately make use of it as the base of their operations, 
and proceed from thence to attack the whole Carthaginian dominion. Accord- 
inglv, Hannibal employed his army in subduing the whole country, which he 
effected with no great loss of time, but at a heavy expense of men, as he was 
Obliged to carry the enemy's strongholds by assault, rather than incur the delay 
of besieging them. He left Hanno with eleven thousand men to retain posses- 
sion of the newly conquered country ; and he further diminished his army by 
sending home as many more of his Spanish soldiers, probably those who had 
most distinguished themselves, as an earnest to the rest, that they too, if they 
did their duty well, might expect a similar release, and might look forward to 
return ere long to their homes full of spoil and of glory. These detachments, 
together with the heavy loss sustained in the field, reduced the force with which 
Hannibal entered Gaul to no more than 50,000 foot and 9000 horse. 16 

From the Pyrenees to the Rhone his progress was easy. Here he had no wish 
to make regular conquests; and presents to the chiefs mostly succeeded in con- 

11 Polybius. 1IT. 40, 41. " Polybius, 111.40. 

12 Polybius. III. 40. ib Polybius, m. 35. Livy, XXI. '23. 

13 Liv'v, XXI. M. la Polybius, 111. 35. 



Chap.XEIIL] HANNIBAL'S PREPARATIONS. 475 

ciliating their friendship, so that he was allowed to pass freely. H e marches to the 
But on the left bank of the Rhone the influence of the Massaliots Rhone - 
with the Gaulish tribes had disposed them to resist the invader ; and the passage 
of the Rhone was not to be effected without a contest. 

* Scipio, by this time, had landed his army near the eastern mouth of the Rhone ; 
and his information of Hannibal's movements was vague and imper- 

S e Scipio's movements. 

feet. His men had suffered from sea-sickness on their voyage from 
Pisa to the Rhone ; and he wished to give them a short time to recover their 
strength and spirits, before he led them against the enemy. He still felt confi- 
dent that Hannibal's advance from the Pyrenees must be slow, supposing that lie 
would be obliged to fight his way ; so that he never doubted that he should have 
ample time to oppose his passage of the Rhone. Meanwhile he sent out 300 
horse, with some Gauls, who were in the service of the Massaliots, ordering them 
to ascend the left bank of the Rhone, and discover, if possible, the situation of 
the enemy. He seems to have been unwilling to place the river on his rear, and 
therefore never to have thought of conducting his operations on the right bank, 
or even of sending out reconnoitring parties in this direction. 11 

The resolution which Scipio formed a few days afterwards, of sending his army 
to Spain, when he himself returned to Italy, was deserving of such rT . 

r » , • -i ■ #• >■ Hannibal's prepara- 

hiali praise, that we must hesitate to accuse him of over caution tions for passing the 

O .r * . . , -^y -i • • •ii Rhone. 

or needless delay at this critical moment. Yet he was sitting idle 
at the mouth of the Rhone, while the Gauls were vainly endeavoring to oppose 
Hannibal's passage of the river. We must understand that Hannibal kept his 
army as far away from the sea as possible, in order to conceal his movements from 
the Romans ; therefore he came upon the Rhone, not on the line of the later 
Roman road from Spain to Italy, which crossed the river at Tarasco, between 
Avignon and Aries, but at a point much higher up, above its confluence with the 
Durance, and nearly half way, if we can trust Polybius' reckoning, from the sea 
to its confluence with the Isere. 18 Here he obtained from the natives on the 
right bank, by paying a fixed price, all their boats and vessels of every descrip- 
tion with which they were accustomed to traffic down the river : they allowed 
him also to cut timber for the construction of others ; and thus in two days he 
was provided with the means of transporting his army. But finding that the 
Gauls were assembled on the eastern bank to oppose his passage, he sent off a 
detachment of his army by night with native guides, to ascend the right bank, 
for about two-and-twenty miles, and there to cross as they could, where there 
was no enemy to stop them. The woods, which then lined the river, supplied 
this detachment with the means of constructing barks and rafts enough for the 
passage ; they took advantage of one of the many islands in this part of the 
Rhone, to cross where the stream was divided ; and thus they all reached the 
left bank in safety. There they took up a strong position, probably one of those 
strange masses of rock which rise here and there with steep cliffy sides like islands 
out of the vast plain, and rested for four-and-twenty hours after their exertions 
in the march and the passage of the river. 

Hannibal allowed eight-and-forty hours to pass from the time when the de- 
tachment left his camp ; and then, on the morning of the fifth day The army crosse3 the 
after his arrival on the Rhone, he made his preparations for the mer- 
passage of his main army. The mighty stream of the river, fed by the snows of 
the high Alps, is swelled rather than diminished by the heats of summer ; so 
that, although the season was that when the southern rivers are generally at their 
lowest, it was rolling the vast mass of its waters along with a startling fulneso 
and rapidity. The heaviest vessels were therefore placed on the left, highest up 
the stream, to form something of a breakwater for the smaller craft crossing be- 
low ; the small boats held the flower of the light-armed foot, while the cavalry 

17 Folybius, II. 41. Livy, XXI. 26. 18 Polybius, III. 42. 



476 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIIL 

were in the larger vessels ; most of the horses being towed astern swimming, and 
a single soldier holding three or four together by their bridles. Every thing was 
ready, and the Gauls on the opposite side had poured out of their camp, and 
lined the bank in scattered groups at the most accessible points, thinking that 
their task of stopping the enemy's landing would be easily accomplished. At 
length Hannibal's eye observed a column of smoke rising on the farther shore, 
above or on the right of the barbarians. This was the concerted signal which: 
assured him of the arrival of his detachment ; and he instantly ordered his men 
to embark, and to push across with all possible speed. They pulled vigorously 
against the rapid stream, cheering each other to the work ; while behind them 
were their friends, cheering them also from the bank ; and before them were the 
Gauls sinoino- their warsono-s, and callino- them to come on with tones and <jes- 
tures of defiance. But on a sudden a mass of fire was seen on the rear of the 
barbarians ; the Gauls on the bank looked behind, and began to turn away from 
the river ; and presently the blight arms and white linen coats of the African and 
Spanish soldiers- appeared above the bank, breaking in upon the disordt_il'y hne 
of the Gauls. Hannibal himself, who was with the party crossing the river, 
leapedon shore amongst the first, and forming his men as fast as they landed . led 
them instantly to the charge. But the Gauls, confused and bewildered, made 
little resistance ; they fled in utter rout ; whilst Hannibal, not losing a moment, 
sent back his vessels and boats for a fresh detachment of his army ; and before 
night his whole force, with the exception of his elephants, was safely established 
on the eastern side of the Rhone. 19 

As the river was no longer between him and the enemy, Hannibal early on the 

next morning sent out a party of Numidian cavalry to discover 
from the cisalpine the position and number of Scipio's forces, and then called his 

army together, to see and hear the communications of some chiefs of 
the Cisalpine Gauls, who were just arrived from the other side of the Alps. Their 
words were explained to the Africans and Spaniards in the army by interpreters; 
but the very sight of the chiefs was itself an encouragement ; for it told the soldiers 
that the communication with Cisalpine Gaul was not impracticable, and that the 
Gauls had undertaken so long a journey for the purpose of obtaining the aid of 
the Carthaginian army against their old enemies, the Romans. Besides, the in- 
terpreters explained to the soldiers that the chiefs undertook to guide them into 
Italy by a short and safe route, on which they would be able to find provisions ; 
and spoke strongly of the great extent and richness of Italy, when they did 
arrive there, and how zealously the Gauls would aid them. Hannibal then came 
forward himself and addressed his army : their work, he said, was more than 
half accomplished by the passage of the Rhone ; their own eyes and ears had 
witnessed the zeal of their Gaulish allies in their cause; for the rest, their busi- 
ness was to do their duty, and obey his orders implicitly, leaving every thing 
else to him. The cheers and shouts of the soldiers again satisfied him how fully 
he might depend upon them ; and he then addressed his prayers and vows to 
the gods of Carthage, imploring them to watch over the army, and to prosper its 
work to the end, as they had prospered its beginning. The soldiers were now 
dismissed, with orders to prepare for their march on the morrow. 20 

Scarcely was the assembly broken up, when some of the Numidians who had 

been sent out in the morning, were seen riding for their lives to 
adietumto the camp, manifestly in flight from a victorious enemy. ^«"t halt 

of the original party returned ; for the)- had fallen in with Seipio's 
detachment of Roman and Gaulish horse, and, after an obstinate conflict, had been 
completely beaten. Presently alter, the Roman horsemen appeared in pursuit ; but 
when they observed the Carthaginian camp, they wheeled about and rode off, to 
carry back word to their general. Then at last Scipio put his army in motion* and 

» Polybius, III. 42, 43. » Polybius, III. 44. 



Chap. XLIII.] MARCH THROUGH GAUL. 477 

ascended the left bank of the river to find and engage the enemy. 21 But when 
he arrived at the spot where his cavalry had seen the Carthaginian camp, he 
found it deserted, and was told that Hannibal had been gone three days, having 
marched northwards, ascending the left bank of the river. To follow him seemed 
desperate : it was plunging into a country wholly unknown to the Romans, where 
they had neither allies nor guides, nor resources of any kind ; and where the 
natives, over and above the common jealousy felt by all barbarians towards a 
foreign army, were likely, as Gauls, to regard the Romans with peculiar hostility. 
But if Hannibal could not be followed now, he might easily be met on his first 
arrival in Italy ; from the mouth of the Rhone to Pisa was the chord of a circle, 
while Hannibal was going to make a long circuit ; and the Romans had an army 
already in Cisalpine Gaul; while the enemy would reach the scene of action ex- 
hausted with the fatigues and privations of his march across the Alps. Accord- 
ingly, Scipio descended the Rhone again, embarked us army and sent it on to 
Spain under the command of his brother, Cnseus Scipio, as his lieutenant ; while 
he himself, in his own ship, sailed for Pisa, and immediately crossed the Apennines 
to take the command of the forces of the two praetors, Manlius and Atilius, who, 
as we have seen, had an army of about 25,000 men, over and above the colonists 
of Placentia and Cremona, still disposable in Cisalpine Gaul. 22 

This resolution of Scipio to send his own army on to Spain, and to meet Han- 
nibal with the army of the two praetors, appears to show that he wi3d0m of this reso i u . 
possessed the highest qualities of a general, which involve the tlon- 
wisdom of a statesman no less than of a soldier. As a mere military question, 
his calculation, though baffled by the event, was sound ; but if we view it in a 
higher light, the importance to the Romans of retaining their hold on Spain 
would have justified a far greater hazard ; for if the Carthaginians were suffered 
to consolidate their dominion in Spain, and to avail themselves of its immense 
resources, not in money only, but in men, the hardiest and steadiest of barbari- 
ans, and, under the training of such generals as Hannibal and his brother, equal 
to the best soldiers in the world, the Romans would hardly have been able to 
maintain the contest. Had not P. Scipio then dispatched his army to Spain at 
this critical moment, instead of carrying it home to Italy, his son in all probability 
would never have won the battle of Zama. 

Meanwhile Hannibal, on the day after the skirmish with Scipio's horse, had 
sent forward his infantry, keeping the cavalry to cover his opera- The elephants are car- 
tions, as he still expected the Romans to pursue him; while he riedover the Rllone - 
himself waited to superintend the passage of the elephants. These were thirty- 
seven in number ; and their dread of the water made their transport a very diffi- 
cult operation. It was effected by fastening to the bank large rafts of 200 feet 
in length, covered carefully with earth : to the end of these smaller rafts were 
attached, covered with earth in the same manner, and with towing lines extended 
to a number' of the largest barks, which were to tow them over the stream. The 
elephants, two females leading the way, were brought upon the rafts by their 
drivers without difficulty ; and as soon as they came upon the smaller rafts, these 
were cut loose at once from the larger, and towed out into the middle of the 
river. Some of the elephants, in their terror, leaped overboard, and drowned 
their drivers ; but they themselves, it is said, held their huge trunks above water, 
and struggled to the shore ; so that the whole thirty-seven were landed in 
safety. 23 Then Hannibal called in his cavalry, and covering his march with them 
and with the elephants, set forward up the left bank of the Rhone to overtake 
the infantry. 

In four days they reached the spot where the Isere, 24 coming down from the 
main Alps, brings to the Rhone a stream hardly less full or mighty Hannibal's march 
than his own'. In the plains above the confluence two Gaulish through Gaui. 

31 Polybius, III. 45. 23 Polybius, III. 46. Livy, XXI. 28. 

32 Polybius, III. 47. M Polybius, III. 49. 



478 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIL. 

brothers were contending which should be chief of their tribe ; and the elder 
called in the stranger general to support his cause. Hannibal readily com- 
plied, established him firmly on the throne, and received important aid from him 
in return. He supplied the Carthaginian army plentifully with provisions, fur- 
nished them with new arms, gave them new clothing, especially shoes, which 
were found very useful in the subsequent march, and accompanied them to the 
first entrance on the mountain country, to secure them from attacks on the part 
of his countrymen. 

The attentive reader, who is acquainted with the geography of the Alps and 
Difficulty of determ-m- their neighborhood, will perceive that this account of Hannibal's 
inghishneofmarcii. marc h i s vague. It does not appear whether the Carthaginians 
ascended the left bank of the Isere, or the right bank ; or whether they continued 
to ascend the Rhone for a time, and leaving it only so far as to avoid the great 
angle which it makes at Lyons, rejoined it again just before they entered the 
mountain country, a little to the left of the present road from Lyons to Cham- 
berri. : But these uncertainties cannot now be removed, because Polybius neither 
possessed a sufficient knowledge of the bearings of the country, nor sufficient 
liveliness as a painter, to describe the line of the march so as to be clearly recog- 
nized. I believe, however, that Hannibal crossed the Isere, and continued to 
ascend the Rhone ; and that afterwards, striking off to the right across the plains 
of Dauphine, he reached what Polybius calls the first ascent of the Alps, at the 
northern extremity of that ridge of limestone mountains, which, rising abruptly 
from the plain to the height of 4000 or 5000 feet, and filling up the whole space 
between the Rhone at Belley and the Isere below Grenoble, first introduces the 
traveller coming from Lyons to the remarkable features of Alpine scenery. 

At the end of the lowland country, the Gaulish chief, who had accompanied 
Hannibal thus far, took leave of him : his influence probably did 
mountaineers ready to not extend to the Alpine valleys ; and the mountaineers, far from 
respecting his safe-conduct, might be in the habit of making plun- 
dering inroads on his own territory. Here then Hannibal was left to himself ; and he 
found that the natives were prepared to beset his passage. They occupied all such 
points as commanded the road ; which, as usual, was a sort of terrace cut in the 
mountain side, overhanging the valley whereby it penetrated to the central ridge. 
But as the mountain line is of no great breadth here, the natives guarded the 
defile only by day, and withdrew when night came on to their own homes, in a 
town or village among the mountains, and lying in the valley behind them. 20 Han- 
nibal, having learnt this from some of his Gaulish guides whom he sent among 
them, encamped in their sight just below the entrance of the defile; and as soon 
as it was dusk, he set out with a detachment of light troops, made his way 
through the pass, and occupied the positions which the barbarians, after their 
usual practice, had abandoned at the approach of night. 

Day dawned ; the main army broke up from its camp, and began to enter the 
defile ; while the natives, finding their positions occupied by the 
enemy, at first looked on quietly, and offered no disturbance to 
the march. But when they saw the long narrow line of the Carthaginian army 
winding along the steep mountain side, and the cavalry and baggage-eat tie 
struggling at every step with the difficulties of the road, the temptation to plun- 
der was too strong to be resisted ; and from many points of the mountain above 
the road they rushed down upon the Carthaginians. The confusion was terrible ; 
for the road or track was so narrow, that the least crowd or disorder pushed 
the heavily loaded baggage-cattle down the steep below ; and the horses, 
wounded by the barbarians' missiles, and plunging about wildly in their pain 
and terror, increased the mischief. At last Hannibal was obliged to charge 
down from his position, which commanded the whole scene of confusion, and 

» Polybius, III. 50. 



Chap. XLIIL] PASSAGE OF THE ALPS. 479 

to drive the barbarians off. This he effected ; yet the conflict of so many men 
on the narrow road made the disorder worse for a time ; and he unavoidably 
occasioned the destruction of many of his own men. 26 At last, the barbarians 
being quite beaten off, the army wound its way out of the defile in safety, and 
rested in the wide and rich valley which extends from the lake of Bourget, with 
scarcely a perceptible change of level, to the Isere at Montmeillan. Hannibal 
meanwhile attacked and stormed the town, which was the barbarians' principal 
stronghold ; and here he not only recovered a great many of his own men, horses, 
and baggage-cattle, but also found a large supply of corn and cattle belonging 
to the barbarians, which he immediately made use of for the consumption of his 
soldiers. 

In the plain which he had now reached, he halted for a whole day, and then, 
resuming his march, proceeded for three days up the valley of the Diffionlt ;es f tho 
Isere on the right bank, without encountering any difficulty. Then mnrch - 
the natives met him with branches of trees in their hands, and wreaths on their 
heads in token of peace : they spoke fairly, offered hostages, and wished, they 
said, neither to do the Carthaginians any injury, nor to receive any from them. 
Hannibal mistrusted them, yet did not wish to offend them ; he accepted their 
terms, received their hostages, and obtained large supplies of cattle ; and their 
whole behavior seemed so trustworthy, that at last he accepted %eir guidance, 
it is said, through a difficult part of the country, which he was now approach- 
ing. 27 For all the Alpine valleys become narrower, as they draw nearer to the 
central chain ; and the mountains often come so close to the stream, that the 
roads in old times were often obliged to leave the valley and ascend the hills by 
any accessible point, to descend again, when the gorge became wider, and follow 
the stream as before. If this is not done, and the track is carried nearer the 
river, it passes often through defiles of the most formidable character, being no 
more than a narrow ledge above a furious torrent, with cliffs rising above it ab- 
solutely precipitous, and coming down on the other side of the torrent abruptly 
to the water, leaving no passage by which man or even goat could make its 
way. 

It appears that the barbarians persuaded * Hannibal to pass through one 
of these defiles, instead of going round it ; and while his army was Attacks of the mount- 
involved in it, they suddenly, and without provocation, as we are aincers - 
told, atacked him. Making their way along the mountain sides above the defile, 
they rolled down masses of rock on the Carthaginians below, or even threw 
stones upon them from their hands, stones and rocks being equally fatal against 
an enemy so entangled. It was well for Hannibal, that, still doubting the bar- 
barians' faith, he had sent forward his cavalry and baggage, and covered the 
march with his infantry, who thus had to sustain the brunt of the attack.! Foot 
soldiers on such ground were able to move, where horses would be quite help- 
less ; and thus at last Hannibal, with his infantry, forced his way to the summit 
of one of the bare cliffs overhanging the defile, and remained there during the 
night, whilst the cavalry and baggage slowly struggled out of the defile. 23 Thus 
again baffled, the barbarians made no more general attacks on the army ; some 
partial annoyance was occasioned at intervals, and some baggage was carried off; 
but it was observed, that wherever the elephants were, the line of march was 
secure ; for the barbarians beheld those huge creatures with terror, having never 
had the slightest knowledge of them, and net daring to approach when they saw 
them. 

Without any further recorded difficulty, the army on the ninth day after they 
had left the plains of Dauphine arrived at the summit of the H anmbai reaches the 
central ridge of the Alps. Here there is always a plain of some » Km ™ itoftlieA1 P 5 - 

56 Polybius, III. 51. w Polybius, III. 53. 

27 Polybius, III. 52. 



480 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

extent, immediately overhung by the snowy summits of the high mountains, but 
itself in summer presenting in many parts a carpet of the freshest grass, with 
the chalets of the shepherds scattered over it, and gay with a thousand flowers. 
But far different is its aspect through the greatest part of the year : then it is 
one unvaried waste of snow ; and the little lakes, which on many ot the passes 
enliven the summer landscape, are now frozen over and covered with snow, so as 
to be no longer distinguishable. Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about 
1he end of October : the first winter snows had already fallen ; but two hundred 
years before the Christian era, when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate 
of the Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on the passes all 
through the year. Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters ; they remained 
two days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving opportunity to 
many of the stragglers, and of the horses and cattle, to rejoin them by following 
their track : but they were cold, and worn, and disheartened ; and mountains still 
rose before them, through which, as they knew too well, even their descent 
might be perilous and painful. 

But their great general, who felt that he now stood victorious on the ramparts 
of Italv, and that the torrent which rolled before him was carry- 

Looks down upon Italy. . , J . .,-. _ ~ . , . ~ , , - J 

ing its waters to the rich plains or Cisalpine Caul, endeavored to 
kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of hope. He called them together ; he 
pointed out the valley beneath, to which the descent seemed the work of a mo- 
ment : " That valley," he said, " is Italy ; it leads us to the country of our friends 
the Gauls ; and yonder is our way to Rome." His eyes were eagerly, fixed on 
that point of the horizon ; and as he gazed, the distance between seemed to van- 
ish, till he could almost fancy that he was crossing the Tiber, and assailing the 
capitol. 29 

After the two days' rest the descent began. Hannibal experienced no more 
open hostility from the barbarians, only some pett)? - attempts here 
and there to plunder ; a fact strange in itself, but doubly so, if he 
was really descending the valley of the Doria Baltea, through the country of the 
Salassians, the most untamable robbers of all the Alpine barbarians. It is possible 
that the influence of the Insubrians may partly have restrained the mountaineers ; 
and partly also they may have been deterred by the ill success of all former 
attacks, and may by this time have regarded the strange army and its monstrous 
beasts with something of superstitious terror. But the natural difficulties of the 
ground on the descent were greater than ever. The snow covered the track so 
that the men often lost it, and fell down the steep below : at last they came to a 
place where an avalanche had carried it away altogether for about three hundred 
yards, leaving the mountain side a mere wreck of scattered rocks and snow. To 
go round was impossible ; for the depth of the snow on the heights above ren- 
dered it hopeless to scale them ; nothing therefore was left but to repair the road. 
A summit of some extent was found, and cleared of the snow ; and here the 
army was obliged to encamp, whilst the work went on. There was no want of 
hands ; and every man was laboring for his life ; the road therefore was restored, 
and supported with solid substructions below ; and in a single day it was made 
practicable for the cavalry and baggage- cattle, which were immediately sent for- 
ward, and reached the lower valley in safety, where they were turned out 
to pasture. A harder labor was required to make a passage for the elephants : 
the way for them must be wide and solid ; and the work could not be accom- 
plished in less than three days. The poor animals suffered severely in the inter- 
val from hunger; for no forage was to be found in that wilderness of snow, nor 
any trees whose leaves might supply the place of other herbage. At last they 
too were able to proceed with safety: 80 Hannibal overtook his cavalry and bag- 
gage ; and in three days more the whole army had got clear of the Alpine val- 

" Polybius, III. 54. Livy, XXI. 35. a0 Polybius, III. 54, 55. 



Chap. XLIIL] HANNIBAL ARRIVES IN ITALY. 481 

leys, and entered the country of their friends, the Insubrians, on the wide plain 
of northern Italy. 

Hannibal was arrived in Italy, but with a force so weakened by its losses "n 
men and horses, and by the exhausted state of the survivors, that Arrival in IUlly . 
he might seem to have accomplished his great march in vain. on th0 mar<ai " 
According to his own statement, which there is no reason to doubt, he brought 
out of the Alpine valleys no more than 12,000 African and 8000 Spanish in- 
fantry, with 6000 cavalry; 31 so that his march from the Pyrenees to the 'plains 
of northern Italy must have cost him 33,000 men; an enormous loss, which 
proves how severely the army must have suffered from the privations of the march 
and the severity of the Alpine climate; for not half of these 33,000 men can 
have fallen in battle. With his army in this condition, some period of repose 
was absolutely necessary ; accordingly, Hannibal remained in the country of the 
Insubrians, till rest, and a more temperate climate, and wholesome food, with 
which the Gauls plentifully supplied him, restored the bodies and spirits of his 
soldiers, and made them again ready for action. 32 His first movement was against 
the Taurinians, a Ligurian people, who were constant enemies of the Insubrians, 
and therefore would not listen to Hannibal, when he invited them to join his 
cause. He therefore attacked and stormed their principal town, put the gar- 
rison to the sword, and struck such terror into the neighboring tribes, that they 
submitted immediately, and became his allies. This was his first accession of 
strength in Italy, the first fruits, as he hoped, of a long succession of defections 
among the allies of Rome, so that the swords of the Italians might effect for him 
the conquest of Italy. 

Meanwhile Scipio had landed at Pisa, had crossed the Apennines, and taken 
the command of the prsetors' army, sending the prsetors themselves Sc - ipi0 m!iKhea t0 meet 
back to Eome, had crossed the Po at Placen'' vas ascending bun - 

its left bank, being anxious to advance with ; _.a3ible haste, in order to 1 " r '. - 
a general rising of the Gauls by his presence. 33 Hannibal, for the opposii 
son, was equally anxious to meet him, being well aware that the Gauls v. ore 
only restrained from revolting to the Carthaginians by fear, and that on his first 
success in the field they would join him. 34 He therefore descended the left bank 
of the Po, keeping the river on his right ; and Scipio having thrown a bridge 
over the Ticinus, had entered what are now the Sardinian dominions, and was 
still advancing westward, with the Po on his left, although, as the river here 
makes a bend to the southward, he was no longer in its immediate neighborhood. 35 

Each general was aware that his enemy was at hand, and both pushed for- 
ward with their cavalry and light troops in advance of their main Engagement on the 
armies, to reconnoiter each other's position and numbers. Thus T,c,ous - 
was brought on accidentally the first action between Hannibal and the Romans 
in Italy, which, with some exaggeration, has been called the battle of the Tici* 
nus. 36 The Numidians in Hannibal's army, being now properly supported by 
heavy cavalry, were able to follow their own manner of fighting, and, falling on 
the flanks and rear of the Romans, who were already engaged in front with 
Hannibal's heavy horsemen, took ample vengeance for their defeat on the Rhone. 
The Romans were routed ; and the consul himself was severely wounded, and 
owed his life, it is said, to the courage and fidelity of a Ligurian slave. 31 With 
their cavalry thus crippled, it was impossible to act in such an open country ; the 
Romans therefore hastily retreated, recrossed the Ticinus, and broke down the 
bridge, yet with so much hurry and confusion, that 600 men were left on the 
right bank, and fell into the enemy's hands ; and then, crossing the Po also, estab- 
lished themselves under the walls of their colony, Placentia. 

31 Polybius, III. 56. 35 Polybius, III. 64. 

32 Polybius, III. 60. 36 Polybius, III. 65. 

33 Polybius, III. 56. ' 37 Polybius, III. 66. Livy, XXI. 46. 

34 Polybius, III. 60. 

31 



482 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLITL 

Hannibal, finding the bridge over the Ticinus destroyed, reascended the left 
bank of the Po till he found a convenient point to cross, and then, 
having constructed a bridge with the river boats, carried over his 
army in safety. Immediately, as he had expected, the Gauls on the right bank 
received him with open arms ; and again descending the river, he arrived on the 
second day after his passage in sight of the Roman army, and on the following 
day offered them battle. But as the Romans did not move, he chose out a spot 
for his camp, and posted his army five or six miles from the enemy, and appa- 
rently on the east of Placentia, cutting off their direct communication with Ari- 
minum and Borne. 38 

On the first news of Hannibal's arrival in Italy, the senate had sent orders to 
the other consul, Ti. Sempronius, to return immediately to rein- 
sempromus joins sd- force his colleague. 39 No event of importance had marked the 
first summer of the war in Sicily. Hannibal's spirit so animated 
the Carthaginian government, that they were everywhere preparing to act on 
the offensive ; and before the arrival of Sempronius, M. ^Emilius, the praetor, 
had already had to fight a naval action with the enemy, in order to defend Lily- 
baaum. 40 He had defeated them, and prevented their landing, but the Cartha- 
ginian fleets still kept the sea ; and whilst Sempronius was employing his whole 
force in the conquest of the island of Melita, the enemy were cruising on the 
northern side of Sicily, and making descents on the coast of Italy. On his return 
to Lilybaeum he was going in pursuit of them, when he received orders to return 
home and join his colleague. He accordingly left part of his fleet with the prae- 
tor in Sicily, and part he committed to Sex. Pomponius, his lieutenant, for the 
protection of the* coasts of Lucania and Campania ; while, from a dread of the 
dangers and delays of the winter navigation of the Adriatic, his army was to 
march from Lilybaeum to Messana, and, after crossing the strait, to go by land 
through the whole length of Italy, the soldiers being bound by oath to appear 
on a certain day at Ariminum. They completed their long march, it is said, in 
forty days ; and from Ariminum they hastened to the scene of action, and effected 
their junction with the army of Scipio. 41 

Sempronius found his colleague no longer in his original position, close by 
Position of the Roman Placentia and the Po, but withdrawn to the first hills which bound 
anny - the great plain on the south, and leave an interval here of about 

six miles between themselves and the river. 4 ' 2 But Hannibal's army lying, as it 
seems, to the eastward, the Roman consul retreated westward, and leaving Pla- 
centia to its own resources, crossed to the left bank of the Trebia, and there lay 
encamped, just where the stream issues from the last hills of the Apennines. It 
appears that the Romans had several magazines on the right bank of the Po 
above Placentia, on which the consul probably depended for his subsistence ; and 
these posts, together with the presence of his army, kept the Gauls on the im- 
mediate bank of the river quiet, so that they gave Hannibal no assistance. When 
the Romans fell back behind the Trebia, Hannibal followed them, and encamped 
about five miles off from them, directly between them and Placentia. 43 But his 
powerful cavalry kept his communications open in every direction ; and the Gauls 
who lived out of the immediate control of the Roman army and garrisons, sup- 
plied him with provisions abundantly. 

It is not explained by any existing writer how Sempronius was able to effect 
, . , his junction with his colleague without any opposition from Han- 

Hnnnibal'o policy. ., •' „,. , . ° » • • , i->i i_- 

nibal. I he regular road lrom Anmmum to Placentia passes 
through a country unvaried by a single hill ; and the approach of a large army 
should have been announced to Hannibal by his Numidian cavalry, soon enough 
to allow him to interrupt it. But so much in war depends upon trifling accidents, 

38 Polybius, III. m. "' Polybius, III. 6i, GS. Livy, XXI. 51. 

3U Polybius. 01.61. « Polybius, HI- 6H\ 

40 Livy, XXI. 49, 50. 43 Polybius, III. 68. 



Chap. XLIIL] SEMPRONIUS ATTACKS HANNIBAL. 433 

that it is in vain to guess where we are without information. We only know 
that the two consular armies were united in Scipio's position on the left bank of 
the Trebia ; that their united forces amounted to 40,000 men ; and that Hanni- 
bal, with an army so reinforced by the Gauls since his arrival in Italy, that it was 
little inferior to his enemy's, 44 was so far from fearing to engage either consul 
singly, that he wished for nothing so much as to bring on a decisive battle with 
the combined armies of both. Depending on the support of the Gauls for his 
subsistence, he must not be too long a burden to them ; they had hoped to be 
led to live on the plunder of the enemy's country, not to maintain him at the 
expense of their own. In order to force the Romans to a battle, he began to 
attack their magazines. Clastidium, now Castiggio, a small town on the right 
bank of the Po, nearly opposite to the mouth of the Ticinus, was betrayed into 
his hands by the governor; and he here found large supplies of corn. 45 

On the other hand, Sempronius, having no fears for the event of a battle, was 
longing for the glory of a triumph over such an enemy as Hanni- Sempt0llks com 
bal ; 46 and as Scipio was still disabled by his wound, he had the m7 d aU h l s R a n™ua a to 
command of the whole Roman army. Besides, the Gauls who en s a s e - 
lived in the plain between the Trebia and Placentia, not knowing which side to 
espouse, had been plundered by Hannibal's cavalry, and besought the consuls to 
protect them. This was no time, Sempronius thought, to neglect any ally who 
still remained faithful to Rome : he sent out his cavalry and light troops over the 
Trebia to drive off the plunderers ; and in such skirmishes he obtained some 
partial success, which made him the more disposed to risk a general battle. 47 

For this, as a Roman officer, and before Hannibal's military talents were fully 
known, he ought not to be harshly judged ; but his manner of en- 
gaging was rash, and unworthy of an able general. He allowed 
the attacks of Hannibal's light cavalry to tempt him to follow them to their own 
field of battle. Early in the morning the Numidians crossed the river, and skir- 
mished close up to the Roman camp : the consul first sent out his cavalry, and 
then his light infantry, to repel them ; 48 and when they gave way and recrossed 
the river, he led his regular infantry out of his camp, and gave orders for the 
whole army to advance over the Trebia and attack the enemy. 

It was mid-winter, and the wide pebbly bed of the Trebia, which the summer 
traveller may almost pass dry-shod, was now filled with a rapid commencement of the 
stream running breast-high. In the night it had rained or snowed battle on the Trebia " 
heavily ; and the morning was raw and chilly, threatening sleet or snow. 49 Yet 
Sempronius led his soldiers through the river, before they had eaten any thing ; 
and wet, cold, and hungry as they were, he formed them in order of battle on 
the plain. Meanwhile Hannibal's men had eaten their breakfast in their tents, 
and had oiled their bodies, and put on their armor around their fires. Then, 
when the enemy had crossed the Trebia, and were advancing in the open plain, 
the Carthaginians marched out to meet them ; and about a mile in front of their 
camp, they formed in order of battle. Their disposition was simple : the heavy 
infantry, Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans, to the number of 20,000, were drawn 
up in a single line ; the cavalry, 10,000 strong, was, with the elephants, on the 
two wings ; the light infantry and Balerian slingers were in the front of the 
whole army. This was all Hannibal's visible force. But near the Trebia, and 
now left in their rear by the advancing Roman legions, were lying close hid in 
the deep and overgrown bed of a small water-course, two thousand picked sol- 
diers, horse and foot, commanded by Hannibal's younger brother, Mago, whom 
he had posted there during the night, and whose ambush the Romans passed 
with no suspicion. Arrived on the field of battle, the legions were formed in 
their usual order, with the allied infantry on the wings ; and their weak cavalry 

44 Polybius, III. 72. Livy, XXI. 52. 47 Polybius, III. 69. 

45 Polybius, III. 69. « Polybius, III. 71. 

46 Polybius, III. 70. 40 Polybius, III. 72. 



484 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

of 4000 men, ill able to contend with the numerous horsemen of Hannibal, were 
on the flanks of the whole line. 

The Roman velites, or light infantry, who had been in action since daybreak, 
and bad already shot away half their darts and arrows, were 

Defeat of the Roman ,. . J , , i i , , • i •• ■. , 

light im-antry and cay- soon driven back upon the hastati and prmcipes, and passed 
through the intervals of the maniples to the rear. With no less 
ease were the cavalry beaten on both wings, by Hannibal's horse and elephants. 
But when the heavy infantry, superior in numbers and better armed both for 
offence and defence, closed with the enemy, the confidence of Sempronius seemed 
to be justified : and the Romans, numbed and exhausted as they were, yet, by 
their excellence in all soldierly qualities, maintained the fight with equal ad- 
vantage. 50 

On a sudden a loud alarm was heard ; and Mago, with his chosen band, broke 
Ront of the whole ou t from his ambush, and assaulted them furiously in the rear. 
army ' Meantime both wings of the Roman infantry were broken down 

by the elephants, and overwhelmed by the missiles of the light infantry, till they 
were utterly routed, and fled towards the Trebia. The legions in the centre, 
finding themselves assailed on the rear, pushed desperately forwards, forced their 
way through the enemy's line, and marched off the field straight to Placentia. 
Many of the routed cavalry made off in the same direction, and so escaped. But 
those who fled towards the river were slaughtered unceasingly by the conquerors 
till they reached it ; and the loss here was enormous. The Carthaginians, how- 
ever, stopped their pursuit on the brink of the Trebia : the cold was piercing, and 
to the elephants so intolerable that they almost all perished ; even of the men and 
horses many were lost, so that the wreck of the Roman army reached their camp 
in safety ; and when night came on, Scipio again led them across the river, and, 
passing unnoticed by the camp of the enemy, took refuge with his colleague 
within the walls of Placentia. 51 

So ended Hannibal's first campaign in Italy. The Romans, after their defeat, 
despaired of maintaining their ground on the Po ; and the two 
consular armies retreated in opposite directions, Scipio's upon 
Ariminum, and that of Sempronius across the Apennines into Etruria. Hannibal 
remained master of Cisalpine Gaul ; but the season did not allow him to besiege 
Placentia and Cremona ; and the temper of the Gauls rendered it evident that 
he must not make their country the seat of war in another campaign. Already 
they bore the burden of supporting his army so impatiently, that he made an at- 
tempt, in the dead of the winter, to cross the Apennines into Etruria, and was only 
driven back by the extreme severity of the weather, the wind sweeping with such 
fury over the ridges, and through the passes of the mountains, that neither man 
nor beast could stand against it. 52 He was forced therefore to winter in Gaul ; 
but the innate fickleness and treachery of the people led him to suspect that 
attempts would be made against his life, and that a Gaulish assassin might hope 
to purchase forgiveness from the Romans for his country's revolt, by destroying 
the general who had seduced them. He therefore put on a variety of disguises 
to baffle such designs ; he wore false hair, appearing sometimes as a man of 
mature years, and sometimes with the gray hairs of old age ; 53 and if he had that 
taste for humor which great men are seldom without, and which some anecdotes 
of him imply, he must have been often amused by the mistakes thus occasioned, 
and have derived entertainment from that which policy or necessity had dictated. 
We should be glad to catch a distinct view of the state of Rome, when the 
news first arrived of the battle of the Trebia. Since the disaster of 

Flamiuiua is chosen -~, , . ,, iii ic ,1 iji 

consul and takea the Laudium, more than a hundred years betore, there had been 
known no defeat of two consular armies united ; and the surprise 

60 Polvbius, III. 73. w Livv, XXI. 58. 

" Polybius, 111. 74. M Polybius, III. 78. 



Chap. XLIIL] HANNIBAL ENTERS ETRURIA. 485 

and vexation must have been great. Sempronius, it is said, returned to Rome 
to hold the comitia ; and the people resolved to elect as consul a man who, how- 
ever unwelcome to the "aristocracy, had already distinguished himself by brilliant 
victories in the very country which was now the seat of war. They accordingly 
chose C. Flaminius for the second time consul ; and with him was elected Cn. Ser- 
vilius Geminus, a man of an old patrician family, and personally attached to the 
aristocratical party, but unknown to us before his present consulship. Flaminius' 
election was most unpalatable to the aristocracy ; and as numerous prodigies were 
reported, and the Sibylline books consulted, and it was certain that various rites 
would be ordered to propitiate the favor of the gods, 54 he had some A c 537 A c gH 
reason to suspect that his election would again be declared null 
and void, and he himself thus deprived of his command. He was anxious there- 
fore to leave Rome as soon as possible : as his colleague was detained by the 
religious ceremonies, and by the care of superintending the new levies, Flaminius, 
it is said, left the city before the 15th of March, when his consulship was to be- 
gin, and actually entered upon his office at Ariminum, whither he had gone to 
superintend the formation of magazines, and to examine the state of the army. 55 
But the aristocracy thought it was no time to press party animosities ; they made 
no attempt to disturb Flaminius' election ; and he appears to have had his prov- 
ince assigned him without opposition, and to have been appointed to command 
Sempronius' army in Etruria, while Servilius succeeded Scipio at Ariminum. 
The levies of soldiers went on vigorously ; two legions were employed in Spain ; 
one was sent to Sicily, another to Sardinia, and another to Tarentum ; and four 
legions, more or less thinned by the defeat at the Trebia, still formed the nucleus 
of two armies in Ariminum and in Etruria. It appears that four new legions 
were levied, with an unusually large proportion of soldiers from the Italian allies 
and the Latin name ; and these being divided between the two consuls, the ar- 
mies opposed to Hannibal on either line, by which he might advance, must have 
been, in point of numbers, exceedingly formidable. Servilius, as we have seen, 
had his head-quarters at Ariminum ; and Scipio, whom he superseded, sailed as 
proconsul into Spain, to take command of his original army there. Flaminius 
succeeded to Sempronius in Etruria, and lay encamped, it is said, in the neigh- 
borhood of Arretium. 56 

Thus the main Roman armies lay nearly in the same positions which they had 
held eight years before, to oppose the expected invasion of the Hamiiblll entera Etru . 
Gauls. But as the Gauls then broke into Etruria unperceived by rm- 
either Roman army, so the Romans were again surprised by Hannibal on a line 
where they had not expected him. He crossed the Apennines, not by the or- 
dinary road to Lucca, descending the valley of the Macra, but, as it appears, by 
a straighter line down the valley of the Anser or Serchio ; and leaving Lucca on 
his right, he proceeded to struggle through the low and flooded country which 
lay between the right bank of the Arno and the Apennines below Florence, and 
of which the marsh or lake of Fucecchio still remains a specimen. Here again 
the sufferings of the army were extreme ; but they were rewarded when they 
reached the firm ground below Fassulse, and were let loose upon the plunder of 
the rich valley of the upper Arno. 57 

Flaminius lay quietly at Arretium, and did not attempt to give battle, but sent 
messengers to his colleague, to inform him of the enemy's appear- Advanoes towards Pe- 
ance in Etruria. Hannibal was now on the south of the Apen- rusia • 
nines, and in the heart of Italy ; but the experience of the Samnites and of Pyr- 
rhus had shown that the Etruscans were scarcely more to be relied on than the 
Gauls ; and it was in the south, in Samnium, and Lucania, and Apulia, that the 
only materials existed for organizing a new Italian war against Rome. Accord- 

64 Livy, XXL 62. M Livy, XXII. 2. 

56 Livy, XXL 63. 67 Polybius, III. 78, 79. 



486 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIIL 

ingly Hannibal advanced rapidly into Etruria, and finding that Flaminius still did 
not move, passed by Arretium, leaving the Roman army in his rear, and march- 
ing, as it seemed, to gain the great plain of central Italy, which reaches from 
Perusia to Spoletum, and was traversed by the great road from Ariminum to 
Rome. 

The consul Flaminius now at last broke up from his position, and followed the 
enemy. Hannibal laid waste the country on every side with fire 
and sword, to provoke the Romans to a hasty battle ; and leaving 
Cortona on his left untouched on its mountain seat, he approached the lake of 
Thrasy menus, and followed the road along its northeastern shore, till it ascended 
the hills which divide the lake from the basin of the Tiber. 58 Flaminius was fully 
convinced that Hannibal's object was not to fight a battle, but to lay waste the 
richest part of Italy : had he wished to engage, why had he not attacked him 
when he lay at Arretium, and while his colleague was far away at Ariminum ? 
With this impression he pressed on his rear closely, never dreaming that the lion 
would turn from the pursuit of his defenceless prey, to spring on the shepherds 
who were dogging his steps behind. 

The modern road along the lake, after passing the village of Passignano, runs 
Difficulty of marking for some way close to the water's edge on the right, hemmed in 
out the field of batti.. on the leffc by a line of cliffs> ^^ make it an absolute defile. 

Then it turns from the lake and ascends the hills ; yet, although they form some- 
thing of a curve, there is nothing to deserve the name of valley ; and the road, 
after leaving the lake, begins to ascend almost immediately, so that there is a very 
short distance during which the hills on the right and left command it. The 
ground therefore does not well correspond with the description of Polybius, who 
states that the valley in which the Romans were caught was not the narrow 
interval between the hills and the lake, but a valley beyond this defile, and run- 
ning down to the lake, so that the Romans, when engaged in it, had the water, 
not on their right flank, but on their rear. 59 Livy's account is different, and 
represents the Romans as caught in the defile beyond Passignano, between the 
cliff and the lake. It is possible that if the exact line of the ancient road could 
be discovered, it might assist in solving the difficulty : in the mean time the bat- 
tle of Thrasymenus must be one of the many events in ancient military history, 
where the accounts of historians, differing either with each other or with the 
actual appearances of the ground, are to us inexplicable. 

The consul had encamped in the evening on the side of the lake, just within 
Flaminius advances to the present Roman frontier, and on the Tuscan side of Passignano : 
attack Hanmbai. ^g ] ia( j mac } e a f orce( } rnarch, and had arrived at his position so 
late that he could not examine the ground before him. 60 Early the next morn- 
ing he set forward again ; the morning mist hung thickly over the lake and the 
low grounds, leaving the heights, as is often the case, quite clear. Flaminius, 
anxious to overtake his enemy, rejoiced in the friendly veil which thus concealed 
his advance, and hoped to fall upon Hannibal's army while it was still in march- 
ing order, and its columns encumbered with the plunder of the valley of the 
Arno. He passed through the defile of Passignano, and found no enemy ; this 
confirmed him in his belief that Hannibal did not mean to fight. Already the 
Numidian cavalry were on the edge of the basin of the Tiber : unless he could 
overtake them speedily, they would have reached the plain; and Africans, Span- 
iards, and Gauls, would be rioting in the devastation of the garden of Italy. So 
the consul rejoiced as the heads of his columns emerged from the defile, and, turn- 
ing to the left, began to ascend the hills, where he hoped at least to find the 
rear-guard of the enemy. 

At this moment the stillness of the mist was broken by barbarian war-cries on 

68 Polybius, III. 82. Livy, XXII. 3. M Polybius, III. 83, 84. 

60 III. 83. 



Chap. XLIIL] BATTLE OF THRASYMENUS. 487 

every side; and both flanks of the Roman column were assailed Destruction of the main 
at once. Their right was overwhelmed by a storm of javelins and Wyofto Romftns - 
arrows, shot as if from the midst of darkness, and striking into the soldier's un- 
guarded side, where he had no shield to cover him ; while ponderous stones, 
against which no shield or helmet could avail, came crashing down upon their 
heads. On the left were heard the trampling of horse, and the well-known war- 
cries of the Gauls ; and presently Hannibal's dreaded cavalry emerged from the 
mist, and were in an instant in the midst of their ranks ; and the huge forms of 
the G-auls and their vast broadswords broke in upon them at the same mo- 
ment. The head of 'the Roman column, which was already ascending to the 
higher ground, found its advance also barred ; for here was the enemy whom 
they had so longed to overtake ; here were some of the Spanish and African foot 
of Hannibal's army drawn up to wait their assault. The Romans instantly at- 
tacked these troops, and cut their way through : these must be the covering 
parties, they thought, of Hannibal's main battle ; and, eager to bring the contest 
to a decisive issue, they pushed forward up the heights, not doubting that on the 
summit they should find the whole force of the enemy. And now they were on 
the top of the ridge, and to their astonishment no enemy was there ; but the 
mist drew up, and, as they looked behind, they saw too plainly where Hannibal 
was : the whole valley was one scene of carnage, while on the sides of the hills 
above were the masses of the Spanish and African foot witnessing the destruc- 
tion of the Roman army, which had scarcely cost them a single stroke. 

The advanced troops of the Roman column had thus escaped the slaughter ; 
but being too few to retrieve the day, they continued their advance, ^ 

which was now become a flight, and took refuge in one of the 
neighboring villages. Meantime, while the centre of the army was cut to pieces 
in the valley, the rear was still winding through the defile beyond, between the 
cliffs and the lake. But they too were attacked from the heights above by the 
Gauls, and forced in confusion into the water. Some of the soldiers, in despera- 
tion, struck out into the deep water swimming, and, weighed down by their 
armor, presently sank : others ran in as far as was within their depth, and there 
stood helplessly, till the enemy's cavalry dashed in after them. Then they lifted 
up their hands, and cried for quarter ; but on this day of sacrifice, the gods of 
Carthage were not to be defrauded of a single victim ; and the horsemen piti- 
lessly fulfilled Hannibal's vow. 

Thus, with the exception of the advanced troops of the Roman column, who 
were about 6000 men, the rest of the army was utterly destroyed. 
The consul himself had not seen the wreck consummated. On 
finding himself surrounded, he had vainly endeavored to form his men amidst the 
confusion, and to offer some regular resistance : when this was hopeless, he con- 
tinued to do his duty as a brave soldier, till one of the Gaulish horsemen, who is 
said to have known him by sight from his former consulship, rode up and ran 
him through the body with his lance, crying out, "So perish the man who 
slaughtered our brethren, and robbed us of the lands of our fathers." 61 In these 
last words we probably rather read the unquenchable hatred of the Roman aris- 
tocracy to the author of an agrarian law, than the genuine language of the Gaul. 
Flaminius died bravely, sword in hand, having committed no greater military 
error than many an impetuous soldier, whose death in his country's cause has 
been felt to throw a veil over his rashness, and whose memory is pitied and hon- 
ored. The party feelings which have so colored the language of the ancient 
writers respecting him, need not be shared by a modern historian : Flaminius was 
indeed an unequal antagonist to Hannibal ; but in his previous life, as consul and as 
censor, he had served his country well ; and if the defile of Thrasymenus witnessed 
his rashness, it also contains his honorable grave. 

81 Livy, XXII. 6. 



488 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLIIL 

The battle must have been ended before noon ; and Hannibal's indefatigable 
captnre of the ad- cavalry, after having- destroyed the centre and rear of the Roman 
SctrfiSadbaito^ue army, hastened to pursue the troops who had broken off from the 
prisoners. front, and had for the present escaped the general overthrow. 

They were supported by tbe light-armed foot and the Spaniards, and finding the 
Romans in the village to which they had retreated, proceeded to invest it on 
every side. The Romans, cut off from all relief, and with no provisions, sur- 
rendered to Maharbal, who commanded the party sent against them. They were 
brought to Hannibal : with the other prisoners taken in the battle, the whole 
number amounted to 15,000. The general addressed them by an interpreter; 
he told the soldiers who had surrendered to Maharbal, that their lives, if he 
pleased, were still forfeited, for Maharbal had no authority to grant terms with- 
out his consent : then he proceeded with the vehemence often displayed by Na- 
poleon in similar circumstances, to inveigh against the Roman government and 
people, and concluded by giving all his Roman prisoners to the custody of the 
several divisions of his army. Then he turned to the Italian allies : they were 
not his enemies, he said ; on the contrary, he had invaded Italy to aid them in 
casting off the yoke of Rome ; he should still deal with them as he had treated 
his Italian prisoners taken at the Trebia ; they were free from that moment, and 
without ransom. 62 This being done, he halted for a short time to rest his army, 
and buried with great solemnity thirty of the most distinguished of those who 
had fallen on his own side in the battle. His whole loss had amounted only to 
1500 men, of whom the greater part were Gauls. It is said, also that he caused 
careful search, but in vain, to be made for the body of the consul, Flaminius, 
being anxious to give him honorable burial. 63 So he acted afterwards to L. 
iEmilius and to Marcellus ; and these humanities are worthy of notice, as if he 
had wished to show that, though his vow bound him to unrelenting enmity 
towards the Romans while living, it was a pleasure to him to feel that he might 
honor them when dead. 

The army of Hannibal now broke up from the scene of its victory, and, leaving 
Perusia unassailed, crossed the infant stream of the Tiber, and en- 
tered upon the plains of Umbria. Here Maharbal, with the cav- 
alry and light troops, obtained another victory over a party of some thousand 
men, commanded by C. Centenius, and killed, took prisoners, or dispersed the 
whole body. 64 Then that rich plain, extending from the Tiber under Perusia to 
Spoletum, at the foot of the Monte Somma, was laid waste by the Carthaginians 
without mercy. The white oxen of the Clitumnus, so often offered in sacrifice to 
the gods of Rome by her triumphant generals, were now the spoil of the enemy, 
and were slaughtered on the altars of the gods of Carthage, amidst prayers for 
tlie destruction of Rome. The left bank of the Tiber again heard the Gaulish 
war-cry; and the terrified inhabitants fled to the mountains or into the fortified 
cities from this unwonted storm of barbarian invasion. The figures and arms of 
the Gauls, however formidable, might be familiar to many of the Umbrians ; but 
they gazed in wonder on the slingers from the Balearian islands, on the hardy 
Spanish foot, conspicuous by their white linen coats bordered with scarlet ; 6 ° on 
the regular African infantry, who had not yet exchanged their long lances and 
small shields for the long shield and stabbing sword of the Roman soldier ; on 
the heavy cavalry, so numerous, and mounted on horses so superior to those of 
Italy ; above all, on the bands of wild Numidians, who rode without saddle or 
bridle, as if the rider and his horse were one creature, and who scoured over the 
country with a speed and impetuosity defying escape or resistance. Amidst such 
a scene the colonists of Spoletum deserved well of their country, for shutting 
their gates boldly, and not yielding to the general panic; and when the Numid- 

*» Polybius. III. 85. M Polybius, III. 8G. 

03 Livy, XXII. 7. Compare Valerius Maxi- " Polybius, III. 114. Livy, XXII. 46. 
uius, V.'l, Ext. 0. 



Ghap.XLIIL] ROME ON HEARING OF THE BATTLE. 489 

ian horsemen reined up their horses, and turned away from its well-manned walls, 
the colonists, with an excusable boasting, might claim the glory of having repulsed 
Hannibal. 66 

But Hannibal's way lay not over the Monte Somma, although its steep pass, 
rising immediately behind Spoletum, was the last natural obstacle He marc]ies Ult0 Al >u- 
between him and Rome. Beyond that pass the country was full, lia " 
not of Roman colonies merely, but of Roman citizens : he would soon have en- 
tered on the territory of the thirty-five Roman tribes, where every man whom he 
would have met was his enemy. His eyes were fixed elsewhere : the south was 
entirely open to him ; the way to Apulia and Samnium was cleared of every im- 
pediment. He crossed the Apennines in the direction of Ancoria, and invaded 
Picenum : he then followed the coast of the Adriatic, through the country of the 
Marrucinians and Frentanians, till he arrived in the northern part of Apulia, in 
the country called by the Greeks Daunia." He advanced slowly and leisurely, 
encamping after short marches, and spreading devastation far and wide : the 
plunder of slaves, cattle, corn, wine, oil, and valuable property of every descrip- 
tion, was almost more than the army could carry or drive along. The soldiers, 
who, after their exhausting march from Spain over the Alps, had ever since been 
in active service, or in wretched quarters, and who from cold and the want of oil 
for anointing the skin had suffered severely from scorbutic disorders, were now 
revelling in plenty in a land of corn and olives and vines, Avhere all good things 
were in such abundance that the very horses of the army, so said report, were 
bathed in old wines to improve their condition. 68 Meanwhile, wherever the army 
passed, all Romans or Latins, of an age to bear arms, were, by Hannibal's ex- 
press orders, put to the sword. 69 Many an occupier of domain land, many a 
farmer of the taxes, or of those multiplied branches of revenue which the Roman 
government possessed all over Italy, collectors of customs and port duties, sur- 
veyors and farmers of the forests, farmers of the mountain pastures, farmers of 
the salt on the sea-coast, and of the mines in the mountains, were cut off by the 
vengeance of the Carthaginians ; and Rome, having lost thousands of her poorer 
citizens in battle, and now losing hundreds of the richer classes in this extermi- 
nating march, lay bleeding at every pore. 

But her spirit was invincible. When the tidings of the disaster of Thrasyme- 
nus reached the city, the people crowded to the Forum, and called 
upon the magistrates to tell them the whole truth. 10 The prastor in|thLewsoi°beW 
peregrinus, M. Pomponius Matho, ascended the rostra, and said 
to the assembled multitude, " We have been beaten in a great battle-; our army 
is destroyed ; and C. Flaminius, the consul, is killed." Our colder temperaments 
scarcely enable us to conceive the effect of such tidings on the lively feelings of 
the people of the south, or to image to ourselves the cries, the tears, the hands 
uplifted in prayer, or clenched in rage, the confused sounds of ten thousand 
voices, giving utterance with breathless rapidity to their feelings of eager inter- 
est, of terror, of grief, or of fury. All the northern gates of the city were beset 
with crowds of wives and mothers, imploring every fresh fugitive from the fatal 
field for some tidings of those most dear to them. The prsetors, M. ^Emilius and 
M. Pomponius, kept the senate sitting for several days from sunrise to sunset, 
without adjournment, in earnest consultation on the alarming state of their 
country. 

Peace was not thought of for a moment : nor was it proposed to withdraw a 
single soldier from Spain, or Sicily, or Sardinia ; but it was re- Fabilis Maxim „ s i s ap . 
solved that a dictator ought to be appointed, to secure unity of pointed dictator - 
command. There had been no dictatorship for actual service since that of A. 
Atilius Colatinus, two-and-thirty years before, in the disastrous consulship of 

08 Livy, XXII. 9. 69 Polybius, III. 86. 

67 Polybius, III. 86. Livy, XXII. 9. 70 Polybius, III. 85. Livy, XXII. 7. 

68 Polybius, III. 87, 88. 



490 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

P. Claudius Pulcher and L. Junius Pullus. But it is probable that some jeal- 
ousy was entertained of tbe senate's choice, if, in the absence of the consul, Cn. 
Servilius, the appointment, according to ancient usage, had rested with them : 
nor was it thought safe to leave the dictator to nominate his master of the horse. 
Hence an unusual course was adopted : the centuries in their comitia elected 
both the one and the other, choosing one from each of the two parties in the 
state ; the dictator, Q. Fabius Maximus, from one of the noblest, but at the same 
time the most moderate families of the aristocracy, and himself a man of a nature 
no less gentle than wise ; the master of the horse, M. Minucius Rufus, as repre- 
senting the popular party." 

Religion in the mind of Q. Fabius was not a mere instrument for party, pur- 
Measu™ to propitiate poses : although he may have had little belief in its truth, he was 
1116 god5 ' convinced of its excellence, and that a reverence for the gods was 

an essential element in the character of a nation, without which it must assuredly 
degenerate. Therefore, on the very day that he entered on his office, he sum- 
moned the senate, and dwelling on the importance of propitiating the gods, moved 
that the sibylline books should forthwith be consulted. 72 They directed, among 
other things, that the Roman people should vow to the gods what was called 
"a holy spring;" that is to say, that every animal fit for sacrifice born in the 
spring of that year, between the first day of March and the thirtieth of April, 
and reared on any mountain or plain or river-bank or upland pasture throughout 
Italy, should be offered to Jupiter.' 13 Extraordinary games were also vowed to 
be celebrated in the Circus Maximus ; prayers were put up at all the temples ; 
new temples were vowed to be built ; and for three days those solemn sacrifices 
were performed, in which the images of the gods were taken down from their 
temples, and laid on couches richly covered, with tables full of meat and wine set 
before them, in the sight of all the people, as if the gods could not but bless the 
city where they had deigned to receive hospitality. 

Then the dictator turned his attention to the state of the war. A long cam- 
pian of Fabiua for the paign was in prospect ; for it was still so early in the season that 
campaign. t ] ie p r£e t rs had not yet gone out of their provinces ; and Hannibal 

was already in the heart of Italy. All measures were taken for the defence of 
the country ; even the walls and towers of Rome were ordered to be made good 
against an attack. Bridges were to be broken down ; the inhabitants of open 
towns were to withdraw into places of security ; and in the expected line of Han- 
nibal's march, the country was to be laid waste before him, the corn destroyed, 
and the houses burnt. 74 This would probably be done effectually in the Roman 
territory ; but the allies were not likely to make such extreme sacrifices ; and this 
of itself was a reason why Hannibal did not advance directly upon Rome. 

More than thirty thousand men, in killed and prisoners, had been lost to the 
Romans in the late battle. The consul Cn. Servilius commanded 
above thirty thousand in Cisalpine Gaul ; and he was now retreat- 
ing in all haste, after having heard of the total defeat of his colleague. Two 
new legions were raised, besides a large force out of the city tribes, which was 
employed partly for the defence of Rome itself, and partly, as it consisted largely 
of the poorer citizens, for the service of the fleet. This last indeed was become 
a matter of urgent necessity ; for the Carthaginian fleet was already on the Italian 
coast, and had taken a whole convoy of corn-ships, off Cosa, in Etruria, carrying 
supplies to the army in Spain ; while the Roman ships, both in Sicily and at 
Ostia, had not yet been launched after the winter. 15 Now all the ships at Ostia 
and in the Tiber were sent to sea in haste, and the consul Cn. Servilius com- 
manded them; whilst the dictator and master of the horse, having added the 
two newly raised legions to the consul's army, proceeded through Campania and 

71 PolybinB, III. 87. Livy, XXII. 8. 4 Livy, XXII. 11. 

12 Livy. XXII. 9. » livy. XXII. 11. 

13 Livy, XXII. 10. 



Chap. XLIIL] FABIUS FOLLOWS HANNIBAL. 491 

Samnium into Apulia, and, with an army greatly superior in numbers, encamped 
at the distance of about five or six miles from Hannibal. 16 

Besides the advantage of numbers, the Romans had that of being regularly 
and abundantly supplied with provisions. They had no occasion _ . .. , 

. J * * . f ■ . t ■ , iii • Hannibal ravages Sam- 

to scatter their forces in order to obtain subsistence : but keeping mum and enters cam- 
their army together, and exposing no weak point to fortune, they 
followed Hannibal at a certain distance, watched their opportunity to cut off his 
detached parties, and above all, by remaining in the field with so imposing an 
army, overawed the allies, and checked their disposition to revolt." Thus Han- 
nibal, finding that the Apulians did not join him, recrossed the Apennines, and 
moved through the country of the Hirpinians into that of the Caudinian Samnites. 
But Beneventum, once a great Samnite city, was now a Latin colony ; and its 
gates were close shut against the invader. Hannibal laid waste its territory with 
fire and sword, then moved onwards under the south side of the Matese, and 
took possession of Telesia, the native city of C. Pontius, but now a decayed and 
defenceless town : thence descending the Calor to its junction with the Vulturnus, 
and ascending the Vulturnus till he found it easily fordable, he finally crossed it 
near AUifae, and passing over the hills behind Calatia, descended by Cales into 
the midst of the Falernian plain, the glory of Campania. 18 

Fabius steadily followed him, not descending into the plain, but keeping his 
army on the hills above it, and watching all his movements. Again 

-■'.,. , °. . ° Fabiua follows him. 

the JNumidian cavalry were seen scouring the country on every 
side ; and the smoke of burning houses marked their track. The soldiers in the 
Roman army beheld the sight with the greatest impatience : they were burning 
for battle, and the master of the horse himself shared and encouraged the gen- 
eral feeling. But Fabius was firm in his resolution ; he sent parties to secure 
even the pass of Tarracina, lest Hannibal should attempt to advance by the Ap- 
pian road upon Rome ; he garrisoned Casilinum on the enemy's rear ; the Vul- 
turnus from Casilinum to the sea barred all retreat southwards ; the colony of 
Cales stopped the outlet from the plain by the Latin road ; while from Cales to 
Casilinum the hills formed an unbroken barrier, steep and wooded, the few paths 
over which were already secured by the Roman soldiers. 79 Thus Fabius thought 
that Hannibal was caught as in a pitfall; that his escape was. cut off, while his 
army, having soon wasted its plunder, could not possibly winter where it was, 
without magazines, and .without a single town in its possession. For himself, he 
had all the resources of Campania and Samnium on his rear ; while on his right 
the Latin road, secured by the colonies of Cales, Casinum, and Fregellae, kept 
his communications with Rome open. 

Hannibal, on his part, had no thought of wintering where he was ; but he had 
carefully husbanded his plunder, that it might supply his winter 

J ,. I, , ., x . , ■ • ' °. , lJ - ir r- Hannibal's artifice to 

consumption, so that it was important to him to carry it off in escape the Roman 
safety. He had taken many thousand cattle ; and his army be- *""" 
sides was encumbered with its numerous prisoners, over and above the corn, wine, 
oil, and other articles, which had been furnished by the ravage of one of the 
richest districts in Raly. Finding that the passes in the hills between Cales and 
the Vulturnus were occupied by the enemy, he began to consider how he could 
surprise or force his passage without abandoning any of his plunder. He first 
thought of his numerous prisoners ; and dreading lest in a night march they 
should either escape or overpower their guards and join their countrymen in 
attacking him, he commanded them all, to the number it is said of 5000 men, to 
be put to the sword. Then he ordered 2000 of the stoutest oxen to be selected 
from the plundered cattle, and pieces of split pine wood, or dry vine wood, to be 
fastened to their horns. About two hours before midnight the drovers began to 

' 6 Polybius, III. 88. TO Polybius, III. 90. Livy. XXII. 13. 

" Polybius, III. 90. ™ Livy, XXII. 15. 



492 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIIL 

drive them straight to the hills, having first set on fire the bundles of wood about 
their heads ; while the light infantry following them till they began to run wild, 
then made their own way to the hills, scouring the points just above the pass 
occupied by the enemy. Hannibal then commenced his march ; his African in- 
fantry led the way, followed by the cavalry ; then came all the baggage ; and 
the rear was covered by the Spaniards and Gauls. In this order he followed 
the road in the defile, by which he was to get out into the upper valley of the 
Vulturous, above Casilinum and the enemy's army. 80 

He found the way quite clear; for the Romans who had guarded it, seeing the 
hills above them illuminated on a sudden with a multitude of mov- 

ItS SUCCl'SS . VI 1 -!• 11* 1 TT '11? 

ing lights, and nothing doubting that Hannibal s army was attempt- 
ing to break out over the hills in despair of forcing the road, quitted their position 
in haste, and ran towards the heights to interrupt or embarrass his retreat. Mean- 
while Fabius, with his main army, confounded at the strangeness o^the sight, 
and dreading lest Hannibal was tempting him to his ruin as he had tempted Fla- 
minius, kept close within his camp till the morning. Day dawned only to show 
him his own troops who had been set to occupy the defile, engaged on the hills 
above with Hannibal's light infantry. But presently the Spanish foot were seen 
scaling the heights to reinforce the enemy ; and the Romans were driven down 
to the plain with great loss and confusion ; while the Spaniards and the light 
troops, having thoroughly done their work, disappeared behind the hills, and 
followed their main army. 81 Thus completely successful, and leaving his shamed 
and baffled enemy behind him, Hannibal no longer thought of returning to Apulia 
by the most direct road, but resolved to extend his devastations still further 
before the season ended. He mounted the valley of the Vulturous towards Ve- 
nafrum, marched from thence into Samnium, crossed the Apennines, and de- 
scended into the rich Pelignian plain by Sulmo, which yielded him an ample 
harvest of plunder, and thence retracing his steps into Samnium, he finally re- 
turned to the neighborhood of his old quarters in Apulia. 

The summer was far advanced ; Hannibal had overrun the greater part of 
His plan for the win- Italy : the meadows of the Clitumnus and the Vulturous, and the 
ter - forest glades of the high Apennines, had alike seen their cattle 

driven away by the invading army ; the Falernian plain and the plain of Sulmo 
had alike yielded their tribute of wine and oil ; but not a single city had as yet 
opened its gates to the conqueror, not a single state of Samnium had welcomed 
him as its champion, under whom it might revenge its old wrongs against Rome. 
Everywhere the aristocratical party had maintained its ascendency, and had re- 
pressed all mention of revolt from Rome. Hannibal's great experiment therefore 
had hitherto failed. He knew that his single army could not conquer Italy ; as 
easily might king William's Dutch guards have conquered England : and six 
months had brought Hannibal no fairer prospect of aid within the country itself, 
than the first week after his landing in Torbay brought to king William. But 
among Hannibal's greatest qualities w r as the patience with which he knew how 
to abide his time; if one campaign had failed of its main object, another must be 
tried; if the fidelity of the Roman allies had been unshaken by the disaster of 
Thrasymenus, it must be tried by a defeat yet more fatal. Meantime he would 
take undisputed possession of the best winter-quarters in Italy; his men would 
be plentifully fed ; his invaluable cavalry would have forage in abundance ; and 
this at no cosl to Carthage, but wholly at the expense of the enemy. The point 
which he fixed upon to winter at was the very edge of the Apulian plain, where 
it joins the mountains : <>n one side was a boundless expanse of corn, intermixed 
with open grass land, burnt up in summer, but in winter fresh and green ; whilst 
on the other side were the wide pastures of the mountain forests, where his nu- 
merous cattle might be turned out till the first snows of autumn fell. These were 

80 Polybius, III. 98. Livy, XXII. 16, 17. 81 Polybius, III. U. Livy, XXII. 18. 



Chap. XLIII] UNPOPULARITY OF FABIUS. 493 

as yet far distant ; for the corn in the plain, although ripe, was still standing ; 
and the rich harvests of Apulia were to be gathered this year by unwonted 
reapers. 

Descending from Samnium, Hannibal accordingly appeared before the little 
town of Geronium, which was situated somewhat more than twenty 

., , ' T . , - T ..,. ,. / He takes Geronium. 

miles northwest 01 the Latin colony 01 Lucena, in the immediate 
neighborhood of Larinum. 82 The town, refusing to surrender, was taken, and the 
inhabitants put 'to the sword ; but the houses and walls were left standing, to 
serve as a great magazine for the army ; and the soldiers were quartered in a 
regularly fortified camp without the town. Here Hannibal posted himself ; and, 
keeping a third part of his men under arms to guard the camp and to cover his 
foragers, he sent out the other two-thirds to gather in all the corn of the sur- 
rounding country, or to pasture his cattle on the adjoining mountains. In this 
manner the storehouses of Geronium were in a short time filled with corn. 

Meanwhile the public mind at Rome was strongly excited against the dictator. 
He seemed like a man who, having played a cautious game, at 
last makes a false move, and is beaten ; his slow defensive system, 
unwelcome in itself, seemed rendered contemptible by Hannibal's triumphant 
escape from the Falernian plain. But here too Fabius showed a patience worthy 
of all honor. Vexed as he must have been at his failure in Campania, he still 
felt sure that his system was wise ; and again he followed Hannibal into Apulia, 
and encamped, as before, on the high grounds in his neighborhood. Certain reli- 
gious offices called him at this time to Rome ; but he charged Minucius to ob- 
serve his system strictly, and on no account to risk a battle. 83 

The master of the horse conducted his operations wisely : he advanced his 
camp to a projecting ridge of hills, immediately above the plain, Minucin8 adopts a bold . 
and sending out his cavalry and light troops to cut off Hannibal's er Bystem- 
foragers, obliged the enemy to increase his covering force, and to restrict the 
range of his harvesting. On one occasion he cut off a great number of the for- 
agers, and even advanced to attack Hannibal's camp, which, owing to the neces- 
sity of detaching so many men all over the country, was left with a very inferior 
force to defend it. The return of some of the foraging parties obliged the Ro- 
mans to retreat ; but Minucius was greatly elated, and sent home very encour- 
aging reports of his success. 84 

The feeling against Fabius could no longer be restrained. Minucius had known 
how to manage his system more ably than he had done himself ; Hi3 authority ^ made 
such merit at such a crisis deserved to be rewarded ; nor was it equal t0 the dictator ' 8 - 
fit that the popular party should continue to be deprived of its share in the con- 
duct of the war. Even among his own party Fabius was not universally popu- 
lar : he had magnified himself and his system somewhat offensively, and had 
spoken too harshly of the blunders of former generals. Thus it does not appear 
that the aristocracy offered any strong resistance to a bill brought forward by 
the tribune M. Metilius, for giving the master of the horse power equal to the 
dictator's. The bill was strongly supported by C. Terentius Varro, who had been 
praetor in the preceding year, and was easily canied. 85 

The dictator and master of the horse now divided the army between them, 
and encamped apart, at more than a mile's distance from each other. He is rout€d) aBd Fa . 
Their want of co-operation was thus notorious ; and Hannibal was bius savesllim - 
not slow to profit by it. He succeeded in tempting Minucius to an engagement 
on his own ground ; and having concealed about 5000 men in some ravines and 
hollows close by, he called them forth in the midst of the action to fall on the 
enemy's rear. The rout of the Trebia was well-nigh repeated ; but Fabius was 
near enough to come up in time to the rescue ; and his fresh legions checked the 

82 Polybius, III. 100. Livy, XXII. 23. M Polybius, III. 101, 102. Livy, XXII. 34. 

M Polybius, III. 94. Livy, XXII. 18. B5 Polybius, III. 103. Livy, XXII. 25, 26. 



494 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

pursuit of the conquerors, and enabled the broken Romans to rally. Still the 
loss already sustained was severe ; and it was manifest that Fabius had saved his 
colleague from total destruction. Minucius acknowledged this generouslv : he 
instantly gave up his equal and separate command, and placed himself and his 
army under the dictator's orders. 86 The rest of the season passed quietly ; and 
the dictator and master of the horse resigning their offices as usual at the* end of 
six months, the army during the winter was put under the command of the con- 
suls ; Cn. Servilius having brought home and laid up the fleet, which he had 
commanded during the summer, and M. Atilius Regulus having been elected to 
fill the place of Flaminius. 

Meanwhile the elections for the following year were approaching ; and it was 
state of feeling at evident that they would be marked by severe party struggles. 
EoIne ■ The mass of the Roman people were impatient of the continuance 

of the war in Italy ; not only the poorer citizens, whom it obliged to constant 
military service through the winter, and with no prospect of plunder, but still 
more perhaps the moneyed classes, whose occupation as farmers of the revenue 
was so greatly curtailed by Hannibal's army. Again, the occupiers of domain 
lands in remote parts of Italy could get no returns from their property ; the 
wealthy graziers, who fed their cattle on the domain pastures, saw their stock 
carried off to furnish winter provisions for the enemy. Besides, if Hannibal were 
allowed to be unassailable in the field, the allies, sooner or later, must be ex- 
pected to join him ; they would not sacrifice every thing for Rome, if Rome could 
neither protect them nor herself. The excellence of the Roman infantry was 
undisputed : if with equal numbers they could not conquer Hannibal's veterans, 
let their numbers be increased, and they must overwhelm him. These were, no 
doubt, the feelings of many of the nobility themselves, as well as of the majority 
of the people ; but they were imbittered by party animosity : the aristocracy, it 
was said, seemed bent on throwing reproach on all generals of the popular party, 
as if none but themselves were fit to conduct the war ; Minucius himself had 
yielded to this spirit by submitting to be commanded by Fabius, when the law 
had made him his equal : one consul, at least, must be chosen, who would act 
firmly for himself and for the people ; and such a man, to whose merits the bit- 
ter hatred of the aristocratical party bore the best testimony, was to be found in 
C. Terentius Varro. 81 

Varro, his enemies said, was a butcher's son ; nay, it was added, that he had 
a. u. c. 538. a. c. himself been a butcher's boy, 88 and had only been enabled by the 
D 'tconsuU:°varroaSl fortune which his father had left him to throw aside his ignoble 
.Emiiiua Pauiius. calling, and to aspire to public offices. So Cromwell was called 
a brewer ; but Varro had been successively elected quaestor, plebeian and curule 
aedile, and prsetor, while we are not told that he was ever tribune ; and it is 
without example in Roman history, that a mere demagogue, of no family, with 
no other merits, civil or military, should be raised to such nobility. Varro was 
eloquent, it is true ; but eloquence alone would scarcely have so recommended 
him ; and if in his prretorship, as is probable, he had been one of the two home 
praetors, he must have possessed a competent knowledge of law. Besides, even 
after his defeat at Cannce, he was employed for several years in various important 
offices, civil and military ; which would never have been the case had he been 
the mere factious braggart that historians have painted him. The aristocracy 
tried in vain to prevent his election : he was not only returned consul, but he was 
returned alone, no other candidate obtaining a sufficient number of votes to en- 
title him to the suffrage of a tribe. 69 Thus he held the comitia for the election 
of his colleague ; and considering the great influence exercised by the magistrate 
so presiding, it is creditable to him, and to the temper of the people generally, 

88 Polyl.ius, III. 104, 105. Livy, XXI. 28, " Valerius Maximus, III. 4, 4. 
29. Plutarch, Fabins, 18. « Livv, XXII. 35. 

" Livy, XXII. 84. 



Chap. XLIIL] HANNIBAL. 495 

that the other consul chosen was L. iEmilius Paullus, who was not only a known 
partisan of the aristocracy, but having been consul three years before, had been 
brought to trial for an alleged misappropriation of the plunder taken in the Illyrian 
war, and, although acquitted, was one of the most unpopular men in Rome. Yet 
he was known to be a good soldier ; and the people, having obtained the election 
of Varro, did not object to gratify the aristocracy by accepting the candidate of 
their choice. 

No less moderate and impartial was the temper shown in the elections of prse- 
tors. Two of the four were decidedly of the aristocratical party, 

_ . in- i i i New prsetors. 

M. Marcellus and L. Postumms Albinus ; the other two were also 
men of consular rank, and no way known as opponents of the nobility, P. Furius 
Philus and M. Pomponius Matho. The two latter were to have the home prse- 
torships ; Marcellus was to command the fleet, and take charge of the southern 
coast of Italy ; L. Postumius was to watch the frontier of Cisalpine Gaul. 

The winter and spring passed without any military events of importance. Ser- 
vilius and Regulus retained their command as proconsuls for some t 

time after their successors had come into office ; but nothing be- 
yond occasional skirmishes took place between them and the enemy. Hannibal 
was at G-eronium, maintaining his army on the supplies which he had so carefully 
collected in the preceding campaign : the consuls apparently were posted a little 
to the southward, receiving their supplies from the country about Canusium, and 
immediately from a large magazine, which they had established at the small town 
of Cannae, near the Aufidus. 90 

Never was Hannibal's genius more displayed than during this long period of 
inactivity. More than half of his army consisted of Gauls, of all 
barbarians the most impatient and uncertain in their humor, whose HamXi duSlg the 
fidelity, it was said, could only be secured by an ever open hand ; 
no man was their friend any longer than he could gorge them with pay or plun- 
der. Those of his soldiers who were not Gauls were either Spaniards or Afri- 
cans ; the Spaniards were the newly conquered subjects of Carthage, strangers 
to her race and language, and accustomed to divide their lives between actual 
battle and the most listless bodily indolence ; so that, when one of their tribes 
first saw the habits of a Roman camp, and observed the centurions walking up 
and down before the prsetorium for exercise, the Spaniards thought them mad, 
and ran up to guide them to their tents, thinking that he who was not fighting 
could do nothing but lie at his ease and enjoy himself. 91 Even the Africans were 
foreigners to Carthage : they were subjects harshly governed, and had been en- 
gaged within the last twenty years in a war of extermination with their masters. 
Yet the long inactivity of winter- quarters, trying to the discipline of the best 
national armies, was borne patiently by Hannibal's soldiers : there was neither 
desertion nor mutiny amongst them; even the fickleness of the Gauls seemed 
spell-bound ; they remained steadily in their camp in Apulia, neither going home 
to their own country, nor over to the enemy. On the contrary, it seems that 
fresh bands of Gauls must have joined the Carthaginian army after the battle of 
Thrasymenus, and the retreat of the Roman army from Ariminum. For the 
Gauls and the Spaniards and the Africans were overpowered by the ascendency 
of Hannibal's character : under his guidance they felt themselves invincible : with 
such a general the yoke of Carthage might seem to the Africans and Spaniards 
the natural dominion of superior beings ; in such a champion the Gauls beheld 
the appointed instrument of their country's gods to lead them once* more to as- 
sault the capitol. 

Silanus, the Greek historian, was living with Hannibal daily ; 92 and though not 
intrusted with his military and political secrets, he' must have seen 
and known him as a man ; he must have been familiar with his 

90 Polybius, III. 107. 92 Nepos, Hannib. c. XIII. 

81 Strabo, p. 164. 



496 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIII. 

habits of life, and must have heard his conversation in those unrestrained moments 
when the lightest words of great men display the character of their minds so 
strikingly. His work is lost to us ; but had it been worthy of his opportunities, 
anecdotes from it must have been quoted by other writers, and we should know 
what Hannibal was. Then, too, the generals who were his daily companions 
would be something more to us than names : we should know Maharbal, the best 
cavalry officer of the finest cavalry service in the world : and Hasdrubal, who 
managed the commissariat of the army for so many years in an enemy's country ; 
and Hannibal's young brother, Mago, so full of youthful spirit and enterprise, 
who commanded the ambush at the battle of the Trebia "Ye might learn some- 
thing, too, of that Hannibal, surnamed the Fighter, who .... the general's coun- 
sellor, ever prompting him, it was said, to deeds of savage cruelty, 93 but whose 
counsels Hannibal would not have listened to, had they been merely cruel, had 
they not breathed a spirit of deep devotion to the cause of Carthage, and of 
deadly hatred to Rome, such as possessed the heart of Hannibal himself. But 
Silanus saw and heard without heeding or recording ; and on the tent and camp 
of Hannibal there hangs a veil, which the fancy of the poet may penetrate ; but 
the historian turns away in deep disappointment ; for to him it yields neither 
sight nor sound. 

Spring was come, and well-nigh departing ; and in the warm plains of Apulia 
the corn was ripening fast, Avhile Hannibal's winter supplies well 
P £™° g HanDibd uS now nearly exhausted. He broke up from his camp before Gero- 
nium, descended into the Apulian plains, and whilst the Roman 
army was still in its winter position, he threw himself on its rear, and surprised its 
great magazine at Canme. 94 The citadel of Cannae was a fortress of some strength ; 
this, accordingly, he occupied, and placed himself, on the very eve of harvest, 
between the Roman army and its expected resources, while he secured to himself 
all the corn of southern Apulia. It was only in such low and warm situations 
that i corn was nearly ready ; the higher country, in the immediate neighbor- 
hood < . pulia, is cold and backward ; and the Romans were under the necessity 
of receiving their supplies from a great distance, or else of retreating, or of offer- 
ing battle. Under these circumstances the proconsuls sent to Rome, to ask what 
they were to do. 

The turning point of this question lay in the disposition of the allies. We can- 
not doubt that Hannibal had been busy during the winter in sound- 
ing their feelings ; and now it appeared that, if Italy was to be 
ravaged by the enemy for a second summer without resistance, their patience 
Avould endure no longer. The Roman government therefore resolved to risk a 
battle ; but they sent orders to the proconsuls to wait till the consuls should join 
them with their newly raised army ; for a battle being resolved upon, the senate 
hoped to secure success by an overwhelming superiority of numbers. We do not 
exactly know the proportion of the new levies to the old soldiers ; but when the 
two consuls arrived on the scene of action, and took the supreme command of 
the whole army, there were no fewer than eight Roman legions under their 
orders, with an equal force of allies ; so that the army opposed to Hannibal must 
have amounted to 90,000 men. 95 It was evident that so great a multitude could 
not long be fed at a distance from its resources ; and thus a speedy engagement 
was inevitable. 

But the details of the movements by which the two armies were brought in 
Vmonm presence of each other on the banks of the Aufidus, are not easy 

<m " b: " l! '' to discover. It appears that the Romans, till the arrival of the 

new consids, had not ventured to follow Hannibal olosely; for when they did 
follow him, it took them two days' march to arrive in his neighborhood, where 
they encamped at about six miles distance from him. 96 They found him on the 

63 PolybiuB, IX. 24, 5. M Polybius. III. 107. 

91 l'ofy bius, III. 107. M PolybiuB, HI- HO. 



Chap. XLIII] MANCEUVRES AND SKIRMISHES. 497 

left bank of the Aufidus, about eight or nine miles from the sea, and busied, 
probably, in collecting the corn from the early district on the coast, the season 
being about the middle of June. The country here was so level and open, that 
the consul, L. iEmilius, was unwilling to approach the enemy more closely, but 
wished to take a position on the hilly ground further from the sea, and to bring 
on the action there. 97 But Varro, impatient for battle, and having the supreme 
command of the whole army alternately with ^Emilius every other day, decided 
the question irrevocably on the very next day, by interposing himself between 
the enemy and the sea, with his left resting on the Aufidus, and his right com- 
municating with the town of Salapia. 

From this position JEmilius, when he again took the command in chief, found 
it impossible to withdraw. But availing himself of his great supe- ^E miUus cros3e3 the 
riority in numbers, he threw a part of his army across the river, Aufidu "' 
and posted them in a separate camp on the right bank, to have the supplies of 
the country south of the Aufidus at command, and to restrain the enemy's par- 
ties who might attempt to forage in that direction. When Hannibal saw the 
Romans in this situation* he also advanced nearer to them, descending the left 
bank of the Aufidus, and encamped over against the main army of the enemy, 
with his right resting on the river. 

The next day, which, according to the Roman calendar, was the last of the 
month Quinctilis, or July, the Roman reckoning being six or seven p repa ,. ator y mana m- 
weeks in advance of the true season, Hannibal was making his t»— "**"""""• 
preparations for battle, and did not stir from his camp ; so that Varro, whose 
command it was, could not bring on an action. But on the first of Sextilis, or 
August, Hannibal being now quite ready, drew out his army in front of his camp 
and offered battle. JEmilius, however, remained quiet, resolved not to fight on 
such ground, and hoping that Hannibal would soon be obliged to fall back nearer 
the hills, when he found that he could no longer forage freely in the country near 
the sea. 93 Hannibal, seeing that the enemy did not move, marched back his in- 
fantry into his camp, but sent his Numidian cavalry across the river to attack the 
Romans on that side, as they were coming down in straggling parties to the bank 
to get water. For the Aufidus, though its bed is deep and wide, to hold its 
winter floods, is a shallow or a narrow stream in summer, with many points easily 
fordable, not by horse only, but by infantry. The watering parties were driven 
in with some loss, and the Numidians followed them to the very gates of the 
camp, and obliged the Romans, on the right bank, to pass the summer night in 
the burning Apulian plain without water. 

At daybreak on the next morning, the red ensign, which was the well-known 
signal for battle, was seen flying over Varro 's head-quarters; 99 H anmbai draws out his 
and he issued orders, it being his day of command, for the main army ' 
army to cross the river, and form in order of battle on the right bank. Whether 
he had any further ^object in crossing to the right bank, than to enable the sol- 
diers on that side to get water in security, we do not know ; but Hannibal, it 
seems, thought that the ground on either bank suited him equally ; and he too 
forded the stream at two separate points, and drew out his army opposite to the 
enemy. The strong town of Canusium was scarcely three miles off in his rear ; 
he had left his camp on the other side of the river ; if he were defeated, escape 
seemed hopeless. But when he saw the wide, open plain around him, and looked 
at his numerous and irresistible cavalry, and knew that his infantry, however 
inferior in numbers, were far better and older soldiers than the great mass of 
their opponents, he felt that defeat was impossible. In this confidence his spirits 
were not cheerful merely, but even mirthful ; he rallied one of his officers jest- 
ingly, who noticed the overwhelming numbers of the Romans ; those near him 

97 Polybius, III. 110. M Plutarch, Fabius, 15. 

98 Polybius, III. 111. Livy, XXII. 45. 

32 



498 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLIIL 

laughed ; and as any feeling at such, a moment is contagious, the laugh was 
echoed by others ; and the soldiers, seeing their great general in such a mood, 
were satisfied that he was sure of victory. 100 

The Carthaginian array faced the north, so that the early sun shone on their 
right flank, while the wind, which blew strong from the south, 
but without a drop of rain, swept its clouds of dust over their 
backs, and carried them full into the faces of the enemy. 101 On their left, resting 
on the river, were the Spanish and G-aulisli horse ; next in the line, but thrown 
back a little, were half of the African infantry armed like the Romans ; on their 
right, somewhat in advance, were the Gauls and Spaniards, with their companies 
intermixed ; then came the rest of the African foot, again thrown back like their 
comrades ; and on the right of the whole line w r ere the Numidian light horse- 
men. 102 The right of the army rested, so far as appears, on nothing ; the ground 
was open and level ; but at some distance were hills overgrown with copsewood, 
and furrowed with deep ravines, in which, according to one account of the battle, 
a body of horsemen and of light infantry lay in ambush. The rest of the light 
troops, and the Balearian slingers, skirmished as usual* in front of the whole line. 
Meanwhile the masses of the Roman infantry were forming their line opposite. 
Ttat of the Roman The sun on their left flashed obliquely on their brazen helmets, 
army ' now uncovered for battle, and lit up the waving forest of their red 

and black plumes, which rose upright from their helmets a foot and a half 
high. 

They stood brandishing their formidable pila, covered with their long shields, 
and bearing on their right thigh their peculiar and fatal weapon, the heavy 
sword, fitted alike to cut and to stab. 103 On the right of the line were the Ro- 
man legions ; on the left the infantry of the allies ; while between the Roman 
right and the river were the Roman horsemen, all of them of wealthy or noble 
families ; and on the left, opposed to the Numidians, were the horsemen of the 
Italians and of the Latin name. The velites or light infantry covered the front, 
and were ready to skirmish with the light troops and slingers of the enemy. 
For some reason or other, which is not explained in any account of the battle, 
the Roman infantry Were formed in columns rather than in line, 
the files of the maniples containing many more than their ranks. 1M 
This seems an extraordinary tactic to be adopted in a plain by an army inferior 
in cavalry, but very superior in infantry. Whether the Romans relied on the 
river as a protection to their right flank, and their left was covered in some man- 
ner which is not mentioned,— one account would lead us to suppose that it 
reached nearly to the sea, 105 — or whether the great proportion of new levies 
obliged the Romans to adopt the system of the phalanx, and to place their raw 
soldiers in the rear, as incapable of fighting in the front ranks with Hannibal's 

wo piutarch, Fabius, 15. EIv6vto<; Si two; rdv that "this had been found convenient against 

TTcpl aiirvv avtpbs (Vori/xou, rovvojia Tickuvos. i>i duv- the Carthaginians in the former war. It was 

paarbv avrC> <paiverai tu rXi)0os ra>v xoXcpiuv cwa- indeed no bad way of resistance against ele- 

yay&v rb vpCvw-ov b kvvifias, " Irepov," J-cv. " i5 phants, to make the ranks thick and short, but 

ritTKoiv. \i\ri9i ac tovtov davpaoub-tpov." 'Epo- the riles long, as also to strengthen well the 

Hivov Se tov ricKtaios "To mgov'" ""On" fyq rear, that it might stand fast compacted as a 

"' toutuiv ovTuiv Toaovruyv, ovSeh iv atroTs Tianmv wall, under shelter whereof the disordered 

kaXeirai." Ytvopivov ie irapd S6%av ouroTs tov troops might rally themselves. Thus much, it 

raj invtitTei y/Auj vavt ' icai KariPatvov anb seems, that Terentius had learned of some old 

tov \6<j>ov t:hs iwavTSmv id rb vBttatyjiivov d-ay- soldiers; and therefore he now ordered hisbat- 

yiMoiTcs. wore <5i« koWuv -o\vv Jvai tov yi\b>Ta ties accordingly, as meaning ' ire skill 

Kni nrf' dvaXaPciv Iuvto'v; Svvaadat tov; irepi 'Am'- than was ill Lis understanding. But :■ 

jiav. Tovtii toIs Kapxiboiiois iAovot Odpfios -rapio-Tt) thaginians had here no elephants with them 

Xoyifyjin ,i: ,\-o noXXov Kai foxvpov tov KaTatypo- in the field: tkeir advantage was i:i horse, 

vovvtos britvai ycXifv oBr« kuI naK,eiv tu oTpnTriyio against which this manner of imbattailing was 

irapa t&v kIvSvvqv. very unprofitable, forasmuch as their charge 

1,1 Livy, XXII. 46. Plutarch.Fabius, 16. sustained in front, than upon a long 

>"- Polybius, ill. ll::. Livy, XXII. 46. flan 

103 Polybius, 111. ill. Livy, XXII. 45. A.ppian, Vll. 21. oT rb Xaibv fxovres hi 

M PolybiUB, HI. 118. iroitSv T7.)X.\,i-Wiov7tf /3a- Tij OuXaVo-j;. 

0oj Iv ra?{ o-iTtlpais tov ihtvit.ov. Raleigh suggests 



Chap. XLIII] BATTLE OF CANNAE. 499 

veterans, — it appears at any rate that the Roman infantry, though nearly double the 
number of the enemy, yet formed a line of only equal length with Hannibal's. 

The skirmishing of the light-armed troops preluded as usual to the battle : the 
Balearian slingers slung their stones like hail into the ranks of the Defeat of tlie Roman 
Roman line, and severely wounded the consul JEmilius himself. cavalr - v - 
Then the Spanish and Gaulish horse charged the Romans front to front, and 
maintained a standing fight with them, many leaping off their horses and fighting 
on foot, till the Romans, outnumbered and badly armed, without cuirasses, with 
light and brittle spears, and with shields made only of ox-hide, were totally 
routed, and driven off the field. 106 Hasdrubal, who commanded the Gauls and 
Spaniards, followed up his work effectually ; he chased the Romans along the 
river till he had almost destroyed them; and then, riding off to the right, he 
came up to aid the Numidians, who, after their manner, had been skirmishing 
indecisively with the cavalry of the Italian allies. These, on seeing the Gauls 
and Spaniards advancing, broke away and fled ; the Numidians, most effective in 
pursuing a flying enemy, chased them with unweariable speed, and slaughtered 
them unsparingly ; while Hasdrubal, to complete his signal services on this day, 
charged fiercely upon the rear of the Roman infantry. 

He found its huge masses already weltering in helpless confusion, crowded 
upon one another, totally disorganized, and fighting each man as 
he best could, but struggling on against all hope by mere indom- 
itable courage. For the Roman columns on the right and left, finding the Gaul- 
ish and Spanish foot advancing in a convex line or wedge, pressed forwards to 
assail what seemed the flanks of the enemy's column ; so that, being already 
drawn up with too narrow a front by their original formation, they now became 
compressed still more by their own movements, the right and left converging to- 
wards the centre, till the whole army became one dense column, which forced its 
way onwards by the weight of its charge, and drove back the Gauls and Span- 
iards into the rear of their own line. Meanwhile its victorious advance had car- 
ried it, like the English column at Fontenoy, into the midst of Hannibal's army ; 
it had passed between the African infantry on its right and left ; and now, whilst 
its head was struggling against the Gauls and Spaniards, its long flanks were 
fiercely assailed by the Africans, who, facing about to the right and left, charged 
it home, and threw it into utter disorder. In this state, when they were forced 
together into one unwieldy crowd, and already falling by thousands, whilst the 
Gauls and Spaniards, now advancing in their turn, were barring further progress 
in front, and whilst the Africans were tearing their mass to pieces on both flanks, 
Hasdrubal with his victorious Gaulish and Spanish horsemen broke with thun- 
dering fury upon their rear. Then followed a butchery such as has no recorded 
equal, except the slaughter of the Persians in their camp, when the Greeks forced 
it after the battle of Platsea. Unable to fight or fly, with no quarter asked or 
given, the Romans and Italians fell before the swords of their enemies, till, when 
the sun set upon the field, there were left out of that vast multitude no more than 
three thousand men alive and unwounded ; and these fled in straggling parties, 
under cover of the darkness, and found a refuge in the neighboring towns. 101 The 
consul iEmilius, the proconsul Cn. Servilius, the late master of the horse M. 
Minucius, two quaestors, twenty-one military tribunes, and eighty senators, lay 
dead amidst the carnage ; Varro with seventy horsemen had escaped from the 
rout of the allied cavalry on the right of the army, and made his way safely to 
Venusia. 

But the Roman loss was not yet completed. A large force had been left in 
the camp on the left bank of the Aufidus, to attack Hannibal's 
camp during the action, which it was supposed that, with his 
inferior numbers, he could not leave adequately guarded. But it was defended 

* 106 Polyb. III. 115. Livy, XXII. 47. J07 I'olybius, III. 116. Livy, XXII. 49. 



500 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

so obstinately, that the Romans were still besieging it in vain, when Hannibal, 
now completely victorious in the battle, crossed the river to its relief. Then the 
besiegers fled in their turn to their own camp, and there, cut off from all succor, 
they presently surrendered. A few resolute men had forced their way out of 
the smaller camp on the right bank, and had escaped to Canusium; the rest who 
were in it followed the example of their comrades on the left bank, and surren- 
dered to the conqueror. 

Less than six thousand men of Hannibal's army had fallen : no greater price 
had he paid for the total destruction of more than eio-htv thou- 

Results of the battle. , - f , - . » J 

sand or the enemy, tor the capture ot their two camps, tor the utter 
annihilation, as it seemed, of all their means for offensive warfare. It is no 
wonder that the spirits of the Carthaginian officers were elated by this unequalled 
victory. Maharbal, seeing what his cavalry had done, said to Hannibal, " Let 
me advance instantly with the horse, and do thou follow to support me ; in four 
days from this time thou shalt sup in the capitol." 108 There are moments when 
rashness is wisdom ; and it may be that this was one of them. The statue of 
the goddess Victory in the capitol maj well have trembled in every limb on that 
day, and have dropped her wings, as if forever, but Hannibal came not ; and if 
panic had for one moment unnerved the iron courage of the Roman aristocracy, 
on the next their inborn spirit revived ; and their resolute will, striving beyond 
its present power, created, as is the law of our nature, the power which it re- 
quired. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

PROGRESS OF THE WAR EST ITAEY AFTER THE BATTLE OF CANNAE— REVOLT 
OF CAPUA, AND OF THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN ITALY, TO HANNIBAL- 
GREAT EXERTIONS OF THE ROMANS— SURPRISE OF TARENTUM— SIEGE OF 
CAPUA— HANNIBAL MARCHES ON ROME— REDUCTION AND PUNISHMENT OF 
CAPUA.— A. U. C. 538 TO 543. 

From New Carthage to the plains of Cannas, Hannibal's march resembled a 
change in the charac- mighty torrent, which, rushing along irresistible and undivided, 
terofthewar. g xes our attention to the one line of its course: all other sights 

and sounds in the landscape are forgotten, while we look on the rush of the vast 
volume of waters, and listen to their deep and ceaseless roar. Therefore I have 
not wished to draw away the reader's attention to other objects, but to keep it 
fixed upon the advance of Hannibal. But from Cannce onwards the character 
of the scene changes. The single torrent, joined by a hundred lesser streams, 
has now swelled into a wide flood, overwhelming the whole valley ; and the 
principal object of our interest is the one rock, now islanded amid the waters, 
and on which they dashed furiously on every side, as though they must needs 
sweep it away. But the rock stands unshaken : the waters become feebler ; and 
their streams are again divided : and the flood shrinks ; and the rock rises higher 
and higher ; and the danger is passed away. In the next part of the second 
Punic war, our attention will be mainly fixed on Rome, as it has hitherto been on 
Hannibal. But in order to value aright the mightiness of her energy, we must 
consider the multitude of her enemies ; how all southern Italy, led by Hannibal, 
struggled with her face to face ; how Sicily and Macedon struck at her from be- 

1M Livy, XXH. 51. 



Chap. XLIV.J MEASURES OF THE SENATE. 501 

hind ; how Spain supplied arms to her most dangerous enemy. Yet her policy 
and her courage were everywhere : Sicily was struck to the earth by one blow ; 
Macedon obliged to defend himself against his nearer enemies ; the arms which 
Spain was offering to Hannibal were torn out of his grasp ; revolted Italy was 
crushed to pieces ; and the great enemy, after all his forces were dispersed and 
destroyed, was obliged, like Hector, to fight singly under his country's walls, and 
to fall like Hector, with the consolation of " having done mighty deeds, to be 
famed in after ages." 

The Romans, knowing that their army was in presence of the enemy, and that 
the consuls had been ordered no longer to decline a battle, were The news of the defeat 
for some days in the most intense anxiety. Every tongue was reaches Rome - 
repeating some line of old prophecy, or relating some new wonder or portent ; 
every temple was crowded with supplicants ; and incense and sacrifices were 
offered on every altar. At last the tidings arrived of the utter destruction of 
both the consular armies, and of a slaughter such as Rome had never before known. 
Even Livy felt himself unable adequately to paint the grief and consternation of 
that day ;' and the experience of the bloodiest and most imbittered warfare of 
modern times would not help us to conceive it worthily. But one simple fact 
speaks eloquently : the whole number of Roman citizens able to bear arms had 
amounted at the last census to 270,000 f and supposing, as we fairly may, that 
the loss of the Romans in the late battle had been equal to that of their allies, 
there must have been killed or taken, within the last eighteen months, no fewer 
than 60,000, or more than a fifth part of the whole population of citizens above 
seventeen years of age. It must have been true, without exaggeration, that every 
house in Rome was in mourning. 

The two home praetors summoned the senate to consult for the defence of the 
city. Fabius was no longer dictator; yet the supreme govern- Measures taken by the 
ment at this moment was effectually in his hands ; for the reso- seuate- 
lutions which he moved were instantly and unanimously adopted. Light-horse- 
men were to be sent out to gather tidings of the enemy's movements ; the mem- 
bers of the senate, acting as magistrates, were to keep order in the city, to stop 
all loud or public lamentations, and to take care that all intelligence was con- 
veyed in the first instance to the praetors : above all, the city gates were to be 
strictly guarded, that no one might attempt to fly from Rome, but all abide the 
common danger together. 3 Then the Forum was cleared, and the assemblies of 
the people suspended ; for at such a moment had any one tribune uttered the 
word " peace," the tribes would have caught it up with eagerness, and obliged 
the senate to negotiate. 

Thus the first moments of panic passed ; and Varro's dispatches arrived, inform- 
ing the senate that he had rallied the wrecks of the army at Ca- Arrival of dutches 
nusium, and that Hannibal was not advancing upon Rome.' 1 Hope fiomVarro - 
then began to revive ; the meetings of the senate were resumed, and measures 
taken for maintaining the war. f 

M. Marcellus, one of the praetors for the year, was at this moment at Ostia, 
preparing to sail to Sicily. It was resolved to transfer him at MarceUuB i3 sent Mo 
once to the great scene of action in Apulia ; and he was ordered Apulia- 
to give up the fleet to his colleague, P. Furius Philus, and to march with the 
single legion which he had under his command into Apulia, there to collect the 
remains of Varro's army, and to fall back as he best could into Campania, while 
the consul returned immediately to Rome. 5 

In the mean time the scene at Canusium was like the disorder of a ship going 
to pieces, when fear makes men desperate, and the instinct of self- 

1 ,. ,, li p v in Varro's manly conduct. 

preservation swallows up every other ieehng. Some young men 

1 Livy, XXII. 54. * Livy, XXII. 56. 

2 Livy, Epit. XX. 5 Livy, XXII. 57. Plutarch, Marcellus, 9. 

3 Livy, XXII. 55. 



502 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

of the noblest families, a Metellus being at the head of them, looking upon Rome 
as lost, were planning to escape from the ruin, and to fly beyond sea, in the hope 
of entering into some foreign service. Such an example at such a moment would 
have led the way to a general panic : if the noblest citizens of Rome despaired 
of their country, what allied state, or what colony, could be expected to sacri- 
fice themselves in defence of a hopeless cause? The consul exerted himself to 
the utmost to check this spirit, and aided by some firmer spirits amongst the 
officers themselves, he succeeded in repressing it. 6 He kept his men together, 
gave them over to the praetor Marcellus, on his arrival at Canusium, and pre- 
pared instantly to obey the orders of the senate by returning to Rome. The fate 
of P. Claudius and L. Junius in the last war might have warned him of the 
dangers which threatened a defeated general ; he himself was personally hateful 
to the prevailing party at Rome ; and if the memory of Flaminius was persecuted, 
notwithstanding his glorious death, what could he look for, a fugitive general 
from that field where his colleague and all his soldiers had perished ? Demos- 
thenes dared not trust himself to the Athenian people after his defeat in iEtolia ; 
but Varro, with a manlier spirit, returned to bear the obloquy and the punishment 
which the popular feeling, excited by party animosity, was so likely to heap on him. 
He stopped, as usual, without the city walls, and summoned the senate to meet 
him in the Campus Martins. 

The senate felt his confidence in them, and answered it nobly. All party feel- 
ing was suspended ; all popular irritation was subdued ; the 
butcher's son, the turbulent demagogue, the defeated general, 
were all forgotten ; only Varro's latest conduct was remembered, that he had 
resisted the panic of his officers, and, instead of seeking shelter at the court of a 
foreign king, had submitted himself to the judgment of his countrymen. The 
senate voted him their thanks, " because he had not despaired of the common- 
wealth." 7 

It was resolved to name a dictator ; and some writers related that the general 
voice of the senate and people offered the dictatorship to Varro 
himself, but that he positively refused to accept it. s This story 
is extremely doubtful ; but the dictator actually named was M. Junius Pisa, a 
member of a popular famity, and Avho had himself been consul and censor. His 
master of the horse was T. Sempronius Gracchus, the first of that noble but ill- 
fated name who appears in the Roman annals. 9 

Already, before the appointment of the dictator, the Roman government had 
The somite refuses to shown that its resolution was fixed to carry on the war to the death. 
ransom the prisons. Hannibal had allowed his Roman prisoners to send ten of their 
number to Rome to petition that the senate would permit the whole body to be 

6 The author would, doubtless, have ex- ecllus, when he went to Rome — implies that 

plained his reasons for ascribing the suppres- Scipio distinguished himself at Canusium. 

sion "I'lhis conspiracy to leave Italy to Varro. Dion's statement is the more trustworthy, as 

By I. ivy, XXII. 58, by Valerius Maximus, V. he did not join in the cry against Varro, out 

i. 7. by Dion, Fragm. Peiresc. XLIX., it is at- speaks with high praise of his conduct after the 

L to Scipio. See also Silius Italicus, X. defeat. 'Es to kav6atov i\6Hiv rd re foraVOa 

<j 16, fol. It is somewhat remarkable that I'd- KanaT^aaro, k<u -»?? irXnatox&pots <ppovpiis <'•>; ix 

lvliius makes no mention of the fact, eitherin tQv Kapdvnav i-ac/idcv. TrpociSdWavrdt re - 

le i't' Cannse, or in the liririat, a-rtupovo-aTn • t6 rt ovioXov oBi 

character of Scipio, X. 1-6, "where he speaks of op-e carosT^aj, AAA' dir' ipBni Stavolai ffiorop 

gjcipio's early exploits. According to Livy, nrj&evbs afylai dcivoti <Tvp0e(}>iic6To;, Trdvra tu no 

witfl whose accounts Dion's concurs, tin' fii^i- ro?s napovat koI iffoiXevas ko\ enpa^sv. 

;i Canusium were headed byfourtrib- was so careless in abridging his author, that he 

unes who voluntarily submitted to the com- transfers what Dion here says of Varro to 

mand of Scipio and Appius Claudius, two of Soipio. 

their number; and Scipio, by a characteristic "' Livy, XXII. 61. Plutarch, Fal 

actof youthful heroism, stifled the plot. Mean- also Floras, II. 6. 

while Varro is represented to have been at Ve- "Valerius Maximus, 111. l. « [V. 

nusia. Appian's account, too, VII. 26, though Frontinus, IV. 5, <;. " Honoribus, quum. ei 

differing as t>> the order of the events, and deferrentur a populo, renuntiavit, dicei 

plainly inaccurate— since it mokes Van-., re- oioribus, magistratibus reipublica opus i 

sign the command to Scipio, instead of Mar " Livy, XXII. 57. 



Chap. XLIV.] POSITION OF THE ROMAN ARMY. 503 

ransomed by their friends. at the sum of three minse, or 3000 ases for each pris- 
oner. But the senate absolutely forbade the money to be paid, neither choosing 
to furnish Hannibal with so large a sum, nor to show any compassion to men who 
had allowed themselves to fall alive into the enemy's hands. 10 The prisoners 
therefore were left in hopeless captivity ; and the armies which the state required 
were to be formed out of other materials. The expedients adopted showed the 
urgency of the danger. 

When the consuls took the field at the beginning of the campaign, two legions 
had been left, as usual, to cover the capital. These were now to Moasurea t0 rajse 
be employed in active service ; and with them was a small detach- tl00ps " 
ment of troops, which had been drawn from Picenum and the neighborhood of 
Ariminum, where their services were become of less importance. The contin- 
gents from the allies were not ready; and there was no time to wait for them. 
In order, therefore, to enable the dictator to take the field immediately, eight 
thousand slaves were enlisted, having expressed their willingness to serve ; and 
arms were provided by taking down from the temple the spoils won in former 
wars. 11 The dictator went still further : he offered pardon to criminals and re- 
lease to debtors, if they were willing to take up arms ; and amongst the former 
class were some bands of robbers, who then, as in later times, infested the mount- 
ains, and who consented to serve the state on receiving an indemnity for their 
past offences. 12 With this strange force, amounting, it is said, to about twenty- 
five thousand men, M. Junius marched into Campania ; whilst a new levy of the 
oldest and youngest citizens supplied two new legions for the defence of the cap- 
ital, in the place of those which followed the dictator into the field. M. Junius 
fixed his head-quai-ters at Teanum, 13 on high ground upon the edge of the Faler- 
nian plain, with the Latin colony of Cales in his front, and communicating by the 
Latia road with Rome. 

The dictator was at Teanum, and M. Marcellus with the army of Cannse, whom 
we left in Apulia, is described as now lying encamped above Sues- PosUion of the Roman 
sula,' 4 that is, on the right bank of the Vulturnus, on the hills army - 
which bound the Campanian plain, ten or twelve miles to the east of Capua, on 
the right of the Appian road as it ascends the pass of Caudium towards Bene- 
ventum. Thus we find the seat of war removed from Apulia to Campania ; but 
the detail of the intermediate movements is lost; and we must restore the broken 
story as well as we can, by tracing Hannibal's operations after the battle of Can- 
nee, which are undoubtedly the key to those of his enemies. 

The fidelity of the allies of Rome, which had not been shaken by the defeat of 
Thrasj' menus, could not resist the fiery trial of Cannse. The A'pu- Revolt of the alliea . 
lians joined the conqueror immediately, and Arpi and Salapia conduct °f H <«"« 1 »i- 
opened their gates to him. Bruttiurn, Lucania, and Samnium were ready to fol- 
low the example ; 15 and Hannibal was obliged to divide his army, and send offi- 
cers into different parts of the country, to receive and protect those who wished 
to join him, and to organize their forces for effective co-operation in the field. 
Meanwhile he himself remained in Apulia, not perhaps without hope that this 
last blow had broken the spirit as well as the power of the enemy, and that they 
would listen readily to proposals of peace. With this view be sent a Carthaginian 
officer to accompany the deputation of the Roman prisoners to Rome, and or- 
dered him to encourage any disposition on the part of the Romans to open a 
negotiation. 16 When he found, therefore, on the return of the deputies, that his 
officers had not been allowed to enter the city, and that the Romans had refused 
to ransom their prisoners, his disappointment betrayed him into acts of the most 

10 Polybins, VI. 58. Livy, XII. 58-61. Ap- 13 Livy, XXIII. 24. 
pian, VII. 28. Cicero de Oif. 1. 13, 32. III. 32. M Livy, XXII. 14. 

Aulus GeUius, VII. 18. ]5 Livy, XXII. 61. Polybius, III. 118. Ap- 

11 Livy, XXII. 57. pian, VII. 31. 

12 Livy, XXIII. 14. 16 Livy, XXII. 58. 



504 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. LXIV. 

inhuman cruelty. The mass of the prisoners left in his hands he sold for slaves ; 
and so far he did not overstep the recognized laws of warfare ; hut many of the 
more distinguished of them he put to death ; and those who were senators he 
obliged to nVht as gladiators with each other in the presence of his whole army. 
It is added, that brothers were m some instances brought out to fight with their 
brothers, and sons with their fathers ; but that the prisoners refused so to sin 
against nature, and chose rather to suffer the worst torments than to draw their 
swords in such horrible combats. 11 Hannibal's vow may have justified all these 
cruelties in his eyes ; but his passions deceived him, and he was provoked to 
fury by the resolute spirit which ought to have excited his admiration. To ad- 
mire the virtue which thwarts our dearest purposes, however natural it may 
seem to indifferent spectators, is one of the hardest trials of h.vmanity. 

Finding the Romans immovable, Hannibal broke up from his position in Apulia, 
Hannibal enters Cam- ana moved into Samnium. The popular party in Compsa opened 
pania: revolt of capua. their gates to him ; and he made the place serve as a depot for 
his plunder, and for the heavy baggage of his army. 18 His brother Mago was 
then ordered to march into Bruttium with a division of the army, and after hav- 
ing received the submission of the Hirpinians on his way, to embark at one of the 
Bruttian ports, and carry the tidings of his success to Carthage. 19 Hanno, with 
another division, was sent into Lucania, to protect the revolt of the Lucanians ; 20 
while Hannibal himself, in pursuit of a still greater prize, descended once more 
into the plains of Campania. The Pentrian Samnites, partly restrained by the 
Latin colony of QEsernia, and partly by the influence of their own countryman, 
Num. Decimius of Bovianum, a zealous supporter of the Roman alliance, remained 
firm in their adherence to Rome : but the Hirpinians and the Caudinian Samnites 
all joined the Carthaginians ; and their soldiers no doubt formed part of the army 
with which Hannibal invaded Campania. 21 There all was ready for his reception. 
The popular party in Capua were headed by Pacuvius Calavius, a man of the 
highest nobility, and married to a daughter of Appius Claudius, but whose am- 
bition led him to aspire to the sovereignty, not of his own country only, but, 
through Hannibal's aid, of the whole of Italy, Capua succeeding, as he hoped, to 
the supremacy now enjoyed by Rome. The aristocratical party were weak and 
unpopular, and could offer no opposition to him ; while the people, wholly sub- 
ject to his influence, concluded a treaty with Hannibal, and admitted the Cartha- 
ginian general and his army into the city. 22 Thus the second city in Italy, 
capable, it is said, of raising an army of 30,000 foot and 4000 horse, 23 connected 
with Rome by the closest ties, and which for nearly a century had remained true 
to its alliance under all dangers, threw itself into the arms of Hannibal, and took 
its place at the head of the new coalition of southern Italy, to try the old quarrel 
of the Samnite wars once again. 

This revolt of Capua, the greatest result, short of the submission of Rome itself, 
Maroeiiua cncimpa at which could have followed from the battle of Cannae, drew the 
sueesuia. Roman armies towards Campania. Marcellus had probably fallen 

17 Diodorus, XXVI. Exc.de. Virtut. ctVitiis. phant, and killed him, and was then treacher- 

Appian, VII. 28. Zonaras, IX. 2. Valerius ously waylaid and murdered by Hannibal's 

Maximus, IX. 2, Ext. 2. But as even Livy does orders, was probably invented with reference 

not mention these Btories, though they would to this very occasion. The remarks of Polybius 

have afforded such a topic for his rhetoric, — nor should make us slow to believe the stories of 

does Polybius, cither in IX. 24, when speaking Hannibal's cruelties, which so soon became a 

of Hannibal's alleged cruelty, orinVL 58. where theme Tor the invention of poets and rhetori- 

he gives *'■<•■' accounl of the mission of the cap- clans, 

lives, and adds that llannilial, when lie heard le Livy, XXIII. 1. 

that the Romans had refused to ransom them, I0 Livy, XXIII. 11. 

KrtTETrXu'yr; to (rrdaijiov Kal rb ficya\6\].vxov t&v av- 20 Livy, XXIII. 37. 

&pibv iv roli iiajiovXlois, — there miiM doubtless M Livy, X X 1 1 . 61, 24. 

be a g re at deal of exaggeration in them, even " Livy, X.\ 111. 2-4. 

if they had any foundation at all. The story M Livy, XX11I. 5. See Niebuhr, Vol. II. 

in I'litiy, VIII.7. that the last, survivor of these note 145. 
gladiatorial combat.- had to Bght against an cle- 
30 ^ 



Chap. XL1V.] CAUSES WHICH SAVED ROME. 505 

back from Canusium by the Appian road through Beneventum, moving by an 
interior and shorter line ; whilst Hannibal advanced by Compsa upon Abellinum, 
descending into the plain of Campania by what is now the pass of Monteforte. 
Hannibal's cavalry gave him the whole command of the country ; and Marcellus 
could do no more than watch his movements from his camp above Suessula, and 
wait for some opportunity of impeding his operations in detail. 

At this point in the story of the war, the question arises, how was it possible 
for Rome to escape destruction? Nor is this question merely How came it that Rome 
prompted by the thought of Hannibal's great victories in the field, wisn ' ,ttlcst ">y ed! 
and the enormous slaughter of Roman citizens at Thrasymenus and Cannae ; it 
appears even more perplexing to those who have attentively studied the preced- 
ing history of Rome. A single battle, evenly contested and hardly won, had 
enabled Pyrrhus to advance into the heart of Latium ; the Hernican cities and 
the impregnable Praeneste had opened their gates to him ; yet Capua was then 
faithful to Rome ; and Samnium and Lucania, exhausted by long years of unsuc- 
cessful warfare, could have yielded him no such succor, as now, after fifty years 
of peace, they were able to afford to Hannibal. But now, when Hannibal was 
received into Capua, the state of Italy seemed to have' gone backwards a hundred 
years, and to have returned to what it had been after the battle of Lautulae in 
the second Samnite war, 24 with the immense addition of the genius of Hannibal 
and the power of Carthage thrown into the scale of the enemies of Rome. Then, 
as now, Capua had revolted, and Campania, Samnium, and Lucania, were banded 
together against Rome ; but this same confederacy was now supported by all the 
resources of Carthage : and at its head in the field of battle was an army of 
thirty thousand veterans and victorious soldiers, led by one of the greatest gen- 
erals whom the world has ever seen. How could it happen that a confederacy 
so formidable was only formed to be defeated ? — that the revolt of Capua was 
the term of Hannibal's progress ? — that from this day forwards his great powers 
were shown rather in repelling defeat than in commanding victory ? — that, in- 
stead of besieging Rome, he was soon employed in protecting and relieving Ca- 
pua? — and that his protection and succors. were alike unavailing? 

No single cause will explain a result so extraordinary. Rome owed her deliv- 
erance principally to the strength of the aristocratical interest Cau3e3 whicb saved 
throughout Italy, — to her numerous colonies of the Latin name, — bev - 
to the scanty numbers of Hannibal's Africans and Spaniards, and to his want of 
an efficient artillery. The material of a good artillery must surely have existed 
in Capua ; but there seem to have been no officers capable of directing it ; and 
no great general's operations exhibit so striking a contrast of strength and weak- 
ness, as may be seen in Hannibal's battles and sieges. And when Cannae had 
taught the Romans to avoid pitched battles in the open field, the war became ne- 
cessarily a series of sieges, where Hannibal's strongest arm, his cavalry, could ren- 
der little service, while his infantry was in quality not more than equal to the 
enemy, and his artillery was decidedly inferior. 

With two divisions of his army absent in Lucania and Bruttium, and while 
anxiously waiting for the reinforcements which Mago was to pro- Militery meaaurea ^ 
cure from Carthage, Hannibal could not undertake any great offen- Cam P ania - 
sive operation after his arrival in Campania. He attempted only to reduce the 
remaining cities of the Campanian plain and sea-coast, and especially to dislodge 
the Romans from Casilinum, which, lying within three miles of Capua, and com- 
manding the passage of the Vulturnus, not only restrained all his movements, but 
was a serious annoyance to Capua, and threatened its territory with continual 
incursions. Atilla and Calatia had revolted to him already with Capua : and he 
took Nuceria, Alfaterna, and Acerrae. The Greek cities on the coast, Neapolis 
and Cumaa, were firmly attached to Rome, and were too strong to be besieged 

34 Sec Chap. XXXI. 



506 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

with success ; but Nola lay in the midst of the plain nearly midway between 
Capua and Nuceria ; and the popular party there, as elsewhere, were ready to 
open their gates to Hannibal. He was preparing to appear before the town ; but 
the aristocracy had time to apprise the Romans of their danger ; and Marcellus, 
who was then at Casilinum, marched round behind the mountains to escape the 
enemy's notice, and descended suddenly upon Nola from the hills which rise 
directly above it. He secured the place, repressed the popular party by some 
bloody executions, and when Hannibal advanced to the walls, made a sudden 
sally, and repulsed him with some loss. 25 Having done this service, and left the 
aristocratical party in absolute possession of the government, he returned again 
to the hills, and lay encamped on the edge of the mountain boundary of the 
Campanian plain, just above the entrance of the famous pass of Caudium. His 
place at Casilinum was to be supplied by the dictator's army from Teanum ; but 
Hannibal watched his opportunity, and anticipating his enemies this time, laid 
regular siege to Casilinum, which was defended by a garrison of about 1000 men. 

This garrison had acted the very same part towards the citizens of Casilinum, 
conduct of the garrison which the Campanians had acted at Rhegium in the war with 
ofouunuu.. ° Pyrrhus. 26 About 500 Latins of Praeneste, and 450 Etruscans of 

Perusia, having been levied too late to join the consular armies when they took 
the field, were marching after them into Apulia by the Appian road, when they 
heard the tidings of the defeat of Cannae. They immediately turned about, and 
fell back upon Casilinum, where they established themselves, and for their better 
security massacred the Campanian inhabitants, and, abandoning the quarter of 
the town which was on the left bank of the Vulturnus, occupied the quarter on 
the right bank. 27 Marcellus, when he retreated from Apulia with the wreck of 
Varro's army, had fixed his head-quarters for a time at Casilinum ; the position 
being one of great importance, and there being some danger lest the garrison, while 
they kept off Hannibal, should resolve to hold the town for themselves rather 
than for the Romans. They were now left to themselves ; and dreading Hanni- 
bal's vengeance for the massacre of the old inhabitants, they resisted his assaults 
desperately, and obliged him to turn the siege into a blockade. This was the 
last active operation of the campaign : all the armies now went into winter- 
quarters. The dictator remained at Teanum; Marcellus lay in his mountain 
camp above Nola ; and Hannibal's army was at Capua. 23 Being quartered in 
the houses of the city, instead of being encamped by themselves, their discipline, 
it is likely, was somewhat impaired by the various temptations thrown in their 
way : and as the wealth and enjoyments of Capua at that time were notorious, 
the writers who adopted the vulgar declamations against luxury, pretended that 
Hannibal's army was ruined by the indulgences of this winter, and that Capua 
was the Cannse of Carthage. 89 

This intermission of active warfare will afford us an opportunity of noticing the 
i>rn C r,- M of the war in progress of events elsewhere, which we have hitherto unavoidably 
ulllcr ' 1, neglected. From the banks of the Iberus Hannibal had made his 

way withoui interruption to Capua; and the countries which he left behind him 
sink in like manner from the notice of the historian. AVe must now see what had 
happened in each of them since Hannibal's passage. 

It has been mentioned above, that P. Scipio, when he returned from the Rhone 

at l0 ^' ,l h'> '° be ready to meet Hannibal in Cisalpine Gaul, sent his 

i- - ■ "'•■ army into Spain under the command of his brother. 50 After his 

consulship was over, Ins province of Spain was still continued to 

him as proconsul ; and he' went thither accordingly to take the command. He 

i und that his brother had already effected much: he had defeated and made 

■ Livy, XXIII. Mr-17. Plutarch, Marcel- » Livy, XXIII 18. 

20 Livy, XXIII. 4.-). Floras, II. 6. Valerius 
"* See Vol. II. p. 398. Maxiixras, IX. Ext. 1. 

37 Livy, XX I It. 17. » Above, p. 477. 



Chap, XLIV.] TRANQUILLITY OF CISALPINE GAUL. 507 

prisoner the Carthaginian general, Hanno, whom Hannibal left to maintain his 
latest conquests in Spain, and had driven the Carthaginians beyond the Iberus. 31 
His own arrival in Spain took place in the summer of the year 537, three or four 
months after the battle of Thrasymenus ; and although little was done in the 
field before the end of the season, the Carthaginian governor of Saguntum was 
persuaded to set at liberty all the Spanish hostages left in his custody ; and the 
Spaniard who had advised this step under the mask of good will to Carthage, 
as a means of securing the affections of the Spanish people, had no sooner 
received the hostages with orders to take them back to their several homes, than 
he delivered them up to the Romans. Thus Scipio enjoyed the whole credit of 
restoring them to their friends, and made the Roman name generally popular. 32 
In the following year, Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, having received orders to 
march into Italy to co-operate with his brother, was encountered by the Romans 
near the Iberus, and defeated ; 33 so that his invasion of Italy was for the present 
effectually prevented. 

The importance of this Spanish war cannot be estimated too highly ; for, by 
disputing the possession of Spain, the Romans, deprived their en- 
emy of his best nursery of soldiers, from which otherwise he would aie. 'its' great impor- 
have been able to raise army after army for the invasion of Italy. 
But its importance consisted not so much in the particular events, as in its being 
kept up at all ; nor is there any thing requiring explanation in the success of 
the Romans. Their army had originally consisted of 20,000 men ; and P. Scipio 
had brought some reinforcements ; while Hasdrubal and Hanno in their two 
armies had a force not much superior : hence, after the total defeat of Hanno, 
Hasdrubal could not meet the Romans with any chance, of success. For Span- 
ish levies were now no longer to be depended on, while the Romans were inviting 
the nations of Spain to leave the Carthaginians, and come over to them. In this 
contest between the two nations, which should most influence the minds of the 
Spaniards, the ascendency of the Roman character was clearly shown ; and the 
natives were drawn, as by an invincible attraction, to the worthier. 

While Spain was thus the scene of active warfare, Cisalpine Gaul, after Han- 
nibal's advance into Italy, seems to have sunk back into a state of Tranquillity of cisalpine 
tranquillity, such as it had enjoyed in the first Punic war. It is Gaul - 
very remarkable, that the colonies of Placentia and Cremona, so far in advance 
of the Roman frontier, and surrounded by hostile tribes, were left unassailed 
from the time when Hannibal crossed the Apennines into Etruria. We are only 
told that L. Postumius Albinus, one of the praetors of the year 538, was sent 
with an army into Gaul, when Varro and iEmilius marched into Apulia, with 
the express object of compelling the Gauls in Hannibal's service to return to the 
defence of their own country. 34 What he did in the course of that summer we 
know not : at the end of the consular year he was still in his province, and was 
elected consul for the year following, with Ti. Sempronius Gracchus. But be- 
fore his consulship began, early in March apparently, according to the Roman 
calendar, he fell into an ambuscade, while advancing into the enemy's country, 
and was cut to pieces 35 with his whole army. We are told that the Romans 
found it utterly impossible to replace the army thus lost, and that it was re- 
solved for the present to leave the Gauls to themselves. 36 But it was not so 
certain that the Gauls, if unopposed, would leave the Romans to themselves ; 
and we find that M. Pomponius Matho, who had been city prsetor in 538, was 
sent, on the expiration of his office, with proconsular power to Ariminum, and 
that he remained on that frontier for two years with an army of two legions, 37 
while C. Varro with another legion was quartered in Picenum, to support him in 

31 Pofybius, III. 76. » Livy, XXIII. 24. Polybius, III. 118. 

32 Polybius, III. 98,- 99. 36 Livy, XXIII. 25. 

33 Livy, XXIII. 27, 28, 29. 37 Livy, XXIV. 10, 44. See Duker's note on 

34 Polybius, III. 106. the former passage. 



508 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV- 

time of need. 3S Still the inaction of the Gauls is extraordinary, the more so as we 
find them in arms immediately after the end of the -war with Carthage, and 
attacking Placentia and Cremona, which they had so long left in peace. 39 We 
can only suppose that the absence of a large portion of their soldiers, who were 
serving in Hannibal's army, crippled the power of the Gauls who were left at 
home ; and that long experience had taught them that, unless when conducted 
by a general of a more civilized nation, they could not carry on war successfully 
with the Romans. The older Gaulish chiefs also were often averse to war, when 
the younger chiefs were in favor of it ; 40 and the Romans were likely to be lavish 
of presents at a time so critical, to confirm their friends in their peaceful senti- 
ments, and to win over their adversaries. It seems probable that some truce 
was concluded, which restrained either the Gauls or Romans from invading each 
other's territory ; and the Romans were contented not to require the recall of the 
Gauls serving with Hannibal ; some of whom, we know, continued to be with 
him till a much later period. The multitude of the Gauls rejoiced, perhaps, that 
they had won thus much from their proud enemy, and were well content that 
the war chould be carried on far from their own frontiers, and yet that they 
should share in its advantages. But wiser men might regret that better use was 
not made of the favorable moment ; that no Carthaginian officer had been left 
with them to organize their armies and conduct them into the field ; that the 
Roman encroachments on their soil were still maintained ; and thai, there was no 
Gellius Gnatius in northern Italy to rouse the Etruscans and Umbrians to unite 
their forces with those of the Gauls on the south of the Apennines, and, while 
Hannibal lay triumphant in Capua, to revenge the defeat of Sentinum by a 
second victory on the Alia or the Tiber. 

Whatever was the cause, the inactivity of the Gauls, after their great victory 
Rosom-ces of the Re- over L. Postumius, might strengthen the arguments of those 
maina ' Greeks who ascribed the conquests of the Romans to their good 

fortune. It was no less timely than the peace with Etruria, concluded at the 
very moment when Pyrrhus was advancing upon Rome, or than the quiet of 
these same Gauls during the first Punic war. The consequence was, that the 
Romans had the whole force of Etruria and Umbria disposable for the contest 
in the south ; and that any disposition to revolt, which might have existed in 
those countries, was unable to show itself in action. Their soldiers served as 
allies in the Roman armies, and with the Sabines, Picentians, Vesting ns, Fren- 
tanians, Marrucinians, Marsians, and Pelignians, together with the cities of the 
Latin name, composed the Roman confederacy after the revolt of southern Italy. 
That revolt made the drain, both of men and money, press more heavily on the 
states which still remained faithful ; and the friends of Rome must everywhere 
have had the greatest difficulty in persuading their countrymen not to desert a 
cause which seemed so ruinous. Under such a pressure, the Roman govern- 
ment plainly told its officers in Sardinia and Sicily, that they must provide for 
their armies as they best could, for that the)' must expect no supplies of any kind 
from home.'" The propraetor of Sicily applied to the never-failing friendship of 
Hiero, and obtained from him, almost as the last act of his long life, money 
enough to pay his soldiers, and corn for six months' consumption. But the pro- 
praetor of Sardinia had no such friend to help him ; and he was obliged to get 
both coin and money from the people of the province. 42 The money, it si ems, 
like the benevolences of our own government in old times, was nominally a free- 
will offering of the loyal cities of Sardinia to the Roman people : but the Sar- 
dinians knew that it was a gift which they could not help giving; and impatient 
of this addition to their former burdens, they applied to Carthage for aid, and 
broke out the following year into open revolt. 48 

88 Idvy, XX1TT. 32. « T.iw, XXTII. 21. 

88 LivV, XXXI. 10. « LivV, XXI II. 31. 

40 Sec, for instance, Caesar, B. G. II. 17. 4S LivV, XXIII. 32. 



Chap." XLIV.] DISTRESS OF THE ROMANS. 509 

It is not without reason that the Roman government had abandoned its officers 
in the provinces to their own resources. Their financial difficulties Their SBaDeiai ^^ 
were enormous. Large tracts of land, arable, pasture, and forest, cu)tic8 - 
from which the state ordinarily derived a revenue, were in the hands of the 
enemy ; the number of tax-payers had been greatly diminished by the slaughter 
of so many citizens in battle ; and in many cases their widows and children would 
be unable to cultivate their little propert} T , and would be altogether insolvent. 
If the poorer citizens were again obliged, as after the Gaulish invasion, to bor- 
row money of the rich, discontent and misery would have been the sure conse- 
quence ; and the debtor would regard his creditor as a worse enemy than Han- 
nibal. Accordingly three commissioners were appointed, on the proposition of 
the tribune Minucius, like the five commissioners of the year 403, with the ex- 
press object of facilitating the circulation, and assisting the distressed tax-payer. 44 
Their measures are not recorded ; but we may suppose that they acted like the 
former commissioners, and allowed the poor citizens to pay their taxes in kind, 
when they could not procure money, and did not force them to sell their prop- 
erty, when it must have been sold at a certain loss. 45 The war must no doubt 
have raised the value of money, and diminished that of land ; and the agricultu- 
ral population, who had to pay a fixed amount of taxation in money, were thus 
doubly sufferers. As a mere financial operation, the commissioners' measures 
may not have been very profitable ; but the government had the wisdom to see 
that every thing depended on the unanimity and devotion of all classes to the 
cause of their country ; and it was worth a great pecuniary sacrifice, even in the 
actual financial difficulties, to attach the people heartily to the government, and 
to prevent that intolerable evil of a general state of debt, which must speedily 
have led to a revolution, and laid Rome prostrate at the feet of Hannibal. 

Neither Rome nor Carthage could be said to have the undisputed mastery of 
the sea. Roman fleets sometimes visited the coasts of Africa ; Event9 of the naval 
and Carthaginian fleets in the same way appeared off the coasts war " 
of Italy. Hannibal received supplies from Carthage, which were landed in the 
ports of Bruttium ; and when the Carthaginians wished to assist the revolt of 
the Sardinians, the expedition which they sent, although it suffered much from 
bad weather, was neither delayed nor prevented by the enemy. 46 On the other 
hand, the Romans had gained a naval victory of some importance in Spain ; 47 
and their cruising squadrons in the Ionian Gulf, having the ports of Brundisium 
and Tarentum to run to in case of need, were of signal service, as we shall see 
hereafter, in intercepting the communications which the king of Macedon was 
trying to open with Hannibal. 48 

Meantime the news of the battle of Cannas had been carried to Carthage, as 
we have seen, by Hannibal's brother Mago, accompanied with a R ein f orcem e n t a from 
request for reinforcements. Nearly two years before, when he Cartlia « e - 
first descended from the Alps into Cisalpine Gaul, his Africans and Spaniards 
were reduced to no more than 20,000 foot and 6000 horse. The Gauls, who 
had joined him since, had indeed more than doubled this number at first ; but 
three great battles, and many partial actions, besides the unavoidable losses from 
sickness during two years of active service, must again have greatly diminished 
it ; and this force was now to be divided : a part of it was employed in Brut- 
tium, a part in Lucania, leaving an inconsiderable body under Hannibal's own 
command. On the other hand, the accession of the Campanians, Samnites, 
Lucanians, and Bruttians supplied him with auxiliary troops in abundance, and 
of excellent quality ; so that large reinforcements from home were not required, 

44 Livy, XXIII. 21. Compare VII. 21. tatorship of Fabius Maximus, was a measure of 

lb Salmasius (de Usuris. p. 510) conceives these commissioners, 
that the reduction of the as to an ounce, which, 46 Livy, XXIII. 43, 34. 
Pliny (XXXIII. 13) says, took place in the die- *' Polybius, III. 96. 

18 Livy, XXIII. 32, 34. 



510 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

but tmly enough for the Africans to form a substantial part of every army em- 
ployed in the field ; and above all, to maintain his superiority in cavalry. It is 
said that some of the reinforcements which were voted on Mago's demand, were 
afterwards diverted to other services ; 49 and we do not know what was the 
amount of force actually sent over to Italy, nor when it arrived. 50 It consisted 
chiefly, if not entirely, of cavalry and elephants ; for all the elephants which 
Hannibal had brought with him into Italy had long since perished ; and his 
anxiet}' to obtain others, troublesome and hazardous as it must have been to 
transport them from Africa by sea, speaks strongly in favor of their use in war, 
which modern writers are perhaps too much inclined to depreciate. 51 

We have no information as to the feelings entertained by Hannibal and the 
Feelings of the'Cm- Campanians towards each other, while the Carthaginians were 
p™" 11 "- wintering in Capua. The treaty of alliance had provided care- 

fully for the independence of the Campanians, that they might not be treated 
as Pyrrhus had treated the Tarentines. Capua was to have its own laws and 
magistrates ; no Campanian was to be compelled to any duty, civil or military, 
nor to be in any way subject to the authority of the Carthaginian officers. 52 
There must have been something of a Roman party opposed to the alliance with 
Carthage altogether ; though the Roman writers mention one man only, Decius 
Magius, who was said to have resisted Hannibal to his face with such vehe- 
mence, that Hannibal sent him prisoner to Carthage. 53 But three hundred Cam- 
panian horsemen of the richer classes, who were serving in the Roman army in 
Sicily when Capua revolted, went to Rome as soon as their service was over, and 
were there received as Roman citizens; 54 and others, though unable to resist the 
general voice of their countrymen, must have longed in their hearts to return to 
the Roman alliance. Of the leaders of the Campanian people we know little : 
Pacuvius Calavius, the principal author of the revolt, is never mentioned after- 
wards ; nor do we know the fate of his son Perolla, who, in his zeal for Rome, 
wished to assassinate Hannibal at his own father's table, when he made his pub- 
lic entrance into Capua. 55 Vibius Virrius is also named as a leading partisan of 
the Carthaginians ; 66 and amid the pictures of the luxury and feebleness of the 
Campanians, their cavalry, which was formed entirely out of the wealthiest 
classes, is allowed to have been excellent ; 51 and one brave and practised soldier, 
Jubellius Taurea, had acquired a high reputation amongst the Romans when he 
served with them, and had attracted the notice and respect of Hannibal. 53 

During the interval from active warfare afforded by the winter, the Romans 
took measures for fillino- up the numerous vacancies which the 

Measures to fill up tho , „,. i 1 • . i,,iii i • 

senate. Two dictators lapse ol five years, and so many disastrous battles, had made in 
the numbers of the senate. 59 The natural course would have been 
to elect censors, to whom the duty of making out the roll of the senate properly 
belonged ; but the vacancies were so many, and the censor's power in admitting 
new citizens, and degrading old ones, was so enormous, that the senate feared, 
it seems, to trust to the result of an ordinary election ; and resolved that the 
censor's business should be performed by the oldest man in point of standing, of 
all those who had already been censors, and that he should be appointed dic- 
tator for this especial duty, although there was one dictator already for the con- 
duct of the war. The person thus selected was M. Fabius Buteo, who had been 
censor six-and-twenty years before, at the end of the first Punic war, and who 

«° Livy, XXI II. 13, 32. 68 Livy, XXIII. 7, 10. 

'•" He is represented as having elephants at M Liw, XXIII. 4, 7, 31. 

je of Casilinum. Livy. XXIII. 18. If M livy, XXIII. 8, 9. 

this be correct, the reinforcements must already 60 Livy, XXIU. 6. 

have joined him. " Frontinus, Btrateg. IV. 7. 2'.'. 

01 See the intcrcstiiiii dissertation on elc- M Livy, XXIII. S, 46, 47. XXVI. 15. Valerius 
iilmiits \>\ A. \\". S>-!i I.-ltcI, in his lad Uchc Bib- Maximum V. 8. Ex. 1. 

Uothek. V-l. I. 178, foil. ' <•» Liw, XXIII. 22. 

M Livy, XXIII. 7. 



Chap.XLIV.] ELECTION OF OFFICERS FOR YEAR 539. 51 1 

had more recently been the chief of the embassy sent to declare war on Carthage 
after the destruction of Saguntum. That his appointment might want no legal 
formality, C. Varro, the only surviving consul, was sent for home from Apulia 
to nominate him, the senate intending to detain Varro in Rome till he should 
have presided at the comitia for the election of the next year's magistrates. 
The nomination as usual took place at midnight ; and on the following morning 
M. Fabius appeared in the Forum with his four-and-twenty lictors, and ascended 
the rostra to address the people. Invested with absolute power for six months, 
and especially charged with no less a task than the formation, at his discretion, 
of that great council which possessed the supreme government of the common- 
wealth, the noble old man neither shrunk weakly from so heavy a burden, nor 
ambitiously abused so vast an authority. He told the people that he would not 
strike off the name of a single senator from the list of the senate, and that, in 
filling up the vacancies, he would proceed by a defined rule ; that he would first 
add all those who had held curule offices within the last five years, without 
having been admitted as yet into the senate ; that in the second place he would 
take all who within the same period had been tribunes, sediles, or quaestors ; 
and thirdly, all those who could show in their houses spoils won in battle from 
an enemy, or who had received the wreath of oak for saving the life of a citizen 
in battle. In this manner 1*7 7 new senators were placed on the roll ; the new 
members thus forming a large majority of the whole number of the senr>^e, 
which amounted only to three hundred. This being done forthwith, the dictator, 
as he stood in the rostra, resigned his office, dismissed his lictors, and went down 
into the Forum a private man. There he purposely lingered amidst the crowd, 
lest the people should leave their business to follow him home ; but their admi- 
ration was not cooled by this delay ; and when he withdrew at the usual hour, 
the whole people attended him to his house. 60 Such was Fabius Buteo's dicta- 
torship, so wisely fulfilled, so simply and nobly resigned, that the dictatorship of 
Fabius Maximus himself has earned no purer glory. 

Varro, it is said, not wishing to be detained in Rome, returned to his army 
the next night, without giving the senate notice of his departure. Election of officers fo* 
The dictator, M.- Junius, was therefore requested to repair to Rome year 53 °- 
to hold the comitia ; and Ti. Gracchus and M. Marcelius were to come with him 
to report on the state of their several armies, and concert measures for the ensu- 
ing campaign. 61 There is no doubt that the senate determined on the persons to 
be proposed at the ensuing elections, and that, if any one else had come for- 
ward as a candidate, the dictator who presided would have refused to receive 
votes for him. Accordingly the consuls and preetors chosen were all men of 
the highest reputation for ability and experience : the consuls were A . v . c . 639 . A _ c 
L. Postumius, whose defeat and death in Cisalpine Gaul were not 2I5- 
yet known in Rome, and Ti. Gracchus, now master of the horse. The praetors 
were M. Valerius Lsevinus, Ap. Claudius Pulcher, a grandson of the famous 
censor, Appius the blind, Q. Fulvius Flaccus, old in years, but vigorous in mind 
and body, who had already been censor, and twice consul, and Q. Mucius 
Scsevola. 6 ' 2 When the death of L. Postumius was known, his place was finally 
filled by no less a person than Q. Fabius Maximus : whilst Marcelius was still to 
retain his command with proconsular power, as his activity and energy could ill 
be spared at a time so critical.* 3 

The officers for the year being thus appointed, it remained to determine their 
several provinces, and to provide them with sufficient forces. 64 D i 8tribllUon of pr0 vin- 
Fabius was to succeed to the army of the dictator, M. Junius ; C03 and troop3- 
and his head-quarters were advanced from Teanum to Cales, at the northern ex- 
tremity of the Falernian plain, about seven English miles from Casilinum and the 

60 Livy, XXIII. 23. 63 Livy, XXIII. 31. 

61 Livy, XXIII. 24. » Livy, XXIII. 31, 32. 

62 Livy, XXIII. 30. 



512 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLIV 

Yulturnus, and less than ten from Capua. The other consul, Ti. Sempronius, 
was to have no other Roman army than two legions of volunteer slaves, who 
were to be raised for the occasion ; but both he and his colleague had the usual 
contingent of Latin and Italian allies. Gracchus named Sinuessa on the Appian 
road, at the point where the Massic hills run out with a bold headland into the 
sea, as the place of meeting for his soldiers ; and his business was to protect the 
towns on the coast, which were still faithful to Rome, such as Cuma and 
Neapolis. Marcellus was to command two new Roman legions, and to lie as 
before in his camp above Nola ; while his old army was sent into Sicily to relieve 
the legions there, and enable them to return to Italy, where they formed a fourth 
army under the command of M. Valerius Lsevinus, the praetor peregrinus, in 
Apulia. The small force which Varro had commanded in Apulia was ordered 
to Tarentum, to add to the strength of that important place ; while Varro him- 
self was sent with proconsular power into Picenum, to raise soldiers, and to 
watch the road along the Adriatic by which the Gauls might have sent rein- 
forcements to Hannibal. Q. Fulvius Flaccus, the praetor urbanus, remained at 
Rome to conduct the government, and had no other military command than that 
of a small fleet for the defence of the coast on both sides of the Tiber. Of the 
other two prastors, Ap. Claudius was to command in Sicily, and Q. Mucius in 
Sardinia ; and P. Scipio as proconsul still commanded his old army of two 
legions in Spain. On the whole, including the volunteer slaves, there appeared 
to have been fourteen Roman legions in active service at the bep-inninp; of the 
year 539, without reckoning the soldiers who served in the fleets ; and of these 
fourteen legions, nine were employed in Italy. If we suppose that the Latin and 
Italian allies bore their usual proportion to the number of Roman soldiers in each 
army, we shall have a total of 1-40,000 men, thus divided : 20,000 in Spain, and 
the same number in Sicily ; 10,000 in Sardinia ; 20,000 under each of the consuls ; 
20,000 with Marcellus ; 20,000 under Lsevinus in Apulia ; and 10,000 in Tarentum. 
Seventy thousand men were thus in arms, besides the seamen, out of a popu- 
lation of citizens which at the last census before the war had 
lions of the" Eomfms, amounted only to 2*70,2 13, 65 and which had since been thinned by 
so many disastrous battles. Nor was l&e drain on the finances of 
Rome less extraordinary. The legions in the provinces had indeed been left to 
their own resources as to money ; but the nine legions serving in Italy must have 
been paid regularly ; for war could not there be made to support war ; and if 
the Romans had been left to live at free quarters upon their Italian allies, they 
would have driven them to join Hannibal in mere self-defence. Yet the legions 
in Italy cost the government in pay, food, and clothing, at the rate of 541,800 
denarii a month ; and as they were kept on service throughout the year, the 
annual expense was 6,501,600 denarii : or in Greek money, reckoning the dena- 
rius as equal to the drachma, 1083 Euboic talents. To meet these enormous 
demands on the treasury, the government resorted to the simple expedient of 
doubling the year's taxes, and calling at once for the payment of one-half of this 
amount, leaving the other to be paid at the end of the year. 66 It was a struggle 
for life and death ; and the people were in a mood to refuse no sacrifices, how- 
ever costly : but the war must have cut off so many sources of wealth, and agri- 
culture itself must have so suffered from the calling away of so many hands from 
the cultivation of the land, that we wonder how the money could be found, and 
how many of the poorer citizens' families could be provided with daily bread. 

In addition to the five regular armies which the Romans brought into the field 
other rmiimry m«u» m I*aly> an irregular warfare was also going on, we know not to 
eftho Roman. w jj a t ex tent ; and bands of peasants and slaves were armed in 

many parts of the country to act against the revolted Italians, and to ravage 
their territory. For instance, a great tract of forest in Bruttium, as we have 

00 Livy, Epit. XX. M Livy, XXIII. 81. 



Chap.XLIV.] fall of casilinum. 513 

seen, was the domain of the Roman people ; this would be farmed like all the 
other revenues ; and the publicani who farmed it, or the wealthy citizens who 
turned out cattle to pasture in it, would have large bodies of slaves employed as 
shepherds, herdsmen, and woodsmen, who, when the Bruttian towns on the coast 
revolted, would at once form a guerilla force capable of doing them great mis- 
chief. And lastly, besides all these forces, regular and irregular, the Romans 
still held most of the principal towns in the south of Italy ; because they had 
long since converted them into Latin colonies. Brundisium on the Ionian sea, 
Pcestum on the coast of Lucania, Luceria, Venusia, and Beneventum in the inte- 
rior, were all so many strong fortresses, garrisoned by soldiers of the Latin name, 
in the very heart of the revolted districts f whilst the Greek cities of Cumse and 
Neapolis in Campania, and Rhegium on the straits of Messina, were held for 
Rome by their own citizens with a devotion no way inferior to that of the Latin 
colonies themselves. 68 

Against this mass of enemies, the moment that they had learnt to use their 
strenafth, Hannibal, even within six months after the battle of Can- c . , 

o . ^^ r n Hnnnibals resources. 

nae, was already contending at a disadvantage. We have seen 
that he had detached two officers with two divisions of his army, one into Lu- 
cania, the other into Bruttium, to encourage the revolt of those countries, and 
then to organize their resources in men and money for the advancement of the 
common cause. Most of the Bruttians took up arms immediately as Hannibal's 
allies, and put themselves under the command of his officer, Himilcon ; but 
Petelia, one of their cities, was for some reason or other inflexible in its devotion 
to Rome, and endured a siege of eleven months, suffering all extremities of 
famine before it surrendered. 69 Thus Himilcon must have been still engaged in 
besieging it long after the campaign Avas opened in the neighborhood of Capua. 
The Samnites also had taken up arms, and apparently were attached to Hanni- 
bal's own army : the return of their whole population of the military age, made 
ten years before during the Gaulish invasion, had stated it at 70,000 foot and 
V000 horse ;™ but the Pentrians, the most powerful tribe of their nation, were 
still faithful to Rome ; and the Samnites, like the Romans themselves, had been 
thinned by the slaughter of Thrasymenus and Cannaa, which they had shared as 
their allies. It is vexatious that we have no statement of the amount of Hanni- 
bal's old army, any more than of the allies who joined him, at any period of the 
war later than the battle of Cannae. His reinforcements from home, as we have 
seen, were very trifling ; while his two divisions in Lucania and Bruttium, and 
the garrisons which he had been obliged to leave in some of the revolted towns, 
as, for example, at Arpi in Apulia, 11 must have considerably lessened the force 
under his own personal command. Yet, with the accession of the Samnites and 
Campanians, it was probably much stronger than any one of the Roman armies 
opposed to him ; quite as strong, indeed, in all likelihood, as was consistent with 
the possibility of feeding it. 

Before the winter was over, Casilinum fell. The garrison had made a valiant 
defence, and yielded at last to famine : they were allowed to ran- 

. , ■> , . , •> „ , , - . . Fall of Casilinum. 

som themselves by paying each man seven ounces of gold tor his 
life and liberty. The plunder which they had won from the old inhabitants 
enabled them to discharge this large sum ; and they Avere then allowed to march 
out unhurt, and retire to Cumae. Casilinum again became a Campanian toAvn; 
but its important position, at once covering Capua, and securing a passage over 
the Vulturnus, induced Hannibal to garrison it with seven hundred soldiers of 
his own army. 12 

67 Livy, XXVII. 10. 70 Polybius, II. 24, 10. 

68 Livy, XXIII. 1, 36, 87. XXIV. 1. 71 Livy, XXIV. 46, 47. Appian, VII. 31. 
60 Polybius, VII. 1. Livy, XXII. 61. XXIII. " Livy, XXIII. 19, 20. 

20, 30. Appian, VII. 28. Valerius Maximus, 
VI. 6. Ext. 2. 

33 



514 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

The season for active operations was now arrived. The three Roman armies 
of Fabius, Gracchus, and Marcellus, had taken up their positions 

Hannibal encnmps on , r* . i TT "i l l l r r* i 

Mount Tifoto. Rome round Campania ; and Hannibal marched out or Capua, and en- 

deaerted by her allies. 1 1 • xi x ■ 1_ • ± ,1 . nvr . 

camped his army on the mountain above it, on that same Tifata 
where the Samnites had so often taken post in old times, when they were pre- 
paring to invade the Campanian plain. 13 Tifata did not then exhibit that bare 
and parched appearance which it has now ; the soil, which has accumulated in 
the plain below, so as to have risen several feet above its ancient level, has been 
washed down in the course of centuries, and after the destruction of its protect- 
ing woods, from the neighboring mountains ; and Tifata, in Hannibal's time, fur- 
nished grass in abundance for his cattle in its numerous glades, and offered cool 
and healthy summer quarters for his men. There he lay waiting for some oppor- 
tunity of striking a blow against his enemies around him, and eagei.y watching 
the progress of his intrigues with the Tarentines, and his negotiations with the 
king of Macedon. A party at Tarentum began to open a correspondence with 
him immediately after the battle of Cannas ; 74 and since he had been in Campania 
he had received an embassy from Philip, king of Macedon, and had concluded 
an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the ambassadors, who acted with full 
powers in their master's name." Such were his prospects on one side, while, if 
he looked westward and southwest, he saw Sardinia in open revolt against 
Rome i 76 and in Sicily the death of Hiero at the age of ninety, and the succession 
of his grandson Hieronymus, an ambitious and inexperienced youth, were de- 
taching Syracuse also from the Roman alliance. Hannibal had already received 
an embassy from Hieronymus, to which he had replied by sending a Carthagin- 
ian officer of his own name to Sicily, and two Syracusan brothers, Hippocrates 
and Epicydes, who had long served with him in Italy and in Spain, being, in fact, 
Carthaginians by their mother's side, and having become naturalized at Carthage, 
since Aa-athocles had banished their grandfather, and their father had married 
and settled in his place of exile. 77 Thus the effect of the battle of Canna? seemed 
to be shaking the whole fabric of the Roman dominion ; their provinces were re- 
volting ; their firmest allies were deserting them ; while the kinff of Macedon 
himself, the successor of Alexander, was throwing the weight of his power, and 
of all his acquired and inherited glory, into the scale of their enemies. Seeing the 
fruit of his work thus fast ripening, Hannibal sat quietly on the summit of Tifata, 
to break forth like the lightning flash when the storm should be fully gathered. 
Thus the summer of 539 was like a breathing-time, in which both parties were 
looking at each other, and considerino- each other's resources, 

Measures of Fabius to , ., ~. . •, V ,i re i 

cut off Hannibal's sup- while they were recovering strength alter their past ettorts, and 
preparing for a renewal of the struggle. Fabius, with the au- 
thority of the senate, issued an order, calling on the inhabitants of all the coun- 
try which either actually was, or was likely to become, the seat of war, to clear 
their corn off the ground, and carry it into the fortified cities, before the first of 
June, threatening to lay waste the land, to sell the slaves, and burn the farm 
buildings, of any one who should disobey the order. 7S In the utter confusion of 
the Roman calendar at this period, it is difficult to know whether in any given 
year it was in advance of the true time, or behind it ; so that we can scarcely 
tell whether the corn was only to be got in when ripe without needless delay, 
or whether it was to be cut when green, lest HannUjal should use it as forage 
for his cavalry. But at any rate, Fabius was now repeating the system which 
he had laid duwn in his dictatorship, and hoped, by wasting the country, to 
oblige Hannibal to retreat ; for his means of transport were not sufficient for him 
to feed his army from a distance : hence, when the resources in his immediate 
neighborhood were exhausted, he was obliged to move elsewhere. 

» Livy, XXIII. 36. VII. 29. ™ Livy, XXIII. 32, 31. 

M Livy, XXII. 61. Appian, VTI. 82, " Livy, XXIII. 4, 6. Polybius, VII. 2. 

" Livy, XXIII. 33. Zonaras, IX. 4. 7e Livy, XXIU. 82. 



Chap. XLIV.] THE ROMAN ARMIES. 515 

Meanwhile Gracchus had crossed the Vulturnus near its mouth, and was now 
at Liternum, busily employed in exercising and training his hete- 

' */ ± J o t o Massacre of 2000 Ca- 

rogeneous army. The several Campanian cities were accustomed guana at a festival u y 
to hold a joint festival every year at a place called Hamae, only 
three miles from Cumae. 79 These festivals were seasons of general truce, so that 
the citizens even of hostile nations met at them safely : the government of Capua 
announced to the Cumaeans, that their chief magistrate and all their senators 
would appear at Hamae, as usual, on the day of the solemnity ; and they invited 
the senate of Cumas to meet them. At the same time they said that an armed 
force would be present to repel any interruption from the Romans. The Cu- 
maeans informed Gracchus of this ; and he attacked the Capuans in the night, 
when they were in such perfect security, that they had not even fortified a camp, 
but were sleeping in the open country, and massacred about 2000 of them, 
among whom was Marius Alfius, the supreme magistrate of Capua. The Ro- 
mans charge the Capuans with having meditated treachery against the Cumaeans, 
and say that they were caught in their own snare ; but this could only be a sus- 
picion, while the overt acts of violence were their own. Hannibal no sooner heard 
of this disaster, than he descended from Tifata, and hastened to Hamas, in the 
hope of provoking the enemy to battle in the confidence of their late success. 
But Gracchus was too wary to be so tempted, and had retreated in good time to 
Cumae, where he lay safe within the walls of the town. 80 It is said that Hanni- 
bal, having supplied himself with all things necessary for a siege, attacked the 
place in form, and was repulsed with loss, so that he returned defeated to his 
camp at Tifata. A consular army defending the walls of a fortified town was 
not indeed likely to be beaten in an assault ; and neither could a maritime town, 
with the sea open, be easily starved ; nor could Hannibal linger before it safely, 
as Fabius, with a second consular army, was preparing to cross the Vulturnus. 

Casilinum being held by the enemy, Fabius was obliged to cross at a higher 
point behind the mountains, nearly opposite to Allifae ; and he strength of the Roman 
then descended the left bank to the confluence of the Calor with armie8 - 
the Vulturnus, crossed the Calor, and passing between Taburnus and the mount- 
ains above Caserta and Maddaloni, stormed the town of Saticula, and joined Mar- 
cellus in his camp above Suessula. 81 He was again anxious for JSTola, where the 
popular party were said to be still plotting the surrender of the town to Hanni- 
bal : to stop this mischief, he sent Marcellus with his whole army to garrison 
Nola, while he himself took his place in the camp above Suessula. Gracchus, 
on his side, advanced from Cumae towards Capua ; so that three Roman armies, 
amounting in all to about sixty thousand men, were on the left bank of the Vul- 
turnus together ; and all, so far as appears, in free communication with each 
other. They availed themselves of their numbers and of their position to send 
plundering parties out on their rear to overrun the lands of the revolted Samnites 
and Hirpinians ; and as the best troops of both these nations were with Hannibal 
on Tifata, no force was left at home sufficient to check the enemy's incursions. 
Accordingly, the complaints of the sufferers were loud, and a deputation was 
sent to Hannibal imploring him to protect his allies. 82 

Already Hannibal felt that the Roman generals understood their business, and 
had learnt to use their numbers wisely. On ground where his H anmbai receives u» 
cavalry could act, he would not have feared to engage their three ieintorcement8 - 
armies together ; but when they were amongst mountains, or behind walls, his 
cavalry were useless, and he could not venture to attack them : besides, he did 
not wish to expose the territory of Capua to their ravages ; and therefore he did 
not choose lightly to move from Tifata. But the prayers of the Samnites were 
urgent : his partisans in Nola might require his aid, or might be able to admit 

,9 Livy, XXIII. 35. 81 Livy, XXIII. 39. 

69 Livy, XXIII. 36. 82 Livy, XXIII. 41, 42. 



516 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

him into the town ; and his expected reinforcement of cavalry and elephants from 
Carthage had landed safely in Bruttium, and was on its way to join him, which the 
position of Fabius and Marcellus might render difficult, if he made no move- 
ment to favor it. He therefore left Tifata, advanced upon Nola, and timed his 
operation so well that his reinforcements arrived at the moment w T hen he was 
before Nola ; and neither Fabius nor Marcellus attempted to prevent their junc- 
tion. 83 

Thus encouraged, and perhaps not aware of the strength of the garrison, Han- 
nibal not only overran the territory of Nola, but surrounded the 
mSius." ^"nnibSi town with his soldiers, in the hope of taking it by escalade. Mar- 
cellus was alike watchful and bold ; he threw open the gates and 
made a sudden sally, by which he drove back the enemy within their camp; 
and this success, together with his frank and popular bearing, won him, it is 
said, the affections of all parties at Nola, and put a stop to all intrigues within 
the walls. 84 A more important consequence of this action was the desertion of 
above 1200 men, Spanish foot, and Numidian horse, from Hannibal's army to 
the Romans ; 85 as we do not find that their example was followed by others, it is 
probable that they were not Hannibal's old soldiers, but some of the troops which 
had just joined him, and which could not, as yet, have felt the spell of his per- 
sonal ascendency. Still their treason naturally made him uneasy, and would for 
the moment excite a general suspicion in the army : the summer too was draw- 
ing to a close ; and wishing to relieve Capua from the burden of feeding his 
troops, he marched away into Apulia, and fixed his quarters for the winter near 
Arpi. Gracchus, with one consular army, followed him ; while Fabius, after 
having ravaged the country round Capua, and cai'ried off the green corn, as soon 
as it was high enough out of the ground, to his camp above Suessula, to furnish 
winter food for his cavalry, quartered his own army there for the winter, and 
ordered Marcellus to retain a sufficient force to secure Nola, and to send the rest 
of his men home to be disbanded. 86 

Thus the campaign was ended, and Hannibal had not marked it with a victory. 
complete success of the The Romans had employed their forces so wisely, that they had 
Romans in Sardinia, forced him to remain mostly on the defensive: and his two offen- 
sive operations, against Cumse and against Nola, had both been baffled. In 
Sardinia their success had been brilliant and decisive. Mucins, the praetor, fell 
ill soon after he arrived in the island ; upon which the senate ordered Q. Fabius, 
the city praetor, to raise a new legion, and to send it over into Sardinia, under any 
officer whom he might think proper to appoint. He chose a man, in age, rank, 
and character, most resembling himself, T. Manlius Torquatus, who in his first 
consulship, twenty years before, had fought against the Sardinians, and obtained 
a triumph over them. Manlius' second command in the island was no less bril- 
liant than his first : he totally defeated the united forces of the Sardinians and 
Carthaginians, took their principal generals prisoners, reduced the revolted towns 
to obedience, levied hea\y contributions of corn and money as a punishment of 
their rebellion, and then embarked with the troops which he had brought out 
with him, only leaving the usual force of a single legion in the island, and re- 
turned to Rome to report the complete submission of Sardinia. The money of 
his contributions was paid over to the quaestors, for the payment of the armies ; 
the corn was given to the aediles to supply the markets of Rome. 91 

Fortune in another quarter served the Romans no less effectually. The Ma- 
,.v „. ■ cedonian ambassadors, after having concluded their treaty with 

Capture of the Maecdo- _ T ' . D . . , • „ 

nionnmba.mdor.. Ex- Hannibal at lifata, made llioiv way back into Bruttium in saietv, 

pedition to Greece , •'.... , ' a 

and embarked to return to Greece. But their ship was taken ott 
the Calabrian coast by the Roman squadron on that station ; and the ambassa- 

83 Liw, XXTTT. 43. *« Liw, XXIII. 46, 48. 

84 Liw, XXIII. 44, 45, 4G. " Liv'v. XXIII. 84, 41. 
86 Livy, XXIII. 46. 



Chap. XLIV.] MEASURES TO RAISE MONEY. 517 

dors, with all their papers, were sent prisoners to Rome. 88 A vessel which had 
been of their company escaped the Romans, and informed the king what had 
happened. He was obliged, therefore, to send a second embassy to Hannibal, 
as the former treaty had never reached him ; and although this second mission 
went and returned safely, yet the loss of time was irreparable, and nothing could 
be done till another year. 89 Meanwhile the Romans, thus timely made aware of 
the king's intentions, resolved to find such employment for him at home as should 
prevent his invading Italy. M. Valerius Lasvinus was to take the command of the 
fleet at Tarentum and Brundisium, and to cross the Ionian Gulf, in order to rouse 
the ^Etolians, and the barbarian chiefs whose tribes bordered on Philip's western 
frontier, and, with such other allies as could be engaged in the cause, to form a 
Greek coalition against Macedon.™ 

These events, and the continued successes of tbeir army in Spain, revived the 
spirits of the Romans, and encouraged them to make still greater „ , • _ 

r ' iii • mi Measures of the Ro- 

sacrifices, in the hope that they would not be. made in vain. I he ma™ to raise money: 

• -i • i t* n • • • • a loan. 

distress of the treasury was at its height : r. bcipio, in announcing 
his victories, reported that his soldiers and seamen were in a state of utter desti- 
tution ; that they had no pay, corn, or clothing ; and that the two latter articles 
must at any rate be supplied from Rome. 91 His demands were acknowledged to 
be reasonable ; but the republic had lost so large a portion of her foreign revenue, 
that her chief resource now lay in the taxation of her own people : this had been 
doubled in the present year, yet was found inadequate ; and to increase it, or 
even to continue it at its present amount, was altogether impossible. Accordingly 
the city praetor, Q. Fulvius, addressed the people from the rostra, explained the 
distress of the government to them, and appealed to the patriotism of the moneyed 
class to assist their country with a loan.' Fabius did not mean to hold out an 
opportunity to the public creditor of investing his money to advantage, subject 
only to the risk of a national bankruptcy : on this Roman loan no interest was to 
be paid ; the creditors were simply assured that, as soon as the treasury was sol- 
vent, their demands should be discharged before all others ; in the mean time 
their money was totally lost to them. But, on the other hand, opportunities of 
investing money profitably must have been greatly diminished by the war; to 
lend it to the government was not, therefore, so great a sacrifice. Still a public 
spirit was shown in the ready answer to the praetor's appeal, such as merchants 
have often honorably displayed in seasons of public danger ; mixed up, however 
— for when are human motives altogether pure ? — with a considerable regard to 
personal advantage. Three companies were formed, each, as it seems, composed 
of eighteen members and a president, or chairman ; and these were to supply 
the corn and clothing which the armies might require. But in return they de- 
manded an exemption from military service, whilst they were thus serving the 
state with their money ; and they also required the government to undertake the 
whole sea risk, whether from storms, or from the enemy : whatever articles were 
thus lost were to be the loss of the nation, and not of the companies. 92 It will 
be seen hereafter how some of the contractors abused this equitable condition, 
and wilfully destroyed cargoes of small value, in order to recover the insurance 
upon them from the government. That a citizen should enrich himself b) r frauds 
practised on his country in such a season of distress and danger is sufficiently 
monstrous ; but the spirit of what is so emphatically called jobbing is inveterate 
In feamau nature ; and we cannot wonder at its existence among Roman citizens, 
while Rome was struggling for life or death, when it has been known to find its 
way into the prison of Christian martyrs. 93 

Yet neither the ordinary taxation, nor the loan in addition to it, were sufficient 



IX. 4. 



Livy, XXIII. 38. 91 Livy, XXIII. 48. 

Livy, XXIII. 39. ' ,J2 Livv, XXIII. 49. 

Livy, XXIII. 38, 48. XXIV. 10. Zonaras, 9S SeeCyprian, Epp. X. XXII. Ed. Eignlt. 



518 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

for the vast expenditure of the war. The hostility of Macedon had 

made it necessary to raise an additional fleet ; for the coasts of 
Italy must be protected ; and Hannibal's free communications with Africa must 
be restrained ; and now another fleet was required, by the threatening aspect of 
affairs in Sicily. Accordingly a graduated property tax for the occasion was im- 
posed on all citizens whose property amounted to or exceeded 100,000 ases ; 
that is, they were required to furnish a certain number of their slaves as seamen, 
to arm and equip them, and to provide them with dressed provisions for thirty 
days, and with pay, in some cases for six months, in others for a whole year. 94 The 
senators, who were rated higher than all other citizens, were obliged in this man- 
ner each to provide eight seamen, with pay for the longer term of the whole year. 
Whilst the commonwealth was making these extraordinary efforts, it was of 

the last importance that they should not be wasted by incompe- 
214. Fabius hoida the tent leaders, either at home or abroad. Gracchus was watching 

Hannibal in Apulia ; so that Fabius went to Rome to hold the co- 
mitia. It was not by accident, doubtless, that he had previously sent home to 
fix the day of the meeting, or that his own arrival was so nicely timed, that he 
reached Rome when the tribes were actually met in the Campus Martius ; thus, 
without entering the city, he passed along under the walls, and took his place as 
presiding magistrate at the comitia, 95 while his lictors still bore the naked axe in 
the midst of their fasces, the well-known sign of that absolute power which the 
consul enjoyed everywhere out of Rome. Fabius, in concert no doubt with Q. 
Fulvius and T. Manlius, and other leading senators, had already determined who 
were to be consuls : when the first century, in the free exercise of its choice, gave 
its vote in favor of T. Otacilius and M. ^Emilius Regillus, he at once stopped the 
election, and told the people that this was no time to choose ordinary consuls ; 
that the} 7 were electing generals to oppose Hannibal, and should fix upon those 
men under whom the)' would most gladly risk their sons' lives and their own, if 
they stood at that moment on the eve of battle. " Wherefore, crier," he con- 
cluded, " call back the century to give its votes over again." 96 

Otacilius, who was present, although he had married Fabius' niece, protested 
Fabius nnd Marceiius loudly against this interference with the votes of the' people, and 
ar e e!«ted consuls. charged Fabius with trying to procure his own re-election. The 
old man had always been so famous for the gentleness of his nature, that he 
was commonly known by the name of " the Lamb ;" 97 but now he acted with the 
decision of Q. Fulvius or T. Manlius ; he peremptorily ordered Otacilius to be 
silent, and bade him remember that his lictors carried the naked axe : the century 
was called back, and now gave its voice for Q. Fabius and M. Marceiius. All 
the centuries of all the tribes unanimously confirmed this choice. 98 Q. Fulvius 
was also re-elected praetor; and the senate, by a special vote, continued him in 
the praetorship of the city, an office which put him at the head of the home gov- 
ernment. The election of the other three praetors, it seems, was left free : so the 
people, as they could not have Otacilius for their consul, gave him one of the 
remaining praotorships, and bestowed the other two on Q. Fabius, the consul's 
son, who was then curule aedile, and on P. Cornelius Lentulus. 

Great as the exertions of the commonwealth had been in the preceding year, 

they were still greater this year. Ten Wions were to be employed 

rtions of the . 5\rp * t -i i • i r 1 " 

R ".»; armies a- in aitterent parts Ot Italy, boeidoo tbo rooortra army oi the two city 

legions, which was to protect the capital. Two legions were CO 

94 Livv, XXIV. 11. ('(imp. XXVI. 8G. I'lo-tixtov uvtov (cat ertunrr/Adi' icut ;i£f<i x-oAAij? gvAa- 

XXX IV. 6. |bV''< Tail' izai&iKtZv (itrrd/itfov f/Sovuv. /3pu<VuK Si 

i i\\. XXIV. 7. KalSiardva; icxifivov rd$ uaOi',ccti. cSkoAoi ii *pbs 

06 Livv. XXIV. 8. roiii avii'iOcif Kai kutijkoov afi&Ttpias rtv'oi Kai W 

'■''■ Ovieula. see Aurelius Victor de Vir. IUustr. Opirtiros bwivotav tfyt 77<ip<! tois ik-rds • 6\iyoi & 

C. !:;. Plutarch, Fabius, C. 1. 'Ote'OoviKovXaS ifaav o't rd Svck[vi)toi fcjrd (i&dovs Kai tJ ueyaK6^VX 0V 

gt/ualvst to Ttpofidrioi' ' hiOn if irpbi Trjv irpqdrriTU Kai Xcovrwics Jv t;/ ipiatt Kadopwires avTOV. 
Kai (iapvTr)Ta tov ijOovf Irt TratWj Svtos. TO yap m Livv, XX 1\ . 9. 



Chap. XLIV.] CAMPAIGN OF 540. 519 

hold Sardinia, where the sparks of revolt were probably not altogether extin- 
guished : two were sent to Sicily, with a prospect of no inactive service ; and 
two were stationed in Cisalpine Gaul, there being some likelihood, we must sup- 
pose, that the Gauls would soon require a force in their neighborhood ; or pos- 
sibly the colonies of Placentia and Cremona were thought insecure, if they were 
left to their own resources, insulated as they were in the midst of the enemy's 
country. Finally, the Scipios still .commanded their two legions in Spain ; and 
the naval service in Sicily, and on the coast of Calabria, required no fewer than a 
hundred and fifty ships of war." 

The Italian armies were disposed as follows : Cales, and the camp above Sues- 
sula and Nola, were again to be the head-quarters of the two con- Distribution of those ; D 
suls, each of whom was to command a regular consular army of Itflly ' 
two legions. Gracchus, with proconsular power, was to keep >ds own two legions, 
and was at present wintering near Hannibal in the north of Apulia. Q. Fabius, 
one of the new praetors, was to be ready to enter Apulia with an army of equal 
strength, so soon as Gracchus should be called into Lucania and Samnium, to 
take part in the active operations of the campaign. C. Varro, with his single 
legion, was still to hold Picenum ; and M. Lasvinus, also with proconsular power, 
was to remain at Brundisium with another single legion. 100 The two city legions 
served as a sort of depot, to recruit the armies in the field in case of need ; and 
there was a large armed population, serving as garrisons in the Latin colonies, 
and in other important posts in various parts of the country, the amount of which 
it is not possible to estimate. Nor can we calculate the numbers of the guerilla 
bands, which were on foot in Lucania, Bruttium, and possibly in Samnium, and 
which hindered Hannibal from having the whole resources of those countries at 
his disposal. The Roman party was nowhere probably altogether extinct : 
wealthy Lucanians, who were attached to Rome, would muster their slaves and 
peasantry, and either by themselves, or getting^some Roman officer to head them, 
would ravage the lands of the Carthaginian party, and carry on a continued ha- 
rassing warfare against the towns or districts which had joined Hannibal. Thus 
the whole south of Italy was one wide flood of war, the waters were everywhere 
dashing and eddying, and running in cross-currents innumerable ; whilst the reg- 
ular armies, like the channels of the rivers, held on their way, distinguishable 
amidst the chaos by their greater rapidity and power. 

Hannibal watched this mass of war with the closest attention. To make head 
against it directly being impossible, his business was to mark his H anmbai marches into 
opportunities, to strike wherever there was an opening ; and C:,m P ania - 
being sure that the enemy would not dare to attack him on his own ground, he 
might maintain his army in Italy for an indefinite time, whilst Carthage, availing 
herself of the distraction of her enemy's power, renewed her efforts to conquer 
Spain and recover Sicily. He hoped ere long to win Tarentum ; and, if left to 
his own choice, he would probably have moved hither at once, when he broke 
up from his winter-quarters : but the weakness or fears of the Campanians hung 
with encumbering weight upon him ; and an earnest request was sent to him from 
Capua, calling on him to hasten to its defence, lest the two consular armies 
should besiege it. 101 Accordingly he broke up from his winter-quarters at Arpi, 
and marched once more into Campania, where he established his army as before 
on the summit of Tifata. 

The perpetual carelessness and omissions in Livy's narrative, drawn as it is 
from various sources, with no pains to make one part correspond 
with another, render it a work of extreme difficulty to present an man'^anaies 3 wound 
account of these operations, which shall be at once minute and in- m "' 
telligible. We also miss that notice of chronological details, which is essential to 
the history of a complicated campaign. Even the year in which important 

Ba Liv 7> XXIV. 11. »™ Livy, XXIV. 12, 10. 101 Livy, XXIV. 12. 



520 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

events happened is sometimes doubtful ; yet we -want, not to fix the year only, 
but the month, that Ave may arrange each action in its proper order. When 
Hannibal set out on his march into Campania, Fabius was still at Rome ; but the 
two new legions, which were to form his army, were already assembled at Cales ; 
and Fabius, on hearing of Hannibal's approach, set out instantly to take the com- 
mand. His old army, which had wintered in the camp above Suessula, had ap- 
parently been transferred to his colleague, Marcellus ; and a considerable force 
had been left at the close of the last campaign to garrison Nola. Fabius, how- 
ever, wished to have three Roman armies co-operating with each other, as had 
been the case the year before ; and he sent orders to Gracchus to move forwards 
from Apulia, and to occupy Beneventum ; while his son Q. Fabius, the praetor, 
with a fourth army, was to supply the place of Gracchus at Luceria. 102 It 
seemed as if Hannibal, having once entered Campania, was to be hemmed in on 
every side, and not permitted to escape : but these movements of the Roman 
armies induced him to call Hanno to his aid, the officer who commanded in Lu- 
cania and Bruttium, and who, with a small force of Numidian cavalry, had an aux- 
iliary army under his orders consisting chiefly of Italian allies. Hanno advanced 
accordingly in the direction of Beneventum, to watch the army of Gracchus, and 
if an opportunity offered, to bring it to action. 103 

Meanwhile Hannibal, having left some of his best troops to maintain his camp 
Hannibal offers sacrifice at Tifata, and probably to protect the immediate neighborhood of 
at the lake Avemus. Capua, descended into the plain towards the coast, partly in the 
hope of surprising a fortified post which the Romans had lately established at 
Puteoli, and partly to ravage the territory of Cumee and Neapolis. But the 
avowed object of his expedition was to offer sacrifice to the powers of the unseen 
world, on the banks of the dreaded lake of Avernus. 104 That crater of an old 
volcano, where the very soil still seemed to breathe out fire, while the unbroken 
rim of its basin was covered with the uncleared masses of the native woods, Avas 
the subject of a thousand mysterious stories, and was regarded as one of those 
spots where the lower world approached most nearly to the light of day, and 
where offerings paid to the gods of the dead were most surely acceptable. Such 
worship was a main part of the national religion of the Carthaginians ; and Han- 
nibal, whose latest act before he set out on his great expedition, had been a jour- 
ney to Gades to sacrifice to the god of his fathers, the Hercules of Tyre, visited 
the lake of Avernus, it is probable, quite as much in sincere devotion, as in order 
to mask his design of attacking Puteoli. Whilst he was engaged in his sacrifice, 
five noble citizens of Tarentum came to him, entreating him to lead his army into 
their country, and engaging that the city should be surrendered as soon as his 
standard should be visible from the walls. He listened to their invitation gladly; 
they offered him one of the richest cities in Italy, with an excellent harbor, 
equally convenient for his own communication with Carthage, and for the recep- 
tion of the fleet of his Macedonian allies, whom he was constantly expecting to 
welcome in Italy. He promised that he would soon be at Tarentum ; and the 
Tarentines returned home to prepare their plans against his arrival. 105 

With this prospect before him, it is not likely that he would engage in any 
He march c » against serious enterprise in Campania. Finding that he could not sur- 
Tarentum, p r j se i^» Ll teoli, he ravaged the lands of the Cumaeans and Neapol- 

itans. According to the ever suspicious stories of the exploits of Marcellus, he 
made a third attempt upon Nola, and was a third time repulsed ; Marcellus having 
called down the army from the camp above Suessula to assist him in defending 
the town. Then, says the writer whom Livy copied, despairing of taking a place 
which he had so often attacked in vain, lie marched off at once towards Taren- 
tum." 6 The truth probably is, that, finding a complete consular army in Nola, and 

]M Livy, XXIV. 12. 105 Livy, XXIV. 13. 

10J Livy, XXIV. 14. m Livy, XXIV. 17. 

104 Livy, XXIV. 12, 13. 



Chap. XLIV.] MARCH AGAINST TARENTUM. 521 

having left his light cavalry, and some of the flower of his infantry, in the camp 
on Tifata, he had no thought of attacking the town, but returned to Tifata to take 
the troops from thence ; and having done this, and stayed long enough in Campania 
for the Capuans to get in their harvest safely, he set off on his march for Taren- 
tum. None of the Roman armies attempted to stop him, or so much as ventured 
to follow him. Fabius and Marcellus took advantage of his absence to besiege 
Casilinum with their united forces; 101 Gracchus kept wisely out of his reach, 
whilst he swept on like a fiery flood, laying waste all before him, from Tifata to 
the shores of the Ionian sea. 108 He certainly did not burn or plunder the lands of 
his own allies, either in Samnium or Lucania ; but his march lay near the Latin 
colony of Venusia ; and the Lucanians and Samnites in his army would carefully 
point out those districts which belonged to their countrymen of the Roman 
party ; above all, those ample tracts which the Romans had wrested from their 
fathers, and which were now farmed by the Roman publicani, or occupied by 
Roman citizens. Over all these, no doubt, the African and Numidian horse 
poured far and wide ; and the fire and sword did their work. 

Yet, after all, Hannibal missed his prey. Three days before he reached Ta- 
rentum, a Roman officer arrived in the city, whom M. Valerius 
Leevinus had sent in haste from Brundisium to provide for its de- 
fence. 109 There was probably a small Roman garrison in the citadel, to support 
him in case of need ; but the aristocratical party in Tarentum itself, as* else- 
where, was attached to Rome ; and with tlnfir aid Livius, the officer whom La?- 
vinus had sent, effectually repressed the opposite party, embodied the population 
of the town, and made them keep guard on the walls, and selecting a certain 
number of persons whose fidelity he most suspected, sent them off as hostages 
to Rome. When the Carthaginian army therefore appeared before the walls, 
no movement was made in their favor; and after waiting a few days in vain, 
Hannibal was obliged to retreat. His disappointment, however, did not make him 
lose his temper; he spared the Tarentine territory, no less when leaving it, than 
when he first entered it, in the hope of Avinning the city ; a moderation which 
doubtless produced its effect, and confirmed the Tarentines in the belief that his 
professions of friendship had been made in honesty. But he carried off all the 
corn which he could find in the neighborhood of Metapontum and Heraclea, and 
then returned to Apulia, and fixed his quarters for the winter at Salapia. His 
cavalry overran all the forest country above Brundisium, and drove off such 
numbers of horses which were kept there to pasture, that he was enabled to have 
four thousand broken in for the service of his army.' 10 

Meanwhile the Roman consuls in Campania were availing themselves of 
his absence, to press the siege of Casilinum. The place was so T] ^ Roraans . tftka Casi . 
close to Capua, that it was feared the Capuans would attempt to '""""• 
relieve it ; Marcellus, therefore, with a second consular army, advanced from Nola 
to cover the siege. The defence was very obstinate ; for there were seven hun- 
dred of Hannibal's soldiers in the place, and two thousand Capuans ; and Fabius, 
it is said, was disposed to raise the siege ; but his colleague reminded him of the 
loss of reputation, if so small a town were allowed to baffle two consular armies ; 
and the siege was continued. At last the Capuans offered to Fabius to surren- 
der the town, on condition of being allowed to retire to Capua ; and it appears 
that he accepted the terms, and that the garrison had begun to march out, when 
Marcellus broke in upon them, seized the open gate from which they were issu- 
ing, cut them down right and left, and forced his way into the city. Fabius, it is 
said, was able to keep his faith to no more than fifty of the garrison, who had 
reached his quarters before Marcellus arrived, and whom he sent unharmed to 
Capua. The rest of the Capuans and of Hannibal's soldiers were sent prisoners 

107 Livy, XXIV. 19. io» Livy, XXTV. sot. 

108 Livy, XXTV. 9.0. uo Livy, XXIV. 20. 



502 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

to Rome ; and the inhabitants were divided amongst the neighboring cities, to 
be kept in custody till the senate should determine their fate. 111 

After this scandalous act of treachery, Marcellus returned to Nola, and there 
Fabi»a mvages Sam- remained inactive, being confined, it was said, by illness,"" till the 
cil,u '- senate, before the end of the summer, sent him over to Sicily to 

meet the danger that was gathering there. Fabius advanced into Samnium, 
combining his operations, it seems, with his son, who commanded a praetorian 
army in Apulia, and with Gracchus, who was in Lucania, and whose army form- 
ed the link between the praetor in Apulia and his father in Samnium. These 
three armies were so formidable, that Hanno, the Carthaginian commander in 
Lucania, could not maintain his ground, but fell back towards Bruttium, leaving 
his allies to their own inadequate means of defence. Accordingly the Romans 
ravaged the country far and wide, and took so many towns that they boasted of 
having killed or captured 25,000 of the enemy." 3 After these expeditions, Fa- 
bius, it seems, led back his army to winter-quarters in the camp above Suessula ; 
Gracchus remained in Lucania ; and Fabius the praetor wintered at Luceria. 

I have endeavored to follow the operations of the main armies on both sides 
throughout the campaign, without noticing those of Gracchus and 

Gracchus defeats Han- TT ° . T . 1 T> ~ , . • /• , •<• 

no, and enfranchises the Hanno in Lucania.. but the most important action ot the year, it 
we believe the Roman accounts, was the victory obtained by Grac- 
chus near Beneventum, when he moved thither out of Apulia to co-operate with 
the consuls in Campania, and Hanno was ordered by Hannibal to march to the 
same point out of Lucania. Hanno, it is said, had about 1 7,000 foot, mostly 
Bruttians and Lucanians, and 1200 Numidian and Moorish horse ; and Gracchus, 
encountering him near Beneventum, defeated him with the loss of almost all his 
infantry ; he himself and his cavalry being the only part of the army^ that 
escaped." 4 The numbers, as usual, are probably exaggerated immensely; but 
there is no reason to doubt that Gracchus gained an important victory ; and it 
was rendered famous by his giving liberty to the volunteer slaves, by whose 
valor it had mainly been" won. Some of these had behaved ill in the action, and 
were afraid that they should be punished, rather than rewarded ; but Gracchus 
first set them all free without distinction, and then, sending for those who had 
misbehaved, made them severally swear that they would eat and drink standing, 
so long as their military service should last, by way of penance for their fault. 
Such a sentence, so different from the usual merciless severity of the Roman dis- 
cipline, added to the general joy of the army ; the soldiers marched back to 
Beneventum in triumph ; and the people poured out to meet them, and entreated 
Gracchus that they might invite them all to a public entertainment. Tables 
were set out in the streets; and the freed slaves attracted every one's notice by 
their white caps, the well-known sign of their enfranchisement, and by the strange 
sight of those who, in fulfilment of their penance, ate standing, and waited upon 
their worthier comrades. The whole scene delighted the generous and kind 
nature, of Gracchus: to set free the slave and to relieve the poor appear to have 
been hereditary virtues in his family: to him, no less than to his unfortunate de- 
scendants, beneficence seemed the highest glory. He caused a picture to be 
painted, not of his victory over Hanno, but of the feasting of the enfranchised 
slaves in the streets of Beneventum, and placed it in the temple of Liberty on 
the Aventine, which his father had built and dedicated." 5 

The battle of Beneventum obliged Hanno to fall back into Lucania, and per- 

bi, haps as far as the confines of Bruttium. But he soon recruited his 

w army, the Lucanians and Bruttians, as well as the Picentines. who 

ftved on the shores of the gulf of Salerno, being very zealous in the cause ; and 

111 T.ivy, XXIV. 19. »« Livv, XXIV. U, 15, 16. 

"- Livy, XXIV. i» Livv, XXLV. 16. 

"» l.ivv. XXIV. 20. 



Chap. XLIV.] SEVERE MEASURES OF THE CENSORS. 523 

ere long he revenged his defeat by a signal victory over an army of Lucanians of 
the Roman party, whom Gracchus had enlisted to act as an irregular force 
against their countrymen of the opposite faction. Still Hanno was not tempted 
to risk another battle with a Roman consular army ; and when Gracchus advanced 
from Beneventum into Lucania, he retired again into Bruttium. 116 

There seems to have been no further dispute with regard to the appointment 
of consuls. Fabius and the leading members of the senate appear Comitia {or new offi . 
to have nominated such men as they thought most equal to the cers- 
emergency ; and no other candidates came forward. Fabius again held the 
comitia; and his son, Q. Fabius, who was praetor at the time, was elected consul 
together with Gracchus. The praetors were entirely changed. Q. Fulvius was 
succeeded in the city prsetorship by M. Atilius Regulus, who had just resigned 
the censorship, and who had already been twice consul ; the other three praetors 
were M. JErnilius Lepidus, Cn. Fulvius Centumalus, and P. Sempronius Tudi- 
tanus. The two former were men of noble families : Sempronius appears to have 
owed his appointment to his resolute conduct at Cannae, when he cut his way 
from he camp through the surrounding enemies, and escaped in safety to. 
Canusium. 111 

Thus another year passed over ; and although the state of affairs was still 
dark, the tide seemed to be on the turn. Hannibal had gained no 
new victory ; Tarentum had been saved from his hands ; and Ca- Public spirit shown by 
silinum had been wrested from him. Public spirit was rising 
daily ; and fresh instances of the patriotic devotion which possessed all classes 
of the commonwealth were continually occurring. The owners of the slaves 
whom Gracchus had enfranchised refused to receive any price for them : the 
wealthy citizens who served in the cavalry determined not to take their pay ; 
and their example was followed by the centurions of the legions. Trust moneys 
belonging to minors, or to widows and unmarried women, were deposited in the 
treasury ; and whatever sums the trustees had occasion to draw for, were paid 
by the quaestor in bills on the banking commissioners, or triumviri mensarii : it is 
probable that these bills were actually a paper currency, and that they circulated 
as money, on the security of the public faith. In the same way we must sup- 
pose that the government contracts were also paid in paper ; for the censors, we 
are told, found the treasury unable to supply the usual sums for public works 
and entertainments ; there was no money to repair or keep up the temples, or to 
provide horses for the games of the circus. Upon this the persons who were in 
the habit of contracting for these purposes, came forward in a body to the cen- 
sors, and begged them to make their contracts as usual, promising not to demand 
payment before the end of the war. This must mean, I conceive, that they were 
to be paid in orders upon the treasury, which orders were to be converted into 
cash, when the present difficulties of the government should be at an end. 118 

While such was the spirit of the people, any severity exercised by the govern- 
ment towards the timid or the unpatriotic was sure to be generally severe measures of the 
acceptable. The censors, M. Atilius Regulus and P. Furius Philus, censors - 
summoned all those persons, most of them members of noble, and all of wealthy 
families, who had proposed to fly from Italy after the battle of Cannae. L. Me- 
tellus, who was said to have been the first author of that proposal, was at this 
time quaestor ; but he and all who were concerned in it were degraded from the 
equestrian order, and removed from their respective tribes. Two thousand 
citizens of l^o* rarit wfiw also removed from their tribes, and deprived of their 
political franchise, for having evaded minicu^ sor^e tWing the last four years ; 
and the senate inflicted an additional punishment by ordering that they should 
serve as foot soldiers in Sicily, along with the remains of the army of Cannae, and 

™ Livy, XXIV. 20. »s Li XXIV# 18 _ 

117 Livy, XXIV. 43. J 



524 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

should continue to serve so long as the enemy was in Italy. 119 The case of Me- 
tellus seems to have been considered a hard one : in spite of the censor's sen- 
tence, he was elected one of the tribunes in the following year. He then im- 
peached the censors before the people ; but the other nine tribunes interposed, 
and would not allow the trial to proceed. 120 If Me tell us had been wronged, the 
people had made up for it by electing him tribune ; but it was thought a danger- 
ous precedent to subject the censors to a trial for the exercise of their undoubted 
prerogative, when there was no reason to suspect the honesty of their motives. 

The forces to be employed in Italy in the approaching campaign were to cou- 
Dutribution of the Ko- s i §t of mne legions, three fewer than in the year before. The con- 
man armies. su j s were eac j, t0 nave i\ ie [ v two legions, Gracchus in Lucania, and 
Fabius in Apulia. M. iEmilius was to command two legions also in Apulia, 
having his head-quarters at Lueeria ; Cn. Fulvius with two more was to occupy 
the camp above Suessula ; and Varro was to remain with his one legion in Picenum. 
Two consular armies of two legions each were required in Sicily ; one commanded 
by Marcellus as proconsul, the other by P. Lentulus as propraetor : two legions 
were emploved in Cisalpine Gaul under P. Sempronius, and two in Sardinia 
under their old commander, Q. Mucins. M. Valerius Lsevinus retained his single 
legion and his fleet, to act against Philip on the eastern side of the Ionian sea ; 
and P. Scipio and his brother were still continued in their command in Spain. 121 

Hannibal passed the winter at Salapia, where, the Romans said, was a lady 
opening of the cam- whom he loved, and who became famous from her influence over 
P ai s a - him. 122 Whether his passion for her made him careless of every 

thing else, or whether he was really taken by surprise, we know not ; but the 
neighboring town of Arpi was attacked by the consul Fabius, and given up to 
him by the inhabitants ; and some Spaniards, who formed part of the garrison, 
entered into the Roman service. 123 Gracchus obtained some slight successes in 
Lucania ; and some of the Bruttian towns returned to their old alliance with 
Rome ; but a Roman contractor, T. Pomponius Veientanus, who had been em- 
powered by the government to raise soldiers in Bruttium, and to employ them 
in plundering the enemies' lands, was rash enough to venture a regular action 
with Hanno, in which he was defeated and made prisoner. 124 This disaster 
checked the reaction in Bruttium for the present. 

Meanwhile Hannibal's eyes were still fixed upon Tarentum ; and thither he 
Hannibal lingers near marched again as soon as he took the field, leaving Fabius behind 
Tarentum. ] 1 j m ; n Apulia. He passed the whole summer in the neighborhood 

of Tarentum, and reduced several small towns in the surrounding country : but 
his friends in Tarentum made no movement ; for they dared not compromise the 
safety of their countrymen and relations, who had been carried off as hostages to 
Rome. Accordingly the season wore away unmarked by any memorable action. 
Hannibal still lingered in the country of the Sallentines, unwilling to give up all 
hope of winning the prize he had so long sought ; and to lull the suspicions of 
the Romans, he gave out that he was confined to his camp by illness, and that 
this had prevented his army from returning to its usual winter-quarters in 
Apulia. 185 

Maiteis were in this state, when tidings arrived at Tarentum, that the hostages, 
commit to betrayit for whose safety their friends had been so anxious, had been all 
t<H! '"" u;a cruelly put to death at Rome for having attempted to escape from 

their captivity. 1 -'"' Released in so shocking a manner from their former hesitation, 
and burning to revenge the blood of their friends, Hannibal's partisans on lnn^r 

"» Tivv XXIV. 18. ™ T.ivv, XXIV. 46, 47. 

w Livy XXIV. 48. K4 Livy, XXV. 1. 

» Livy XXIV. 44. 12B Polybius, X' I II. 28. Livy, XXV. 8. 

122 Appian, VII. 43. Pliny, III. 16. Sec "° Livy, XXV. 7. 
Lueian, bid. Mortuor. XII. and Hemsterliuis' 
note. 



Chap. XLIV.] CONSPIRACY AT TARENTUM. 525 

delayed. They communicated secretly with him, arranged the details of their 
attempt, and signed a treaty of alliance, by which he bound himself to respect 
the independence and liberty of the Tarentines, and only stipulated for the plun- 
der of such houses as were occupied by Roman citizens. 121 Two young men, 
Philemenus and Nicon, were the leaders of the enterprise. Philemenus, under 
pretence of hunting, had persuaded the officer at one of the gates to allow him 
to pass in and out of the town by night without interruption. He was known to 
be devoted to his sport ; he scarcely ever returned without having caught or 
killed some game or other ; and by liberally giving away what he had caught, he 
won the favor and confidence, not only of the officer of the gate, but also of the 
Roman governor himself, M. Livius Macatus, a relation of M. Livius Salinator, 
who afterwards defeated Hasdrubal, but a man too indolent and fond of good 
cheer to be the governor of a town threatened by Hannibal. So little did Livius 
suspect any danger, that on the very day which the conspirators had fixed for 
their attempt, and when Hannibal with ten thousand men was advancing upon 
the town, he had invited a large party to meet him at the Temple of the Muses 
near the market-place, and was engaged from an early hour in festivity. 128 
a- The city of Tarentum formed a triangle, two sides of which were washed by 
the water ; the outer or western side by the Mediterranean ; the „. . 

. -li i liiiiiiji* Situation of Tarentum 

inner or north-eastern side by that remarkable land-locked basm, favorable to the con. 
now called the Little Sea, which has a mouth narrower than" the 
entrance into the Norwegian Fiords, but runs deep into the land, and spreads out 
into a wide surface of the calmest water, scarcely ruffled by the hardest gales. 
Exactly at the mouth of this basin was a little rocky knoll, forming the apex of 
the triangle of the city, and occupied by the citadel : the city itself stood on low 
and mostly level ground ; and its south-eastern wall, the base of the triangle, 
stretched across from the Little Sea to the Mediterranean. 129 Thus the citadel 
commanded the entrance into the basin, which was the port of the Tarentines ; 
and it was garrisoned by the Romans, although many of the officers and soldiers 
were allowed to lodge in the city. All attempts upon the town by land must be 
made then against the south-eastern side, which was separated from the citadel 
by the whole length of the city : and there was another circumstance which was 
likely to favor a surprise ; for the Tarentines, following the direction of an oracle, 
as they said, buried their dead within the city walls ; and the street of the tombs 
was interposed between the gates and the inhabited parts of the town. 130 This 
the conspirators turned to their own purposes : in this lonely quarter two of their 
number, Nicon and Tragiscus, were waiting for Hannibal's arrival without the 
gates. As soon as they perceived the signal which was to announce his presence, 
they, with a party of their friends, were to surprise the gates from within, and 
put the guards to the sword ; while others had been left in the city to keep 
watch near the museum, and prevent any communication from being conveyed 
to the Roman governor. 131 

The evening wore away ; the governor's party broke up ; and his friends at- 
tended him to his house. On their way home they met some of carelessness of the 
the conspirators, who, to lull all suspicion, began to jest with s° vernor - 
them, as though themselves going home from a revel, and joining the party 
amidst riotous shouts and loud laughter, accompanied the governor to his own 
door. He went to rest in joyous and careless mood ; his friends were all gone 
to their quarters ; the noise of revellers returning from their festivities died away 
through the city; and when midnight was come, the conspirators alone were 
abroad. They now divided into three parties : one was posted near the govern- 
or's house, a second secured the approaches to the market-place, and the third 
hastened to the quarter of the tombs, to watch for Hannibal's signal. 132 

iT! Polybius, VIII. 26, 27. Livy, XXV. 8. 13 ° Polybius, VIII. 30. 

128 Polybius, VIII. 28, 29. Livy, XXV. 8, 9. 131 Polybius, VIII. 29, 30. Livy, XXV. 9. 

129 Strabo, VI. p. 278. m Polybius, VIII. 29. 



526 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIY 

They did not watch long in vain ; a fire in a particular spot -without the walls 
Hannibal enters ono of assured them that Hannibal was at hand. They lit a fire in answer ; 
the g^. an( j p resen tly ; as had been agreed upon, the fire without the walls 

disappeared. Then the conspirators rushed to the gate of the city, surprised it 
with ease, put the guards to the sword, and began to hew asunder the bar by 
which the gates were fastened. No sooner was it forced, and the gates opened, 
than Hannibal's soldiers were seen ready to enter; so exactly had the time of the 
operations been calculated. The cavalry were left without the walls as a re- 
serve ; but the infantry, marching in regular column, advanced through the 
quarter of the tombs to the inhabited part of the city. 133 

Meantime Philemenus with a thousand Africans had been sent to secure an- 
Another is opened to other gate by stratagem. The guards were accustomed to let 
him by phiiememis. ^^ j n a ^ a jj hours, whenever he returned from his hunting expe- 
ditions ; and now, when they heard his usual whistle, one of them went to the 
gate to admit him. Philemenus called to the guard from without to open the 
wicket quickly ; for that he and his friends had killed a huge wild boar, and 
could scarcely bear the weight any longer. The guard, accustomed to have a 
share in the spoil, opened the wicket ; and Philemenus and three other conspira- 
tors, disguised as countrymen, stepped in, carrying the boar between them. 
They instantly killed the poor guard, as he was admiring and feeling their prize ; 
and then let in about thirty Africans, who were following close behind. With 
this force they mastered the gate-house and towers, killed all the guards, and 
hewed asunder the bars of the main gates to admit the whole column of Africans, 
who marched in on this side also in regular order, and advanced towards the 
market-place. 134 

No sooner had both Hannibal's columns reached their destination, and as it 
siaushter of the Ro- seems without exciting any general alarm, than he detached three 
man troops. bodies of Gaulish soldiers to occupy the principal streets which 

led to the market-place. The officers in command of these troops had orders to 
kill every Roman who fell in their way ; but some of the Tarentine conspirators 
were sent with each party to warn their countrymen to go home and remain 
quiet, assuring them that no mischief was intended to them. The toils being 
thus spread, the prey was now to be enticed into them. Philemenus and his 
friends had provided some Roman trumpets ; and these were loudly blown, 
sounding the well-known call to arms to the Roman soldier. Roused at this sum- 
mons, the Romans quartered about the town armed themselves in haste, and 
poured into the streets to make their way to the citadel. But they fell in scat- 
tered parties into the midst of Hannibal's Gauls, and were cut down one after an- 
other. The governor alone had been more fortunate ; the alarm had reached 
him- in time ; and being in no condition to offer any resistance, — for he felt, says 
Polybius, that the fumes of wine were still overpowering him, — he hastened to 
the harbor, and getting on board a boat, was carried safely to the citadel. 135 

Day at last dawned, but did not quite clear up the mystery of the night's 
alarm to the mass of the inhabitants of Tarentum. They were safe 

Hannibal addresses the ■,,.-, t itlii ill p 

Tarentines, and prom- in their houses, unmassacred, unplundered. ; the only blast 01 war 
had been blown by a Roman trumpet ; yet Roman soldiers were 
lying dead in the streets ; and Gauls were spoiling their bodies. Suspense at 
length was ended by the voice of the public crier summoning the citizens of Ta- 
rentum, in Hannibal's name, to appear without their arms in the market-place : 
and by repeated shouts of " Liberty ! Liberty !" uttered by some of their own 
countrymen, who ran round the town calling the Carthaginians their deliverers. 
The iirm partisans of Rome made haste to escape into the citadel, while the mul- 
titude crowded to the market-place. They found it regularly occupied by Car- 

" 3 Polybius, VIII. 80, 31. m Polybius, VIII. 32. Livy, XXV. 10. 

131 Polybius, VIII, 81. 



Chap. XLIV.] CAMPAIGN OF 541. 527 

thaginian troops ; and the great general, of whom they had heard so much, was 
preparing to address them. He spoke to them, in Greek apparently, declaring, 
as usual, that he was come to free the inhabitants of Italy from the dominion of 
Rome. " The Tarentines therefore had nothing to fear ; they should go home, 
and write each over his door, a Tarentine' s house ; those words would be a suffi- 
cient security ; no door so marked should be violated. But the mark must not 
be set falsely upon any Roman's quarters ; a Tarentine guilty of such treason 
would be put to death as an enemy ; for all Roman property was the lawful 
prize of the soldiers." Accordingly all houses where Romans had been quartered 
were given up to be plundered ; and the Carthaginian soldiers gained a harvest, 
says Polybius, which fully answered their hopes. This can only be explained by 
supposing that the Romans were quartered generally in the houses of the wealthier 
Tarentines, who were attached to the Roman alliance ; and that the plunder was 
not the scanty baggage of the legionary soldiers, but the costly furniture of the 
richest citizens in the greatest city of southern Italy. 136 

Thus Tarentum was won ; but the citadel on its rocky knoll was still held by 
the Romans ; and its position at once threatened the town, and 
shut up the Tarentine fleet useless in the harbor. Hannibal pro- fleet through thrown, 
ceeded to sink a ditch, and throw up a wall along the side of the 
town towards the citadel, in order to repress the sallies of the garrison. While 
engaged in these works he purposely tempted the Romans to a sally, and having 
lured them on to some distance from their cover, turned fiercely upon them, and 
drove them back with such slaughter, that their effective strength was greatly 
reduced. He then hoped to take the citadel : but the garrison was reinforced 
by sea from Metapontum, the Romans withdrawing their troops from thence for 
this more important service ; and a successful night-sally destroyed the besiegers' 
works, and obliged them to trust to a blockade. But as this was hopeless, while 
the Romans were masters of the sea, Hannibal instructed the Tarentines to drag 
their ships overland, through the streets of the city, from the harbor to the outer 
sea ; and this being effected without difficulty, as the ground was quite level, the 
Tarentine fleet became at once effective, and the sea communications of the enemy 
were cut off. Having thus, as he hoped, enabled the Tarentines to deal by them- 
selves with the Roman garrison, he left a small force in the town, and returned 
with the mass of his troops to his winter-quarters in the country of the Sallen- 
tines, or on the edge of Apulia. 137 

It will be observed that the only events recorded of this year, 541, are the re- 
duction of Arpi by Fabius, the unimportant operations of Grac- what yer0 tlie Ro _ 
chus in Lucania, and Hannibal's surprise of Tarentum; which last mansdoin s;s 
action, however, did not happen till the end of the campaign, about the middle' 
of the winter. According to Livy, Hannibal had passed the whole summer near 
Tarentum ; he must therefore have been some months in that neighborhood ; and 
what was going on elsewhere the while ? Gracchus, we are told, was engaged 
in Lucania ; but where was the consul Fabius, with his father ? and what was 
done by the four Roman legions, Fabius' consular army, and the praetorian army 
of M. JEmilius, which were both stationed in Apulia ? Allowing that Cn. Ful- 
vius, with his two legions in the camp above Suessula, was busied in watching 
the Campanians, yet Fabius and iEmilius had nearly forty thousand men at their 
disposal ; and yet Capua was not besieged ; nor was Hannibal impeded in his 
attempts upon Tarentum. Is it to be conceived that so large a portion of the 
power of Rome, directed by old Fabius himself, can have been totally wasted 
during a whole summer, useless alike for attack or defence ? 

The answer to this question depends upon another point, which is itself not 
easy to fix ; the true date, namely, of the surprise of Tarentum. chronological dimci- 
Livy tells us that it was placed by different writers in different ties> 

136 Polybius, VIII. 33. Livy, XXV. 10. l37 Polybius, VIII. 34-36. Livy, XXV. 11. 



528 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

years ; and he himself prefers the later date, 138 yet does not give it correctly. 
For, as Tarentum was surprised in the winter, the doubt must have been, whether 
to fix it towards the end of the consulship of Fabius and Gracchus, or of Fulvius 
and Appius Claudius : it could never have been placed so early as the consulship of 
Fabius and Marcellus. Livy describes it after he has mentioned the coming into 
office of Fulvius and Claudius, as if it belonged to their year ; yet he places it 
before the opening of the campaign, which implies that it must have occurred in 
the preceding winter, whilst Fabius and Gracchus were still in office. Polybius 
evidently gave the later date, that is, the year of Fulvius and Appius, but the 
end of it : according to him, it followed the death of Gracchus, and the various 
events of the summer of 542. And there are some strong reasons for believing 
this to be the more probable position. If this were so, we must suppose that 
the summer of 541 was passed without any important action, because Hannibal, 
after the loss of Arpi, continued to watch the two Roman armies in Apulia ; and 
that either the fear of losing Tarentum, or the hope, of recovering Salapia and 
other Apulian towns, detained Fabius in the southeast, and delayed the siege of 
Capua. 

In the mean time men's minds at Rome were restless and uneasy ; and the 
government had enough to do to prevent their running wild in one 
direction or another. The city had suffered from a fire, which 
lasted a whole day and two nights, and destroyed all the buildings along the 
river, with many of those on the slope of the Capitoline hill, and between it and 
the Palatine. 139 The distress thus caused would be great ; and the suspicions of 
treason and incendiarism, the constant attendants of great fires in large cities, 
would be sure to imbitter the actual suffering. At such a time every one would 
crave to know what the future had in store for him ; and whoever professed to 
be acquainted with the secrets of fate found many to believe him. Faith in the 
gods of Rome was beginning to be shaken : if they could not, or would not save, 
other powers might be more propitious ; and sacrifices and prayers to strange 
gods were offered in the Forum and Capitol ; while prophets, deceiving or de- 
ceived, were gathering crowds in every street, making a profit of their neighbors' 
curiosity and credulity. 140 Nor were these vagabond prophets the only men who 
preyed upon the public distress : the wealthy merchants, who had come forward 
with patriotic zeal to supply the armies when the treasury was unable to bear 
the burden, were now found to be seeking their own base gain out of their pre- 
tended liberality. M. Postumius, of Pyrgi, was charged by public rumor with 
the grossest frauds : he had demanded to be reimbursed for the loss of stores 
furnished by him at sea, when no such loss had occurred ; he had loaded old 
rotten vessels with cargoes of trifling value ; the sailors had purposely sunk the 
ships, and had escaped in their boats ; and then Postumius magnified the value 
of their cargo, and prayed to be indemnified for the loss. 141 Even the virtue of 
Roman matrons could not stand the contagion of this evil time : more than one 
case of shame was brought by the asdiles before the judgment of the people. 142 
Man's spirit failed with woman's modesty : the citizens of the military age were 
slow to enlist ; and many from the country tribes would not come to Rome when 
the consuls summoned them. 143 All this unsoundness at home may have had its 
effect on the operations of the war, and tended to make Fabius more than usually 
cautious, as another defeat at such a moment might have extinguished the Roman 
name. 

Against this weight of evils the 'senate bore up vigorously. The superstitions 

of the people, their worship of strange gods, and their shrinking 

rigorous mom- from military service, required to be noticed without delay. The 

city proctor, M. Atilius, issued an edict forbidding all public sacrifices 

[ivy. XXV. 11. »> Livv, XXV. 3,4. 

138 Livy. XXIV. 47. " 3 Livy, XXV. 2. 

»° Livy, XXV. 1, 12. >« Livy, XXV. 5. 



Chap.XLIV.] punishment of postumius. 529 

to strange gods, or with any strange rites. All books of prophecies, all formularies 
of prayer or of sacrifice, were to be brought to him before the first of April ; 
that is, before he went out of office. 144 The great ceremonies of the national re- 
ligion were celebrated with more than usual magnificence ; the great games of 
the circus were kept up for an additional day ; two days were added to the cele- 
bration of the games of the commons ; and they were further marked by a pub- 
lic entertainment given in the precincts of the temple of Jupiter on the capitol 
to all the poorer citizens. 145 A great military effort was to be made the ensuing 
campaign ; old Q. Fulvius Flaccus, one of the ablest as well as severest men in 
Rome, was chosen consul for the third time; and Appius Claudius was elected 
as his colleague. 146 The armies, notwithstanding the difficulty of enlisting sol- 
diers, were to be augmented ; two extraordinary commissions, of three members 
each, were appointed, one tcvisit all the country tribes within fifty miles of Rome, 
and the other such as were more remote. Every free-born citizen was to be 
passed in review ; and boys under seventeen were to be enlisted, if they seemed 
strong enough to bear arms ; but their years of service were to count from their 
enlistment ; and if they were called out before the military age began, they might 
claim their discharge before it ended. 147 

While dealing thus Strictly with the disorders and want of zeal of the multi- 
tude, the senate, it might have been supposed, would not spare the punishment of Postu- 
fraud of the contractor Postumius. But with that neglect of miua- 
equal justice, which is the habitual sin of an aristocracy, they punished the poor, 
but were afraid to attack the wealthy ; and although the city prsetor had made 
an official representation of the tricks practised by Postumius, no steps were 
taken against him. Amongst the new tribunes, however, were two of the noble 
house of the Carvilii, who, indignant at the impunity of so great an offender, re- 
solved to bring him to triah They at first demanded no other penalty than 
that a fine of 200,000 ases should be imposed on him ; but when the trial 
came on, a large party of the moneyed men broke up the assembly by creating a 
riot, and no sentence was passed. This presumption, however, overshot its 
mark ; the consuls took up the matter and laid it before the senate : the senate 
resolved that the peace of the commonwealth had been violently outraged ; and 
the tribunes now proceeded against Postumius and the principal authors of the 
disturbance capitally. Bail was demanded of them ; but they deserted their 
bail, and went into exile ; upon which the people, on the motion of the trib- 
unes, ordered that their property should be sold, and themselves outlawed.' -48 
Thus the balance of justice was struck ; and this, doubtless, contributed to 
conciliate the poorer citizens, and to make them more ready to bear their part 
in the war. 

It was resolved that Capua should be besieged without delay. In the pre- 
ceding year, 112 noble Capuans had left the city, and come over Res oiutkm to besiege 
to the Romans, stipulating for nothing but their lives and proper- Capua - 
ties. 149 This shows that the aristocrat]' cal party in Capua could not be depended 
on : if the city were hard pressed, they would not be ready to make any extra- 
ordinary sacrifices in its behalf. Hannibal was far away in the farthest corner of 
Italy ; and as long as the citadel of Tarentum held out, he would be unwilling to 
move towards Campania. Even if he should move, four armies were ready to 
oppose him ; those of the two consuls, of the consul's brother, Cn. Fulvius, who 
was praetor in Apulia, and of another praetor, C. Claudius Nero, who commanded 
two legions in the camp above Suessula. Besides this mass of forces, Ti. Grac- 
chus, the consul of the preceding year, still retained his army as proconsul in Lu- 
cania, and might be supposed capable of keeping Hanno and the army of Brut- 
tium in check. 

144 Livy, XXV. 1. M' Livy, XXV. 5. 

145 Livy, XXV. 2. 14S Livy, XXV. 4. 
140 Livy, XXV. 3. ™ Livy, XXIV. 47. 

34 



530 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chaf.XLIV 

It was late in the spring before the consuls took the field. One of them suc- 
me campus apply ceeded to the army of the late consul, Fabius ; the other took the 
to Hannibal for aid. j- w0 ] e gi ons -with which Cn. Fulvius Centumulas had held the 
camp above Suessula. 150 These armies marching, the one from Apulia, the other 
from Campania, met at Bovianum : there, at the back of the Matese, in the coun- 
try of the Pentrian Samnites, the faithful allies of Rome, the consuls were mak- 
ing preparations for the siege of Capua, and, perhaps, were at the same time 
watchino- the state of affairs in the south, and the movements of Hannibal. The 
Campanians suspected that mischief was coming upon them, and sent a deputa- 
tion to Hannibal praying him to aid them. If they were to stand a siege, it was 
important that the city should be well supplied with provisions ; and their own 
harvest had been so insufficient, owing to the devastation caused by the war, 
that they had scarcely enough for their present consumption. Hannibal would 
therefore be pleased to order that supplies should be sent to them from the coun- 
try of his Samnite and Lucanian allies, before their communications were cut off 
by the presence of the Roman armies. 151 

Hannibal was still near Tarentum, whether hoping to win the town or the cita- 
He sends Hanno to re- del, the doubtful chronology of this period will not allow us to 
tta? h e tteJ h0 nerii- decide. He ordered Hanno, with the army of Bruttium, to move 
s ettce ° forward into Samnium ; a most delicate operation, if the two con- 

suls were with their armies at Bovianum, and Gracchus in Lucania itself, in the 
very line of Hanno's march, and if C. Nero, with two legions more, was lying in 
the camp above Suessula, But the army from Suessula had been given to one 
of the consuls, and the legions which were to take its place were to be marched 
from the coast of Picenum, and perhaps had hardly reached their destination. 
The Lucanians themselves seem to have found sufficient employment for Grac- 
chus ; and Hanno moved with a rapidity which friends and enemies were alike 
unprepared for. He arrived safely in the neighborhood of Beneventum, en- 
camped his army in a strong position about three miles from the town, and dis- 
patched word to the Capuans that they should instantly send off every carriage 
and beast of burden in their city, to carry home the corn which he was going to 
provide for them. The towns of the Caudine Samnites emptied their magazines 
for the purpose, and forwarded all their corn to Hanno's camp. Tims far all 
prospered ; but the negligence of the Capuans ruined every thing : they had not 
carriages enough ready ; and Hanno was obliged to wait in his perilous situation, 
where every hour's delay was exposing him to destruction. 152 Beneventum was 
a Latin colony, in other words, a strong Roman garrison, Avatching all his pro- 
ceedings ; from thence, information was sent to the consuls at Bovianum ; and 
Fulvius with his army instantly set out, and entered Beneventum by night, 
There he found that the Capuans with their means of transport were at length 
arrived ; and all disposable hands had been pressed into the service ; that Han- 
no's camp was crowded with cattle and carriages, and a mixed multitude of un- 
armed men, and even of women and children ; and that a vigorous blow might 
win it with all its spoil : the indefatigable general was absent, scouring the coun- 
try for additional supplies of corn. Fulvius sallied from Beneventum a little 
before daybreak, and led his soldiers to assault Hanno's position. Under all dis- 
advantages of surprise and disorder, the Carthaginians resisted so vigorously, that 
Fulvius was on the point of calling off his nun, when a brave Pelignian officer 
threw the standard of his cohort over the enemy's wall, and desperately climbed 
tin 1 rampart and scaled the wall to recover it. His cohort rushed after him : and 
a Roman centurion then set the same example, which was followed with equal 
alacrity. Then the Romans broke into the camp on every side, even the wounded 
men struggling on with the mass, that they might die within the enemy's ram- 
parts. The slaughter was great, and the prisoners many; but above all, the 



m 



Livy, XXV. 3. ]01 Livy, XXV. 13. ■ Livy, XXV. 13. 



Chap. XLIV.] DEATH OF GRACCHUS 53 1 

whole of the corn which Hanno had collected for the relief of Capua was lost, 
and the object of his expedition totally frustrated. He himself, hearing of the 
wreck of his army, retreated with speed into Bruttium. 153 

Again the Capuans sent to Hannibal requesting him to aid them ere it was too 
late. Their negligence had just cost him an army, and had frustrated The Capuan8 again ftp . 
all his plans for their relief; but, with unmoved, temper, he assured p'y foraid - 
them that he would not forget them, and sent back 2000 of his invincible cav- 
alry with the deputation, to protect their lands from the enemy's ravages. It 
was important to him not to leave the south of Italy till the very last moment ; 
for since he had taken Tarentum, the neighboring Greek cities of Metapontum, 
Heraclea, and Thurii, had joined him ; and as he had before won Crotoa and 
Locri, he was now master of the whole coast from the straits of Messana to the 
mouth of the Adriatic, with the exception of Pthegium and the citadel of Taren- 
tum. Into the latter the Romans had lately thrown supplies of provisions ; and 
the garrison was so strong, that Hannibal was unwilling to march into Cam- 
pania, while such a powerful force of the enemy was left behind in so favorable 
a position. 154 

The consuls meanwhile, not content with their own two armies, and with the 
two legions expected, if not yet arrived, in the camp above Sues- 
sula, sent to Gracchus in Lucania, desiring him to bring up his centemus raises an'ar- 
cavalry and light troops to Beneventum, to strengthen them in 
that kind of force, in which they fully felt their inferiority. But before he could 
leave his own province, he was drawn into an ambuscade by the treachery of a 
Lucanian in the Roman interest, and perished. 153 His quasstor, Cn. Cornelius, 
marched with his cavalry towards Beneventum, according to the consul's orders ; 
but the infantry, consisting of the slaves whom he had enfranchised, thought that 
their services were ended by the death of their deliverer, and immediately dis- 
persed to their homes. 156 Thus Lucania was left without either a Roman army 
or general ; but M. Centenius, an old centurion, distinguished for his streno-th 
and courage, undertook the command there, if the senate would intrust him with 
a force equal to a single legion. Perhaps, like T. Pomponius Veientanus, he was 
connected with some of the contractors and moneyed men, and owed his appoint- 
ment as much to their interest as to his own reputation. But he was a brave 
and popular soldier ; and so many volunteers joined him on his march, hoping to 
be enriched by the plunder of Lucania, that he arrived there with a force, It is 
said, amounting to near sixteen thousand men. His confidence and that of his 
followers was doomed to be wofully disappointed. 151 

The consuls knew that Hannibal was far away ; and they did not know that 
any of his cavalry were in Capua. They issued boldly, therefore, 
from the Caudine Forks on the great Campanian plain, and scat- pulsed tyTlXfom 
tered their forces far and wide to destroy the still green corn. To Ciipua " 
their astonishment the gates of Capua were thrown open ; and with the Campa- 
nian infantry they recognized the dreaded cavalry of Hannibal. In a moment 
their foragers were driven in ; and as they hastily formed their legions in order 
of battle to cover them, the horsemen broke upon them like a whirlwind, and 
drove them with great loss and confusion to their camp. lss 'This sharp lesson 
taught them caution; but their numbers were overwhelming; and their two 
armies, encamped before Capua, cut off the communications of the city, and had 
the harvest of the whole country in their power. 

But ere many days had elapsed, an unwelcome sight was seen on the summit 
of Tifata ; Hanuibal was there once more with his army. He „ am;bal returM ^ 
descended into Capua ; two days afterwards he marched out to mt8 - 

163 Livy, XXV. 14. Valerius Maximus, III. 35c Livy, XXV. 20. 
2 , 20- ] " Livy, XXV. 19. 

164 Livy, XXV. 15, Appian, VII. 35. ™ Livy, XXV. 18. 

165 Livy, XXV. 16. 



532 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

battle ; again his invincible Numidians struck terror into the Roman line, when 
the sudden arrival of Cn. Cornelius with the cavalry of Gracchus' army broke off 
the action ; and neither side, it is said, knowing what this new force might be, 
both, as if by common consent, retreated. 159 How Hannibal so outstripped Cor- 
nelius as to arrive from Tarentum on the scene of action two or three days before < 
him, who was coming from Lucania, we are not told, and can only conjecture. 
But the arrival of this reinforcement, though it had saved the consuls from de- 
feat, did not embolden them to hold their ground : they left their camps as soon 
as night came on ; Fulvius fell down upon the coast, near Cumse ; Appius Clau- 
dius retreated in the direction of Lucania. 

Few passages in history can offer a parallel to Hannibal's campaigns ; but this 
confident gathering of the enemies' overflowing numbers round 
lCapua " the city of his nearest allies, his sudden march, the unlooked-for 
appearance of his dreaded veterans, and the instant scattering of the besieging 
armies before him, remind us of the deliverance of Dresden in 1813, when Napo- 
leon broke in upon the allies' confident expectations of victory, and drove them 
away in signal defeat. And like the allies in that great campaign, the Roman 
generals knew their own strength ; and though yielding to the shock of their 
adversary's surpassing energy and genius, they did not allow themselves to be 
scared from their purpose, but began again steadily to draw the toils which he 
had once broke through. Great was the joy in Capua, when the people rose in 
the morning and saw the Roman camps abandoned : there needs no witness to 
tell us with what sincere and deep admiration they followed and gazed on their 
deliverer ; how confident they felt that, with him for a shield, no harm could 
reach them. But almost within sight and hearing of their joy, the stern old 
Fulvius was crouching, as it were, in his thicket, watching the moment for a 
second spring upon his prey ; and when Hannibal left that rejoicing and admiring- 
multitude to follow the traces of Appius, he passed through the gates of Capua, 
to enter them again no more. 

Appius retreated in the direction of Lucania : this is all that is reported of his 
march ; and then, after a while, having led his enemy in the direc- 

On his return into Luca- . i • i .-it- -\ , t a* l n i i 

nin he destroys the ar- tion which suited his purposes, he turned orr by another road, and 
made his way back to Campania. 160 With such a total absence of 
details, it is impossible to fix the line of his march exactly. It was easy for Ap- 
pius to take the round of the Matese ; retiring first by the great road to Bene- 
ventum, then turning to his left and regaining his old quarters at Bovianum, 
from whence, the instant that Hannibal ceased to follow him, he would move 
along under the north side of the Matese to ^Esernia, and descend again upon 
Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus. Hannibal's pursuit was necessarily 
stopped as soon as Appius moved northwards from Beneventum : he could not 
support his army in the country of the Pentrian Samnites, where every tiling wis 
hostile to him ; nor did he like to abandon his line of direct communication with 
southern Italy. He had gained a respite for Capua, and had left an auxiliary 
force to aid in its defence : meanwhile other objects must not be neglected ; and 
the fall of the citadel of Tarentum might of itself prevent or raise the siege of 
Capua. So he turned off from following Appius, and was marching back to the 
south, when he was told that a Roman army was attempting to bar his passage 
in Lucania. This was the motley multitude commanded by Centenius, which 
had succeeded, as we have seen, to the army of Gracchus. With what mad 
hope, or under what false impression, Centenius could have been tempted to rush 
upon certain destruction, Ave know not: but in the number, no less than in the 
quality of his troops, he must have been far inferior to his adversary. His men 
fought bravely ; and he did a centurion's duty well, however he may have failed 

169 Livy, XXV. 19. 1M Livy, XXV. 19. 



Chap. XLIV.] HANNIBAL'S SITUATION". 533 

as a general ; but he was killed, and nearly fifteen thousand men are said to have 
perished with him. 161 

Thus Lucania was cleared of the Romans ; and as the firmest partisan of the 
Roman interest among the Lucanians had been the very man who andftat ofcn.Fuiv™ 
had betrayed Gracchus to his fate, it is likely that the Carthaginian in Apulia - 
party was triumphant through the whole country. Only one Roman army was 
left in the south of Italy, the two legions commanded by Cn. Fulvius Flaccus, 
the consul's brother, in Apulia. But Cn. Fulvius had nothing of his brother's 
ability ; he was a man grown old in profligacy ; and the discipline of his army 
was said to be in the worst condition. Hannibal, hoping to complete his work, 
moved at once into Apulia, and found Fulvius in the neighborhood of Herdonea. 
The Roman general met him in the open field without hesitation, and was pres- 
ently defeated ; he himself escaped from the action, but Hannibal had occupied 
the principal roads in the rear of the enemy with his cavalry ; and the greatest 
part of the Roman army was cut to pieces. 162 

We naturally ask what result followed from these two great victories ; and to 
this question we find no recorded answer. Hannibal, we are told, Whatwere the reavdto 
returned to Tarentum ; but finding that the citadel still held out, ofthes6 ™ tories - 
and could neither be forced nor surprised, and that provisions were still introduced 
by sea, a naval blockade in ancient warfare being always inefficient, he marched 
off towards Brundisium, on some prospect that the town would be betrayed into 
his hands. This hope also failed him ; and he remained inactive in Apulia, or in 
the country of the Sallentines, during the rest of the year. Meantime the con- 
suls received orders from the senate to collect the wrecks of the two beaten 
armies, and to search for the soldiers of Gracchus' army, who had dispersed, as 
we have seen, after his death. The city praetor, P. Cornelius, carried on the same 
search nearer Rome ; and these duties, says Livy, were all performed most care- 
fully and vigorously. 163 This is all the information which exists for us in .he 
remains of the ancient writers ; but assuredly this is no military history of a cam- 
paign. 

It is always to be understood that Hannibal could not remain long in an 
enemy's country, from the difficulty of feeding his men, especially Difficulties of Hamu- 
lus cavalry. But the country round Capua was not all hostile; bal ' s situati0D - 
Atella and Calatia, in the plain of Campania itself, were still his allies ; so were 
many of the Caudine Samnites, from whose cities Hanno had collected the corn 
early in this year for the relief of Capua. Again, we can conceive how the num- 
ber of the Roman armies sometimes oppressed him ; how he dared not stay long 
in one quarter, lest a greater evil should befall him in another. But at this mo- 
ment three great disasters, the dispersion of the army of Gracchus, and the 
destruction of those of Centenius and Fulvius, had cleared the south of Italy of 
the Romans ; and his friends in Apulia, in Lucania, at Tarentum, and in Bruttium, 
could have nothing to fear, had he left them for the time to their own resources. 
Why, after defeating Fulvius, did he not retrace his steps towards Campania, 
hold the field with the aid of his Campanian and Samnite allies till the end of the 
military season, and then winter close at hand, on the shores of the gulf of 
Salerno, in the country of his allies, so as to make it impossible for the Romans 
either to undertake or to maintain the siege of Capua? 

That his not doing this was not his own fault, his extraordinary ability and 
energy may sufficiently assure us. But where the hindrance was, H is probable reason* fo, 
we cannot for certain discover. His army must have been worn winteriD s in A i )ulia - 
by its long and rapid march to and from Campania, and by two battles fought 
with so short an interval. His wounded must have been numerous ; nor can we 
tell how such hard service in the heat of summer may have tried the health of 

101 Livy, XXV. 19. 163 Livy, XXV. 22. 

162 Livy, XXV. 20, 21. 



534 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

his soldiers. His horses, too, must have needed rest ; and to overstrain the main 
arm of his strength would have been fatal. Perhaps, too, great as was Hannibal's 
ascendency over his army, there was a point beyond which it could not be tried 
with safety. Long marches and hard-fought battles gave the soldier, especially 
the Gaul and the Spaniard, what in his eyes was a rightful claim to a season of 
rest and enjoyment : the men might have murmured had they not been permitted 
to taste some reward of their victories. Besides all these reasons, the necessity 
of a second march into Campania may not have seemed urgent : the extent of 
Capua was great ; if the Roman consuls did encamp before it, still the city was 
in no immediate danger ; after the winter another advance would again enable 
him to throw supplies into the town, and to drive off the Roman armies. So 
Capua was left for the present to its own resources, and Hannibal passed the 
autumn and winter in Apulia. 

Immediately the Roman armies closed again upon their prey. Three grand 
magazines of corn were established, to feed the besieging army 

The Romans surround , V , . l m 'V •.-, • ,1 "i i? ri 

Capua with a double during the winter, one at Casuinum within three miles or Capua ; 
another at a fort built for the purpose at the mouth of the Vultur- 
nus ; and a third at Puteoli. Into these two last magazines the corn was con- 
veyed by sea from Ostia, whither it had already been collected from Sardinia and 
Etruria,' 64 Then the consuls summoned C. Nero from his camp above Suessula ; 
and the three armies began the great work of surrounding Capua with double 
continuous lines, strong enough to repel the besieged on one side, and Hannibal 
on the other, when he should again appear in Campania. The inner line was car- 
ried round the city, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile from the walls ; 
the outer line was concentric with it ; and the space between the two served for 
the cantonments and magazines of the besiegers. The lines, says Appian, 165 looked 
like a great city, inclosing a smaller city in the middle ; like the famous lines of the 
Peloponnesians before Platsea. What time was employed in completing them 
we know not ; they were interrupted by continual sallies of the besieged ; and 
Jubellius Taurea and the Capuan cavalry were generally too strong for the Roman 
horsemen. 166 But their infantry could do nothing against the legions ; the be- 
sieging army must have amounted nearly to sixty thousand men ; and slowly but 
surely the imprisoning walls were raised, and their circle completed, shutting out 
the last gleams of light from the eyes of the devoted city. 

Before the works were closed all round, the consuls, according to the senate's 
Their offer to aiiow any directions signified to them by the city praetor, announced to the 
mt'lw'yT rejected! Capuans, that whoever chose to come out of the city with his 
a.u.c. 543. a.c.211. f ara iiy an d property before the ides of March, might do so with 
safety, and should be untouched in body or goods.' 61 It would seem then. that 
the works were not completed till late in the winter; for we cannot suppose that 
the term of grace would have been prolonged to a remote day, especially as the 
ides of March were the beginning of the new consular year ; and it could not be 
known long beforehand whether the present consuls would be continued in their 
command or no. The offer was received by the besieged, it is said, with open 
scorn; their provisions were as yet abundant, their cavalry excellent ; their hope 
of aid from Hannibal, as soon as the campaign should open, was confident. But 
Fulvius waited his time ; nor was his thirst for Capuan blood to be disappointed 
by his removal from the siege at the end of the year: it would seem as it' the 
new consuls were men of no great consideration, appointed probably for that very 
reason, that their claims might not interfere with those of their predecessors. 
One of them, P. Sulpicius Galba, had Idled no curule office previously: the 
other, Cn. Fulvius Centumalus, had been praetor two years before, but was not 
distinguished by any remarkable action. The siege of Capua was still to be con- 

184 Livy, XXV. 22. 1M Appian, YH. 37. Livy, XXVI. 4. 

m» VII'. ;.7. 107 Li\.\. XXV. 22. 



Ciiap. XLIV.] HANNIBAL TRIES TO RELIEVE CAPUA. 535 

ducted by Appius Claudius and Fulvius ; and they were ordered not to retire 
from their positions till they should have taken the city.' 63 

What was the state of affairs in Capua meantime, we know not. The Roman 
stories are little to be credited, which represent all the richer and 

.. r . , , , State of Capua. 

nobler citizens as abandoning the government, and leaving the 
office of chief magistrate, Meddix Tuticus, to be filled by one Seppius Lesius, a 
man of obscure condition, who offered himself as a candidate. 169 Neither Vibius 
Virrius nor Jubellius Taurea wanted resolution to abide by their country to the 
last ; and it was expressly said that, down to the latest period of the siege, there 
was no Roman party in Capua; no voice was heard to speak of peace or sur- 
render ; no citizen had embraced the consul's offers of mercy. 170 Even when they 
had failed to prevent the completion of the Roman lines, they continued to make 
frequent sallies ; and the proconsuls could only withstand their cavalry by mix- 
ing light-armed foot soldiers amongst the Roman horsemen, and thus strengthen- 
ing that weakest arm in the Roman service. Still, as the blockade was now fully 
established, famine must be felt sooner or later : accordingly a Numidian was 
sent to implore Hannibal's aid, and succeeded in getting through the Roman 
lines, and carrying his message safely to Bruttium. 111 

Hannibal listened to the prayer, and leaving his heavy baggage and the mass 
of his army behind, set out with his cavalry and light infantry, and H amnbai comes to its 
with thirty-three elephants. 112 Whether his Samnite and Lucanian rellot 
allies joined him on the march is not stated; if they did not, and if secrecy and 
expedition were deemed of more importance than an addition of force, the troops 
which he led with him must have been more like a single corps than a complete 
army. Avoiding Beneventum, he descended the valley of the Calor towards the 
Vulturnus, stormed a Roman post, which had been built apparently to cut off 
the communications of the besieged with the upper valley of the Vulturnus, and 
encamped immediately behind the ridge of Tifata. From thence he descended 
once more into the plain of Capua, displayed his cavalry before the Roman lines 
in the hope of tempting them out to battle, and finding that this did not succeed, 
commenced a general assault upon their works. 

Unprovided with any artillery, his best hope was, that the Romans might be 
allured to make some rash sally : his cavalry advanced by squad- H annibai attacks the 
rons up to the edge of the trench, and discharged showers of mis- S^an^resdv^'to 
siles into the lines ; while his infantry assailed the rampart, and mftrdl &Bah,st Eome " 
tried to force their way through the palisade which surmounted it. From within, 
the lines were attacked by the Campanians and Hannibal's auxiliary garrison ; 
but the Romans Avere numerous enough to defend both fronts of their works ; 
they held their ground steadil} 7 , neither yielding nor rashly pursuing ; and Han- 
nibal, finding his utmost efforts vain, drew off his army. 173 Some resolution must 
be taken promptly ; his cavalry could not be fed where he was, for the Romans 
had previously destroyed or carried away every thing that might serve for for- 
age ; nor could he venture to wait till the new consuls should have raised their 
legions, and be ready to march from Rome and threaten his rear. One only 
hope remained ; one attempt might yet be made, which should either raise the 
siege of Capua or accomplish a still greater object: Hannibal resolved to march 
upon Rome. 

A Numidian was again found, who undertook to pass over to the Roman lines 
as a deserter, and from thence to make his escape into Capua, bear- He 8et3 out SU ddenij 
ing a letter from Hannibal, which explained his purpose, and con- h y m s u - 
jured the Capuans patiently to abide the issue of his attempt for a little while. 174 
When this letter reached Capua, Hannibal was already gone ; his camp-fires had 

108 Livy, XXVI. 1. Frontinus, III. 18, 3. 172 Livy, XXVI. 5. 

109 Livy, XXVI. 6. m Polybius, IX. 3. Livy, XXVI. 5. 

170 Livy, XXVI. 12. 174 Polybius, IX. 5. Livy, XXVI. 7. 

171 Livy, XXVI. 4. Frontinus, IV. 1, 29. 



536 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLIV. 

been seen burning, as usual, all night in his accustomed position on Tifata ; but 
he had begun his march the preceding evening, immediately after dark, while the 
Romans still thought that his army was hanging over their heads, and were look- 
ing for a second assault. 175 

His army disappeared from the eyes of the Romans behind Tifata ; and they 
Difficulty of m„kin g out knew not whither he was gone. Even so it is with us at this day ; 

his line of march. ^ ^ him fj . Qm rp;^ . ^ find j^ before j^^ . ^ ^ j.^ 

nothing of his course between. Conflicting and contradictory accounts have made 
the truth undiscoverable : what regions of Italy looked with fear or hope on the 
march of the great general and his famous soldiers, it is impossible from our ex- 
isting records to determine. Whether he followed the track of Pyrrhus, and 
spread havoc through the lands of the numerous colonies on the Latin road, Cales, 
Casinum, Interamna, and Fregellae ; 176 or whether, to baffle the enemv's pursuit, 
and avoid the delay of crossing the Vulturnus, he plunged northwards into the 
heart of Samnium, 1 " astonished the Latin colonists of GEsernia with his unlooked- 
for passage, crossed the central Apennines into the country of the Pelignians, 
and then, turning suddenly to his left, broke down into the land of the Mar- 
sians, passing along the glassy waters of Fucinus, and under the ancient walls of 
Alba, and scaring the upland glades and quiet streams of the aboriginal Sabines, 
with the wild array of his Numidian horsemen ; we cannot with any confidence 
decide. Yet the agreement of all the stories as to the latter part of his march 
seems to point out the line of its beginning. All accounts say that, descending 
nearly by the old route of the Gauls, he kept the Tiber on bis right, and the 
Anio on his left ; and that, finally, he crossed the Anio, and encamped at a dis- 
tance of less than four miles from the walls of Rome. 1 ' 8 

Before the sweeping pursuit of his Numidians, crowds of fugitives were seen 
Terror in Rome- forti- flying" towards the city, while the smoke of burning houses arose 

tude of the senate. f&r an( j w j de ^ ^ gky With j n the ^}h the Confusion and 

terror were at their height : he was come at last, this Hannibal, whom they had 
so long dreaded ; he had at length dared what even the slaughter of Cannae had 
not emboldened him to venture ; some victory greater even than Cannae must 
have given him this confidence ; the three armies before Capua must be utterly 
destroyed ; last year he had destroyed or dispersed three other armies, and had 
gained possession of the entire south of Italy; and now he had stormed the lines 
before Capua, had cut to pieces the whole remaining force of the Roman people, 
and was come to Rome to finish his work. So the wives and mothers of Rome 
lamented, as they hurried to the temples ; and there, prostrate before the gods, 
and sweeping the sacred pavement with their unbound hair in the agony of their 
fear, they remained pouring forth their prayers for deliverance. Their sons and 
husbands hastened to man the walls and the citadel, and to secure the most im- 
portant points without the city ; whilst the senate, as calm as their fathers of 
old, whom the Gauls massacred when sitting at their own doors, but with the 
energy of manly resolution, rather than the resignation of despair, met in the 
Forum, and there remained assembled, to direct every magistrate on the instant 
how he might best fulfil his duty. 119 

But God's care watched over the safety of a people whom he had chosen to 
Rome i 8 preserved from work out the purposes of his providence : Rome was not to perish. 
Two city legions were to be raised, as usual, at the beginning of 
the year ; and it so happened that the citizens from the country tribes were to meet 
at Rome on this very day for the enlistment for one of these legions ; while the sol- 
diers of the other, which had been enrolled a short time before, were to appear 
at Rome on this same day in arms, having been allowed, as the custom was, to 
return home for a few days after their enlistment, to prepare for active service. 

176 Polybins, IX. 5. na p i v bi U s, IX. 6. Livy, XXVI. 9. An- 

m Livy, XXVI. 9. plan, VII. 88. 

117 Polybins, IX. 5. "« Polybius, IX. 6. Livy, XXVI. 9. 



Chap. XLIV.] THE ROMANS MARCH TO CHECK HANNIBAL. o3"i 

Thus it happened that ten thousand men were brought together at the very mo- 
ment when they were most needed, and were ready to repel any assault upon 
the walls. 1 * The allies, it seems, were not ordinarily called out to serve with 
the two city legions ; but on this occasion it is mentioned that the Latin colony of 
Alba, having seen Hannibal pass by their walls, and guessing the object of his 
march, sent his whole force to assist in the defence of Rome ; a zeal which the 
Greek writers compared to that of Plataea, whose citizens fought alone by the 
side of the Athenians on the day of Marathon. 181 

To assault the walls of Rome" was now hopeless ; but the open country was at 
Hannibal's mercy, a country which had seen no enemy for near a IIannibn i ravag l B t iie 
hundred and fifty years, cultivated and inhabited in the full secu- couutry 10Und - 
rity of peace. Far and wide it was overrun by Hannibal's soldiers ; and the 
army appears to have moved about, encamping in one place after ano.ther, and 
sweeping cattle and prisoners and plunder of every sort, beyond numbering, within 
the inclosure of its camp. 182 

It was, probably, in the course of these excursions, that .Hannibal, at he head 
of a large body of cavalry, came close up to the Colline gate, rode H e rides up *> the waiis 
along leisurely under the walls to see all he could of the city, and ofRome - 
is said to have cast his javelin into it as in defiance. 183 From farthest Spain he 
had come into Italy ; he had wasted the whole country of the Romans and their 
allies with fire and sword for more than six years, had slain more of their cit- 
izens than were now alive to bear arms against him ; and at last he was shutting 
them up within their city, and riding freely under their walls, while none dared 
meet him in the field. If any thing of disappointment depressed his mind at that 
instant ; if he felt that Rome's strength was not broken, nor the spirit of her 
people quelled, that his own fortune was wavering, and that his last effort had 
been made, and made in vain ; yet thinking where he was, and of the shame and loss 
which his presence was causing to his enemies, he must have wished that his father 
could have lived to see that day, and must have thanked the gods of his country 
that they had enabled him so fully to perform his vow. 

For s^ne time, we know not how long, this devastation of the Roman territory 
lasted without opposition. Meanwhile the siege of Capua was not Fu i vius r!tTO t0 
raised ; and Fabius, in earnestly dissuading such a confession of f™£ a ouV h to R X£k 
fear, showed that he could be firm no less than cautious, when Hiinnital - 
boldness was the highest prudence. But Fuivius, with a small portion of the 
besieging army, was recalled to Rome : Fabius had ever acted with him, and was 
glad to have the aid of his courage and ability ; and when he arrived, and by a 
vote of the senate was united with the consuls in the command, the Roman 
forces were led out of the city, and encamped, according to Fabius' old policy, 
within ten stadia of the enemy, to check his free license of plunder. 184 At the 
same time, parties acting on the rear of Hannibal's army had broken down the 
bridges over the Anio, his line of retreat, like his advance, being on the right 
bank of that river, and not by the Latin road. 

Hannibal had purposely waited to allow time for his movement to produce its 
intended effect in the raising of the siege of Capua. That time, 

... , . , , . ° ° . - 1 ? i • Hannibal retires. 

according to his calculations, was now come : the news ot his ar- 
rival before Rome must have reached the Roman lines before Capua ; and the 
armies from that quarter, hastening by the Latin road to the defence of their 
city, must have left the communication with Capua free. The presence of Fui- 
vius with his army in Latium, which Hannibal would instantly discover, by the 
thrice-repeated sounding of the watch, as Hasdrubal found out Nero's arrival in 
the camp of Livius near Sena, would confirm him in his expectation that the 
other proconsul was on his march with the mass of the army ; and he accord- 

180 Polybius, IX. 6. 183 Livy, XXVI. 10. Pliny, XXXIV. 15. 

181 Appian, VII. 39. 184 Livy, XXVI. 8, 9, 10. Polybius, IX. 7, 
1B2 Polybius, IX. 6. Appian, VII. 40. 



538 * HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLIV 

ingly commenced his retreat by the Tiburtine road, that he might not encounter 
Appius in front, while the consuls and Fabius were pressing on his rear. 

Accordingly, as the bridges were destroyed, he proceeded to effect his pas- 
Ti.e Romans follow him sa g*e through the river, and carried over his army under the pro- 
ata distance. tection of his cavalry, although the Romans attacked him during 

the passage, and cut off a large part of the plunder which he had collected from 
the neighborhood of Ronie. IS5 He then continued his retreat ; and the Romans 
followed him, but at a careful distance, and keeping steadily on the higher grounds, 
to be safe from the assaults of his dreaded cavalry. 186 

In this manner Hannibal marched with the greatest rapidity for five days, 
which, if he was moving by the Valerian road, must have brought 
him at least as far as the country of the Marsiaris, and the shores 
of the lake Fucinus. 181 From thence he would again have crossed by the Forca 
Carrosa to the plain of the Pelignians, and so retraced his steps through Sam- 
nium towards Capua. But at this point he received intelligence that the Roman 
armies were still in their lines, that his march upon Rome had therefore failed, 
and that his communications jsvith Capua were as hopeless as ever. Instantly he 
changed all his plans ; and feeling obliged to abandon Capua, the importance of 
his operations in the south rose upon him in proportion. Hitherto he had not 
thought fit to delay his march for the sake of attacking the army which was pur- 
suing him ; but now he resolved to rid himself of this enemy ; so he turned 
fiercely upon them, and assaulted their camp in the night. The Romans, sur- 
prised and confounded, were driven from it with considerable loss, and took refuge 
in a strong position in the mountains. Hannibal then resumed his march, but, 
instead of turning short to his right towards Campania, descended towards the 
Adriatic and the plains of Apulia, and from thence returned to what was now 
the stronghold of his power in Italy, the country of the Bruttians. 188 

The citadel of Tarentum still held out against him ; but Rhegium, confident in 
He misses takiog Rhe- its remoteness, had never yet seen his cavalry in its territory, and 
gium - was now less likely than ever to dread his presence, as he had 

so lately been heard of in the heart of Italy, and under the walls d% Rome. 
With a rapid march therefore he hastened to surprise Rhegium. Tidings of his 
coming readied the city just in time for the Rhegians to shut their gates against 
him ; but half their people were in the country, in the full security of peace ; and 
these all fell into his power. 189 We know not whether he treated them kindly, 
as hoping through their means to win Rhegium, as he had won Tarentum ; or 
whether disappointment was now stronger than hope, and, despairing of drawing 
the alhes of Rome to his side, he was now as inveterate against them as against 
the Romans. He retired from his fruitless attempt to win Rhegium only to 
receive the tidings of the loss of Capua. 

The Romans had patiently waited their time, and were now to reap their re- 
Th» Romans press the ward. The consuls were both to command in Apulia with two 
' ' l '""- consular armies; one of them therefore must have returned to 

Rome, to raise the two additional legions which were required. Fulvius hasten- 
ed back lo the lines before Capua. His prey was now in his power; the strait- 
ness of the blockade could no longer be endured, and aid from Hannibal was not 
to be hoped. It is said that mercy was still promised to any Capuan who 
should come over to the Romans before a certain day, but that none availed 
themselves of the offer, feeling, says Livy, that their offence was bevond forgive- 
ness. 190 This can only mean that they believed the Romans to be as faithless as 
they were cruel, and felt sure that every promise of mercy would be evaded or 
openly broken. One last attempt was made to summon Hannibal again to their 
aid ; but the Xumidians employed on the service were detected this time in the 

IM Polybins, IX. 7. 188 Polybius, TX. 7. Appian. VII. 41-43. 

180 Appian, VII. 40. » Polybius, IX. 7. 

ltn PolybittB, IX. 7. 10 ° livy, \.\Yl. 12. 



Chap.XLIV.] punishment of the capuans. 539 

Roman lines, and were sent back torn with stripes, and with their hands cut off, 
into the city. 191 

No Capuan writer has survived to record the last struggle of his country ; and 
never were airy people less to be believed than the Romans, when „,.... 

',' f , ... , The chief senators of 

speaking of their enemies, i et the greatest man could not have cap«a poison them. 
supported the expiring weakness of an unheroic people; and we 
hear of no great man in Capua. Some of the principal men in the senate 
met, it is said, at the house of one of their number, Vibius Virrius, where a mag- 
nificent banquet had been prepared for them ; they ate and drank, and when the 
feast was over, they all swallowed poison. Then, having done with pleasure and 
with life, they took a last leave of each other ; they embraced each other, la- 
menting with many tears their own and their country's calamity ; and some re- 
mained to be burned together on the same funeral pile, while others went away 
to die at their own homes. All were dead before the Romans entered the 
city. 192 

In the mean while the Capuan government, unable to restrain their starving 
people, had been obliged to surrender to the enemy. In modern , . 

* K , t r t • i i Surrender of the city. 

warfare the surrender or a besieged town involves jao extreme 
suffering ; even in civil wars, justice or vengeance only demands a certain number 
of victims, and the mass of the population scarcely feels its condition affected. 
But surrender, deditio, according to the Roman laws of war, placed the property, 
liberties, and lives of the whole surrendered people at the absolute disposal of the 
conquerors ; and that not formally, as a right, the enforcement of which were 
monstrous, but as one to abate which in any instance was an act of free mercy. 
In this sense Capua was surrendered ; in the morning after Vibius Virrius' fune- 
ral banquet, the gate of Jupiter, which looked towards the Roman head-quarters, 
was thrown open ; and a Roman legion, with its usual force of cavalry doubled, 
marched in to take possession. It was commanded by C. Fulvius, the brother 
of the proconsul, who immediately placed guards at all the gates, caused all the 
arms in the city to be brought to him, made prisoners of the Carthaginian garri- 
son, and sent all the Capuan senators into the Roman camp, to abide his broth- 
er's sentence. 

No Roman family has preserved a more uniform character of pride and cruelty 
through successive generations than the Claudii ; but in the treat- Fulvi „ 3 puls all the 3Qa . 
ment of the Capuans, Q. Fulvius was so much the principal act- ator3 10 death - 
or, that, according to some of the annals, Appius Claudius was no longer alive, 
having been mortally wounded some time before the end of the siege. 193 His 
daughter had been married to a Campanian ; and the senators of Capua might 
perhaps seem to him worthier of regard than the commons of Rome. But 
whether Appius was living or dead, he was unable to arrest the course of his 
colleague's vengeance. The Capuan senators were immediately chained as bond- 
slaves, were commanded to give up all their gold and silver to the quaestors, and 
were then sent in custody, five-and-twenty to Cales, and twenty-eight to Tea- 
num. Ere the next night was over, Fulvius, with 2000 chosen horsemen, left 
the camp, and arrived at Teanum by daybreak. He took his seat in the Forum, 
ordered the magistrates of Teanum to bring forth their prisoners, and saw them 
all scourged and beheaded in his presence. Then he rode off to Cales, and re- 
peated the same tragedy there. 194 

Atilla and Calatia followed the example of Capua, and surrendered at dis- 
cretion to the Romans. There, also, about twenty senators were SeTere tre „, m ent of a u 
executed, and about three hundred persons of noble birth, in lho Cam P anian3 - 
one or other of the three cities, were sent to Rome, and thrown into the Mamer- 
tine prison, there to die of starvation and misery, while others met a similar fate 

101 Livy, XXVI. 12. im Livy, XXVI. 15. Valerius Maximus, IIL 

102 Livy, XXVI. 14. 8, 1. 
193 Livy, XXVI. 15. Zonaras, IX. 6. 



540 HISTORY OP ROME. [Chap. XLIV. 

in the various allied cities whither they were sent prisoners. 195 The besieging 
army was then relieved from its long services ; part of it was probably sent home, 
or transferred to one of the consuls to form his army in Apulia. C. Nero, the 
propraetor, was sent with about 13,000 men into Spain, where the Roman affairs 
were in a most critical state ;' 9S while Q. Fulvius remained still as proconsul in 
Capua, exercising the utmost severity of conquest over the remnant of the unfor- 
tunate people. 

A few months afterwards, on the nio-ht of the 18th of March in the following 
year, a fire broke out at Rome in several places at once, in the 
neighborhood of the Forum. The temple of Vesta, and its eternal 
fire, the type of the life of the commonwealth, were saved with great difficulty. 
This fire was said to be the work of some noble Capuans whose fathers had been 
beheaded by Q. Fulvius ; they were accused by one of their slaves ; and a con- 
fession of the charge having been forced from their other slaves by torture, the 
young men were put to death. 197 Fulvius made this a pretence for fresh seveii- 
ties against the Capuans ; and no doubt it had an influence upon the senate when 
the fate of the three revolted cities of Campania was finally decided. As the 
Capuans had enjoyed the franchise of Roman citizens, the senate was obliged to 
obtain an act of the comitia, empowering them to determine their future condi- 
tion. A number of decrees were passed accordingly, as after the great Latin 
war, distinguishing the punishment of different classes, and even of different indi- 
viduals. All who had been senators, or held any office, were reduced to utter beg- 
gary, their lands being forfeited to Rome, together with the whole Campanian 
territory, and their personal property of every kind being ordered to be sold. Some 
were sold, besides, for slaves, with their wives and children ; and it was especially 
ordered that they should be sold at Rome, lest some of their countrymen or neigh- 
bors should purchase them for the purpose of restoring their liberty. All who had 
been in Capua during the siege were transported beyond the Tiber, and forbid- 
den to possess lands or houses above a certain measure, or out of certain specified 
districts ; those who had not been in Capua, or in any other revolted city, during 
the war, were only transported beyond the Liris ; while those who had gone over 
to the Romans before Hannibal entered Capua, were removed no further than 
across the Vulturnus. In their exiled state, however, they were still to be per- 
sonally free, but were incapable of enjoying either the Roman franchise or the 
Latin. I5S The city of Capua, bereaved of all its citizens, was left to be inhab- 
ited by that mixed multitude of resident foreigners, freedmen, and half-citizens, 
who, as shopkeepers and mechanics, had always formed a large part of the popu- 
lation ; and all political organization was strictly denied to them ; and they were 
placed under the government of a prsefect sent thither every year from Rome. 199 
The Campanian plain, the glory of Italy, and all the domain lands which Capua 
had won in former wars, when she was the ally of Rome, as her share of the 
spoils of Samnium, were forfeited to the "Roman people. In the domain lands 
some colonics were planted soon after the war ; 200 but the Campanian plain was 
held in occupation by a number of Roman citizens; and the vectigal, or rent, 
which they paid to the state, was for a hundred and fifty years an important part of 
the Roman revenue. 201 Only two individuals were found deserving of favor, it is 
said, anion-- the whole Capuan people : these were two women, one of v\ horn had 
daily sacrificed in secret during the siege for the success of the Romans; and 
the other had secretly fed some Roman prisoners. These had their properly re- 
stored to them by a special decree of the senate ; and they were desired to 
go to Rome ami to petition the senate, if they thought proper, for some addi- 
tional reward. 202 

"• Liw, XXVI. 16. ™ Livv, XXVI. 1G. 

""> Livv, XXVI. 17. s<« [ivy, XXVI. 45. 

w l.iv'v, XXVI. 27. '-'" Cicero, l)c Leg. Agrar. II. 30. 

108 Livy, XXVI. 33, 34. *» Livv, XXVI, ;;3, 34. 



Chap. XLIV.] CONCLUSION. 541 

I have given the settlement of Campania and the fate of the Capuans in detail, 
because it seems taken from authentic sources, and is character- Fulviu8 ig refufled a 
istic of the stern determination with which the Roman government trium P h - 
went through its work. It is no less characteristic that when Q. Fulvius applied 
for a triumph, after his most important and splendid success, the senate refused 
to grant it, because he had only recovered what had belonged to Rome before ; 
and the mere retrieving of losses, and restoring the dominion of the common- 
wealth to its former extent, was no subject of extraordinary exultation. 203 

But although not rewarded by a triumph, the conquest of Capua was one of 
the most important services ever rendered by a Roman general Importanoe f the tak- 
to his country, It did not merely deprive Hannibal of the great- ingotCapna - 
est fruit of his greatest victory, and thus seem to undo the work of Cannse ; but 
its effect was felt far and wide, encouraging the allies of Rome, and striking terror 
into her enemies ; tempting the cities which had revolted to return without delay 
to their allegiance, and filling Hannibal with suspicions of those who were still 
true to him, as if they only waited to purchase their pardon by some act of 
treachery towards his garrisons. By the recovery of Capua his great experi- 
ment seemed decided against him. It appeared impossible, under any circum- 
stances, to rally such a coalition of the Italian states against the Roman power 
in Italy, as might be able to overthrow it. We almost ask, with what reason- 
able hopes could Hannibal from this time forward continue the war ? or why 
did he not change the seat of it from Southern Italy to Etruria and Cisalpine 
Gaul? 

But with whatever feelings of disappointment and grief he may have heard of 
the fall of Capua, of the ruin of his allies, and the bloody death Ha nnibai> favorable 
of so many of the Capuan senators, and of the brave Jubellius v™ 3 ^*- 
Taurea, whom he had personally known and honored, yet the last campaign was 
not without many solid grounds of encouragement. Never had the invincible 
force of his army been more fully proved. He had overrun half Italy, had 
crossed and recrossed the passes of the Apennines, had plunged into the midst 
of the Roman allies, and had laid waste the territory of Rome with fire and 
sword. Yet no superiority of numbers, no advantage of ground, no knowledge 
of the country, had ever emboldened the Romans to meet him in the field, or 
even to beset his road, or to obstruct and harass his march. Once only, when he 
was thought to be retreating, had they ventured to follow him at a cautious dis- 
tance ; but he had turned upon them in his strength ; and the two consuls, and 
Q. Fulvius with them, were driven before him as fugitives to the mountains, their 
camp stormed, and their legions scattered. It was plain, then, that he might 
hold his ground in Italy as long as he pleased, supporting his army at its cost, 
and draining the resources of Rome and her allies, year after year, till in mere 
exhaustion the Roman commons would probably join the Latin colonies and the 
allies in forcing the senate to make peace. 

At this very moment Etruria was restless, and required an army of two legions 
to keep it quiet : S04 the Roman commons, in addition to their heavy _ . 

IT- •it • i-i j Unfavorable circuni- 

taxation and military service, had seen their lands laid waste, and stances of the Romans 

. . in Italy and in Spain. 

yet were called upon to bear fresh burdens : and there was a spirit 
of discontent working in the Latin colonies, which a little more provocation might 
excite to open revolt. Spain, besides, seemed at last to be freed from the enemy ; 
and the recent defeats and deaths of the two Scipios there held out the hope to 
Hannibal, that now at length his brother Hasdrubal, having nothing to detain him 
in Spain, might lead a second Carthaginian army into Italy, and establish himselt 
in Etruria, depriving Rome of the resources of the Etruscan and Umbrian states, 
as she had already lost those of half Samnium, of Lucania, Bruttium, and Apulia.' 

203 Valerius Maximus, II. 8, 4. Wi Livy, XXVI. 1, 28 ; XXVII. 7. Comp. 

XXVII. 21, 22, 24. 



542 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV, 

Then, assailed at once by two sons of Hamilcar, on the north and the south, the 
Roman power, which one of them singly had so staggered, must, by the joint 
efforts of both, be beaten to the ground and destroyed. With such hopes, and 
with no unreasonable confidence, Hannibal consoled himself for the loss of Capua, 
and allowed his armj^, after its severe marching, to rest for the remainder of the 
year in Apulia. 205 And now, as we have brought the war in Italy to this point, 
it is time to look abroad, and to observe the course of this mighty contest in 
Spain, in Greece, and in Sicily. 



CHAPTER XLV. 

PROGRESS OF THE WAR IN SPAIN, SICILY, AND GREECE— OPERATIONS OF IBS. 
SCIPIOS IN SPAIN— THEIR DEFEAT AND DEATH— MACEDON AND GREECE- 
REVOLUTIONS OF SYRACUSE— MARCELLUS IN SICILY— SIEGE OF SYRACUSE- 
ARCHIMEDES— SACK OF SYRACUSE, AND REDUCTION OF SICILY— MUTINES, 
THE NUMIDIAN, IN SICILY.— A. U. C. 53S TO 543. 

Wars must of necessity form a large part of all history ; but in most wars the 
narrative of military operations is without interest for posterity, and 

When wars ou^ht to be -i-i-i-ii • i 'j. Ti • *i x i» 

related circumstanti. should only be given by contemporary writers. It was right tor 
Thucydides to relate every little expedition of the Peloponnesian 
war at length ; but modern writers do wrong in following his example ; for the 
details of petty warfare are unworthy to survive their own generation. And there 
are also wars conducted on a great scale, and very important in their conse- 
quences, the particulars of which may safely be forgotten. For military events 
should only be related circumstantially to after ages, when they either contain a 
great lesson in the art of war, or are so striking in their incidents, as to acquire 
the interest of a romance, and thus retain their hold on the imaginations and 
moral feelings of all ages and countries. Hannibal's campaigns in Italy have this 
double claim on our notice : they are a most valuable study for the soldier, whilst 
for readers in general they are a varied and eventful story, rich in characters, 
scenes, and actions. But the war in Spain, although most important in its results, 
and still more the feeble bickerings rather than wars of the decayed states of 
Greece, may and ought to be related summarily. A closer attention must be 
given to the war in Sicily : there again the military and the general interest of 
the story are great ; we have the ancient art of defence exhibited it its highest 
perfection ; we have the immortal names of Syracuse and Archimedes. 

There is another reason, however, why we should not give a minute account 
campaign of mi in of the Spanish war : because we really know nothing about it. 
8p8 j n ' The Roman annalists, whom Livy has copied here, seem to have 

outdone their usual exaggerations in describing the exploits of the two Scipios ; 
and what is the truth concealed beneath this mass of fiction, we are wholly unable 
to discover. Spain, we know, has in later wars been overrun victoriously and 
lost again in a single summer; and no one can say how far the Scipios may at 
times have penetrated into the heart of the country : but it is certain that in the 
first years of their command they made no lasting impression south of the Iberus. 
Still their maintaining their ground at all in Spain was of signal service to Rome. 

205 Compare Livy, XXVI. 07. 



Chap. XLV.] CAMPAIGN OF 543. 543 

The Carthaginians, on the other hand, knew the importance of ex- A v c ^ AC 213- 
pelling them ; but it appears that in the year 541, they became 
engaged in a war with Syphax, one of the kings or chiefs of the Nurnidians ; and 
a war in Africa was always so alarming to them, that they recalled Hasdrubal, 
Hannibal's brother, from Spain, with a part of their forces employed in that 
country, and thus took off the pressure from the Romans at a most critical mo- 
ment. 1 The Scipios availed themselves of this relief ably ; and now they seemed 
to have advanced into the heart of Spain with effect, to have drawn over many 
of the Spanish tribes to the Roman alliance, and thus to have obtained large re- 
cruits for their own army, which received "but slight reinforcements from Rome. 
It is said that 20,000 Celtiberians were raised to serve under the Scipios, and 
that at the same time 300 noble Spaniards were sent into Italy to detach their 
countrymen there'from Hannibal's service. 2 Cn. Scipio, we are told, was greatly 
loved and reverenced by the Spaniards ; 3 and his influence probably attracted the 
Celtiberians to the Roman armies ; but we know not where he found money to 
pay them, as the Roman treasury was in no condition to supply him, and he was 
obliged to make war support war. However, careful economy of the plunder 
which he may have won from some of the allies of Carthage, assisted perhaps 
by loans from some of the Spanish chiefs attached to himself and to Rome, had 
enabled him to raise a large army ; so that, when Hasdrubal returned from Africa, 
apparently late in 542, although there were two other Carthaginian generals in 
Spain, 4 each commanding a separate army, yet the Roman generals thought 
themselves strong enough to act on the offensive ; and they concerted a grand 
plan for the campaign of 543, by which they hoped to destroy all the armies 
opposed to them, and to drive the Carthaginians out of Spain. With this confi- 
dence they divided their forces, and having crossed the Iberus, marched each in 
pursuit of a separate enemy. Cn. Scipio was to attack Hasdrubal, while his 
brother was to fall on the other two Carthaginian generals, Hasdrubal the son 
of Giscon, and Mago. 5 

They had wintered, it seems, in the country of their new auxiliaries, or, ac- 
cording to one account, even further to the south, in the valley of 
the Bastis or Guadalquiver. 6 But it is as impossible to disentangle feat ana death of the 

i- ^ i o Scipios. 

the geography of this war as its history. The Carthaginian gen- 
erals owed their triumph — and more than this we cannot ascertain — to the as- 
cendency of Hasdrubal's name and personal character ; for the Celtiberians, when 
brought into his neighborhood, were unable to resist his influence, and abruptly 
left the Roman camp, and returned home. 1 Thus abandoned, and at a great dis- 
tance from all their resources, the two Roman generals were sue- A . D . c. 543. a. c. 
cessively attacked by the Carthaginians, defeated and killed. 8 Of B1 ' 1 ' 
the wreck of their armies, some fled to the towns of their Spanish allies for refuge, 
and were in some instances slain by them, or betrayed to the Carthaginians : a 
remnant, which had either been left behind the Iberus before the opening of 
the campaign, or had effected its retreat thither, was still held together by 
Scipio's lieutenant, T. Fonteius, and by L. Marcius. 9 Marcius was only a simple 
Roman knight, that is, a man of good fortune, who therefore served, not in the 
infantry of the legions, but in the cavalry : he had a natural genius for Avar, and 
was called irregularly, it seems, by the common voice of the soldiers to take the 
command ; and we need not doubt that by some timely advantages gained over 
some of the enemies' parties, he raised the spirits of the men, and preserved the 
Roman cause in Spain from utter extinction. But the extravagant fables of his 
victories over the victorious Carthaginians, and of his storming their camps, 

1 Appian, VI. 15. Livy, XXIV. 48. 6 Appian, VI. 16. 

2 livy, XXV. 32. XXIV. 49. 7 Livy, XXV. 83. 

3 Livy, XXV. 36. Appian, VI. 15. 8 Livy, XXV. 34-36. Appian, VI. 16. 

4 Livy, XXV. 32. Appian, VI. 16. 9 Livy, XXV. 86-39. 
6 Livy, XXV. 32. 



544 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV 

show too clearty out of what wretched materials the Roman history has to be 
written. 10 

If the defeat of the Scipios took place, as seems probable, early in the year 
543, that is, a few weeks before the fall of Capua, we may again 
to aefintoMhe fyc- admire the wonderful disposal of events by which the ruin of the 
Roman cause in Spain was delayed till their affairs in Italy had 
passed over their crisis, and were beginning to mend. The Scipios' army was 
replaced by that of C. Nero, which the fall of Capua set at liberty :" a year ear- 
lier this resource would not have been available. Still the Carthaginians imme- 
diately recovered all the states south of the Ebro, which had before revolted ; 
and the Romans were confined to a narroAV strip of coast between the Iberus and 
the Pyrenees, 1 ' 2 from which the overwhelming force of their enemies was likely 
ere long to drive them. And so it would, had not the external weakness of the 
Roman cause been now upheld for the first time by individual genius ; so that a 
defeated and dispirited army became, in the hands of the young P. Scipio, the 
instrument by which all Spain was conquered. 

Seventy years before this period, a Greek army under Pyrrhus had shaken the 
strafe inefficiency of whole power of Rome : yet the kingdom of Pyrrhus was little more 
Maoeilon ' than a dependency of Macedon, and Pyrrhus had struggled against 

the arms of the Macedonain kings vigorously, but without success. Now a 
young, warlike, and popular king was seated on the throne of Macedon : 13 he 
had just concluded a war victoriously with the only state in Greece which 
seemed capable of resisting his power. What Pyrrhus had almost done alone, 
would surely be easy for Philip to accomplish, with Hannibal and his invincible 
army to aid him ; and what could Rome have done, if to the irresistible African 
cavalry there had been joined a body of heavy-armed Macedonians, and a force 
of artillery and engineers such as Greek science alone could furnish? The 
strangest and most unaccountable blank in history is the early period of the 
Macedonian war, before the iEtolians became the allies of Rome and a coalition 
was formed against Philip in Greece itself. Philip's treaty with Hannibal was 
concluded in the year 539, or early enough, at any rate, to allow of his com- 
mencing operations in the year 540. 14 The iEtolians concluded their treaty with 
Rome in 543, after the fall of Capua. 15 More than three precious years seem 
to have been utterly wasted ; and during all this time M. Valerius La?\ inns, 
commanding at Brundisium with a sino-le leo-ion and a small fleet, was allowed 
to paralyze the whole power of Macedon. 

The cause of this is to be found in that selfish attention to separate objects 
arising from rump's which has so often been the ruin of coalitions. Philip's object, or 
seiashncss. rather that of Demetrius of Pharos, whose influence appears 

plainly in all this war with Rome, was to undo the work of the late Roman vic- 
tories in Illyria, and to wrest the western coast of Epirus from their dominion. 
In his treaty with Hannibal, Philip had especially stipulated that the Romans 
should not be allowed to retain their control over Corcyra, Apollonia, Epidam- 
nus, Pharus, Dimalla or Dimalus, the country of the Parthinians, and Atintania ;" 
places which in the Illyrian wars had either submitted to, or been conquered by 
the Romans. Philip does not appear to have understood that all these were to 
be reconquered most surely in Italy ; that it was easier to crush La-vinus at 
Brundisium, than to repel him from Epirus; more prudent to march against him 

10 Liw, XXV. 89. According to one ac- B Appian, VI. 17. 

,.niu:i, :.', .< 00 mi o «■ iv slain on the Carthagin- " Philip was not more than seventeen years 

- urned L7,i old in the archonship of Ariston, A. U. < 

da its. Appian (XI. 17) Polyhius, IV. 5. For his popular and warlike 

Bubstitufo - Marcellus by mistake forMarcius, character see Polybius, IV. 77. 82, 1. 

but Bays he did nothing brilliant, so that the " Ldvy, XXIII*. 33,39. Above, p. 5U. 

Carthaginian power increased, and spread al- 15 Liw, XXVI. ■_' I. 

most over the whole of Spain. » Livy. XXIV. 10, 44. XXV. 3. XXVL 24. 

» Uvy, XXVI. 17. '" Polybius, Vll. 9. 



Chap. XLV.] SICILY. 545 

at the head of the Greeks of Italy, than to let him come to the aid of the Greeks 
on the coast of Illyria. Thus he trifled away his strength in petty enterprises, 
and those not always successful, till the Romans found the time come to carry on 
the Avar against him in earnest ; and they were not apt either to neglect their 
opportunities or to misuse them. 

Philip was personally brave, and could on occasion show no common activity 
and energy. But he had not that steadiness of purpose, without He-wastes his time, on 
which energy in political affairs is worthless. Thus he was lightly petty ob J ecta - 
deterred from an enterprise bj r dangers which he was not afraid of, but rather 
did not care to encounter. The naval power of Greece had long since sunk to . 
nothing ; Philip had no regular navy, and the small vessels which he could col- 
lect were no match for the Roman quinqueremes ; so that a descent upon Italy 
appeared hazardous, while various schemes opened upon him nearer home, 
which his own temper, or the interests of his advisers, led him to prefer, Hence,, 
he effected but little during three years. He neither took Epidamnus, nor Apol- 
lonia, nor Corcyra ; but he won Lissus, and the strong fortress which. served as 
its citadel; 18 and he seems also to have conquered Dimalus or Dimajlus, and to- 
have enlarged his dominion more or less nominally with the countries of the 
Parthinians and Atintanians, of which the sovereignty had belonged. to the Ro.- 
mans.' 9 From all this Hannibal derived no benefit, and Rome sustained no seri- 
ous injury. 

In the year of Rome 491, in the second year of the first Punic war, Hiero, 
kino- of Syracuse, had made peace with the Romans, and had be- 

i-L • • 11 an tti j l j j ■ ^ Hiero's faithful ftiend- 

come their ally. JHorty-seven years had passed away since, when bWp to the Eomans: 
the tidings of the battle of Cannae arrived at Syracuse, and seemed 
to announce that a great part of Sicily was again to change its masters... and to 
be subjected once more to the Carthaginian dominion.. But Hiero>. although 
about ninety years of age, did not waver. Far from, courting the friendship of 
Carthage, he increased his exertions in behalf of Rome: he supplied the Roman 
army in Sicily with money and corn at a time when all supplies from, home had 
failed ; 21 and about a year afterwards, when a fleet was prepared to meet the 
hostile designs of Philip of Macedon, Hiero again sent 50,000 medimni of wheat 
and barley to provision it. 29 This must nearly have been his last. Ai Vi c 5Mv A c> 
public act. Towards the close of the year 539,. after a life of 215- 
ninety years, and a reign of fifty-four, but still retaining all his faculties, sound 
in mind and vigorous in body, Hiero died. 23 

He had enjoyed and deserved the constant affection of his; people, and had 
seen his kingdom flourishing more and more under his government. preceded , that of hig 
One only thing had marred the completeness, of his fortune :: his BonG ° lon - 
son Gelon had died before him, with whom, he had lived in. the most perfect, 
harmony, and who had ever rendered him the most devoted; and loving obedi- 
ence. 24 He had still two daughters, Damarata and Herac!ea,,who were married 
to two eminent Syracusans, Andranodorus and Zoippus ; and : he had one grand- 
son, a boy of about fifteen, the son of Gelon, Hieronymns> 25 

It is the most difficult problem in an hereditary monarchy, how to educate the 
heir to the throne, when the cireumstances of his condition*, so 
much more powerful than any instruction,, are apt to train him: for ffrau'dsQ^HLonymust! 
evil far more surely than the lessons of the wisest teachers can ' s ° araotei - 
train him for good. In the ancient world, moreover,, there was no fear of God 
to sober the mind, which was raised above all fear or respect for man ; and if the 
philosophers spoke of the superiority of virtue and wisdom over all the gifts of." 

18 Polybius, VIII. 15, 16. M Livy, XXIII. 38. 

19 In Livy, XXIX. 12, we find tbess attacked 23 Polybius, VII. s. 
by the Bomans, as being subject to Macedon.. 24 Polybius, VII. 8. 

20 See p. 427. « Livy, XXIV. 4. 

21 Livy, XXIII. 22. See above, p.. 5Q8.. 

35 



546 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV- 

fortune, their own example, when they were seen to sue for the king's favor, and 
to dread his anger, no less than ordinary men, made their doctrines regarded 
either as folly or hypocrisy. Hieronymus at fifteen became king of Syracuse ; a 
child in understanding, but with passions precociously vigorous, because he had 
such large means of indulging them ; insolent, licentious, and cruel, vet withal 
so thoughtless and so mere a slave of every impulse, that he was sure" to be the 
instrument of his own ruin., ^ 

We have already noticed his early communication with Hannibal, and the 
He joins the Crtim- arrival of Hippocrates and Epicydes at Syracuse, Syracusans by 
gunans, extraction, but born at Carthage", and by education and franchise 

Carthaginians, whom Hannibal had sent to Hieronymus to confirm him in his 
alienation from Rome. 26 They won the youth's ear by telling him of Hannibal's 
marches and victories ; for in those days events that were two or three years old 
were still news to foreigners ; common fame had reported the general facts, but 
the details could only be gathered accidentally ; and Hieronymus listened eao-erlv 
to Hippocrates and Epicydes, when they told him stones 'of their crossing the 
Rhone, of their passage of the Alps and Apennines, of the slaughter of the Ro- 
mans at Thrasymenus, and of their late unequalled victory at Canme, of all 
which they had themselves been eye-witnesses. 27 And when they saw H erony- 
mus possessed with a vague longing that he too might achieve such great deeds, 
they asked him who had such claims as he to be king of all Sicily. "His mother 
was the daughter of Pyrrhus ; his father was Hiero's son ; with this double title 
to the love and homage of all Sicilians, he should not be contented to divide the 
island either with Rome or Carthage : by his timely aid to Hannibal he might 
secure it wholly to himself. The youth accordingly insisted that the sovereignty 
of all Sicily " should be ceded to him as the price of his alliance with Carthage ; 
and the Carthaginians were well content to humor him, knowing that if they 
could drive the Romans out of the islands, they had little to fear from the claims 
of Hieronymus. 03 

Appius Claudius, the Roman prastor in Sicily, aware of what was going on, 
and deserts the Bo- sent some of his officers to Syracuse, to warn the king not to break 
nmns ' _ off his grandfather's long friendship with Rome, but to renew the 

old alliance in his own name. 29 Hieronymus called his council together, and Hip- 
pocrates and Epicydes were present. "His native subjects, afraid to oppose his 
known feelings, said nothing ; but three of his council, who came from old Greece, 
conjured him not to abandon his alliance with Rome. Andranodorus alone, his 
uncle and guardian, urged him to seize the moment, and become sovereign of all 
Sicily. He listened, and then, turning to Hippocrates and Epycides, asked them, 
."And what think you?" "We think," they answered, " with Andranodorus." 
" Then," said he, " the question is decided ; we will no longer be dependent on 
Rome." He then called in the Roman ambassadors, and told them that " he was 
willing to renew his grandfather's league with Rome, if they would repay him all 
the money and corn with which Hiero had at various times supplied them ; if 
they would restore the costly presents which he had given them, especially the 
golden statue of Victory, which he had sent to them only three years since, after 
their defeat at Thrasymenus ; and, finally, if they would share the island with 
him equally, ceding all to the east of the river Himeras." 30 The Romans con- 
sidered this answer as a mockery, and went away without thinking it worthy of 
a serious reply. Accordingly, from this moment Hieronymus conceived himself 
to be at war with Rome : lie began to raise and arm soldiers, and to form maga- 
zines ; and the Carthaginians, according to their treaty with him, prepared to 
send over a fleet and rainy to Sicily. 

Meanwhile his desertion of the Roman alliance was most unwelcome to a strong 

50 Polypius,,VII. o-l. Livy, .XXIV. r,. See « Polybius. VTI. 4. Livy, XXTV. & 
above, p. 514/ » Polybius. VII. 5. Livy. XXIV. 6. 

27 Polybius, VII. 4. » Polybius, VII. 5. See Livy, XXII. 37. 



Chap.XLV.] INSURRECTION AT SYRACUSE. 547 

party in Syracuse. A conspiracy had already been formed against He i8 murd6red by a 
his life, which was ascribed, whether truly or not, to the intrigues C0DS i ,ir:lc y- 
of this party ; 31 and now that he had actually joined the Carthaginians, they be- 
came more bitter against him ; and a second conspiracy was formed with better 
success. He had taken the field to attack the cities in the Roman part of the 
island. Hippocrates and Epicydes were already in the enemy's country ; and 
the king, with the main body of his army, was on his march to support them, 
and had just entered the town of Leontini. 32 The road, which was also the prin- 
cipal street of the city, lay through a narrow gorge, with abrupt cliffs on each 
side ; and the houses ran along in a row, nestling under the western cliff, and 
facing towards the small river Lissus, which flowed through the gorge between 
the town and the eastern cliff. 33 An empty house in this street had been occu- 
pied by the conspirators : when the king came opposite to it, one of their num- 
ber, who was one of the king's guards, and close to his person, stopped just be- 
hind him, as if something had caught his foot ; and whilst he seemed trying to 
get free, he checked the advance of the following multitude, and left the king to 
go on a few steps unattended. At that moment the conspirators rushed out of 
the house and murdered him. So sudden was the act, that his guards could not 
save him : seeing him dead, they were seized with a panic and dispersed. The 
murderers hastened, some into the market-place of Leontini, to raise the cry of 
liberty there, and others to Syracuse, to anticipate the king's friends, and secure 
the city for themselves and the Romans. 34 

Their tidings, however, had flown before them ; and Andranodorus, the king's 
uncle, had already secured the island of Ortygia, the oldest part i ns „ rre ctiou at s y ra- 
of Syracuse, in which was the citadel, and where Hiero and Hie- CU8e - 
ronymus had resided. 35 The assassins arrived just at nightfall, displaying the 
bloody robe of Hieronymus, and the diadem which they had torn from his head, 
and calling the people to rise in the name of liberty. This call was obeyed : all 
the city, except the island, was presently in their power ; and in the island itself 
a strong building, which was used as a great corn magazine for the supply of 
the whole city, was no sooner seized by those whom Andranodorus had sent to 
occupy it, than they offered to deliver it up to the opposite party. 35 

The general feeling being thus manifested, Andranodorus yielded to it. He 
surrendered the keys of the citadel and of the treasury ; and in Murder f Andranodo. 
return he and Themistus, who had married a sister of Hieronymus, IlIS and Theml3tu3 > 
were elected among the captains-general of the commonwealth, to whom, ac- 
cording to the old Syracusan constitution, the executive government was to be 
committed. But their colleagues were mostly chosen from the assassins of Hie- 
ronymus ; and between such opposites there could be no real union. Suspicions 
and informations of plots were not long wanting. An actor told the majority of 
the captains-general, that Andranodorus and Themistus were conspiring to mas- 
sacre them and the other leaders of their party, and to re-establish the tyranny : 
the charge was made out to the satisfaction of those who were so well disposed 
to believe it : they stationed soldiers at the doors of the council-chamber ; and 
as soon as Andranodorus and Themistus entered, the soldiers rushed in and mur- 
dered them. 37 The member's of the council decided that they were rightfully 
slain ; but the multitude were inclined to believe them less guilty than their mur- 
derers, and beset the council, calling for vengeance. They were persuaded, how- 
ever, to hear what the perpetrators of the deed could say in its defence ; and 
Sopater, one of the captains-general, who was concerned both in the recent mur- 
der and in that of Hieronymus, arose to justify himself and his party. The tyr- 
annies in the ancient world were so hateful, that they were put by common ' 

31 Polybius, VII. 2. Livy, XXIV. 5. 35 Livy, XXIV. 21. 

32 Livy, XXIV. 7. 36 Livy, XXIV. 21, 22. 

33 Polybius, VII. 6. " Livy, XXIV. 23, 24. 
31 Livy, XXIV. 7. 



548 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLV. 

feeling out of the pale of ordinary law : when Sopater accused Andranodorus and 
Themistus of having been the real authors of all the outrages committed bv the 
boy Hieronymus; when he inveighed against their treacherous submission to 
their country's laws, and against their ingratitude in plotting the deaths of those 
who had so nobly forgiven all their past offences ; and when he said, finally, that 
they had been instigated to all these crimes by their wives, that Hiero's daugh- 
ter and grand-daughter could not condescend to live in a private station ; there 
arose a cry from some, probably of their own tutored partisans, which the whole 
multitude, in fear or in passion, immediately echoed, " Death to the whole race 
of the tyrants ; not one of them shall be suffered to live." 3S 

They who had purposely roused the multitude to fury, were instantly ready 
and of an the descend- to secure it for their own bloody ends. The captains-general pro- 
mts of men,. pose(; | a decree f or ^ execiztioii of every person of the race of 
the tyrants ; and the instant it was passed, they sent parties of soldiers to carry 
it into effect. Thus the wives of Andranodorus and Themistus were butchered : 
but there was another daughter of Hiero. the wife of Zoippus, who was so far 
from sharing in the tyranny of Hieronymus, that when sent by him as his am- 
bassador to Egypt, he had chosen to live there in exile. His innocent wife, with 
her two young maiden daughters, were included in the general proscription. 
They took refuge at the altar of . their household gods, but "in vain: the mother 
was dragged from her sanctuary and murdered ; "the daughters fled wildly into 
the outer court of the palace, in the hope of escaping into the street, and appeal- 
ing to the humanity of the passers-by ; but they were pursued and cut down by 
repeated wounds. Ere the deed was done, a messenger came to say that the 
people had revoked their sentence ; which seems to show that the captains- 
general had taken advantage of some expressions of violence, and had done in 
the people's name what the people had never in earnest agreed to. At any rate, 
then- rage was now loud against their bloody government ; and they insisted on 
having a free election of captains-general to supply the places of Andranodorus 
and Themistus ; a demand which implies that some preceding resolutions or votes 
of the popular assembly had been passed under undue influence. 39 

The party which favored the Roman alliance had done all that wickedness 
The carthasroian party could to make themselves odious. The reaction against them was 
natural ; yet the same foreign policy which these butchers sup- 
ported, had been steadily pursued by the wise and moderate Hiero. Every party 
in that corrupt city of Syracuse wore ah aspect of evil : the partisans of Car- 
thage were in nothing better than those of Rome. When Hieronymus had been 
murdered, Hippocrates and Epicydes were at the moment deserted by their sol- 
diers, and returned to Syracuse as private individuals. There they applied to 
the government for an escort to convey them back to Hannibal iu safety : but 
the escort was not provided immediately ; and in the interval they perceived that 
they could serve Hannibal better by remaining in Sicily. They found many 
amongst the mercenary soldiers of the late king, and amongst the poorer citizens, 
who readily listened to them, when they accused the captains-general of selling 
the independence of Syracuse to Rome ; and their party was so strengthened by 
the atrocities of the government, that, when the election was held to choose two 
new captains-general in the place of Andranodorus and Themistus, Hippocrates 
and Epicydes were nominated and triumphantly elected: 40 Again, therefore, the 
government was divided within itself; and Hippocrates and Epicydes had been 
taught by the former conduct of their colleagues that one party or the other must 
perish. 

The Roman party had immediately suspended hostilities with Rome, obtained 
a truce from Appius Claudius renewable every ten days, and sent ambassadors to 

Z J4*y> xx,v w iivyi xxiv. 23, 27. 

» Livy, XXIV. 26. ... 



Chap. XLV.] MARCELLUS ARRIVES IN SICILY. 549 

him to solicit the revival of Hiero's treaty. A Roman fleet of a 
hundred ships was. lying off the coast a little to the north of Syr- to the mouth of 'the 
acuse, which the Romans, on the first suspicion of the defection of 
Hieronymus, had manned by the most extraordinary exertions, and sent to 
Sicily. On the other hand, Himilco, with a small Carthaginian fleet, was at Pa- 
chynus, Rome and Carthage each anxiously watching the course of events in 
Syracuse, and each being readyto support its party there. Matters were nicely 
balanced ; and the Roman fleet, in the hope of turning the scale, sailed to Syra- 
cuse, and stationed itself at the mouth of the great harbor. 41 

Strengthened by this powerful aid, the Roman party triumphed; even moder- 
ate men not wishing to provoke an enemy who was already at their 
gates. The old league with Rome was renewed, with the stipu- comes the more power- 
lation, that whatever cities in Sicily had been subject to king Hiero 
should now in like manner be under the dominion of the Syracusan people. It 
appears that, since the murder of Hieronymus, his kingdom had gone to pieces, 
many of the towns, and Leontini in particular, asserting their independence. 
These were, like Syracuse, in a state of hostility against Rome, owing to Hie- 
ronymus' revolt ; but they had no intention of submitting again to the Syracusan 
dominion. Still, when the Romans threatened them, they sent to Syracuse for 
aid ; and as the Syracusan treaty with Rome was not yet ratified or made public, 
the government could not decline their request. Hippocrates accordingly was 
sent to Leontini, with a small army, consisting chiefly of deserters from the Ro- 
man fleet : for, in the exigency of the tilde, the fleet had been manned by slaves 
furnished by private families in a certain proportion, according to their census ; 
and the men thus provided, being mostly unused to the sea, and forced into the 
service, deserted in unusually large numbers, insomuch that there were two 
thousand of them in the party which Hippocrates led to the defence of Leon- 
tini. 42 

This auxiliary force did good service ; and Appius Claudius, who commanded 
the Roman army, was obliged to stand on the defensive. Mean- MarceUtt , arAvea in 
while M. Marcellus had arrived in Sicily, having been sent over hia^fthfcm^a^* 
thither, as we have seen, after the close of the campaign in Italy, iaD party - 
to take the supreme command. As the negotiations with Syracuse were now 
concluded, Marcellus required that Hippocrates should be recalled from Leontini, 
and that both he and Epicydes should be banished from Sicily. Epicydes upon 
this, feeling that his personal safety was risked by remaining longer at Syracuse, 
went also to Leontini ; and both he and his brother inveighed loudly against the 
Roman party who were in possession of the government ; they had betrayed 
their country to Rome, and were endeavoring, with the help of the Romans, to 
enslave the other cities of Sicily, and to subject them to their own dominion. 
Accordingly, when some officers arrived from Syracuse, requiring the Leontines 
to submit, and announcing to Hippocrates and Epicydes their sentence of expul- 
sion from Sicily, they were answered, that the Leontines would not acknowledge 
the Syracusan government, nor were they bound by its treaties. This answer 
being reported to Syracuse, the leaders of the Roman party called upon Marcel- 
lus to fulfil his agreement with them, and to reduce Leontini to submission. 43 
That city was now the refuge and centre of the popular party in Sicily, as 
Samos had been in Greece, when the four hundred usurped the government of 
Athens ; and Hippocrates and Epicydes looked upon their army as the true rep- 
resentative of the Syracusan people, just as Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, and the 
Athenian fleet at Samo's, regarded themselves, during the tyranny of the aristo- 
cratical party at home, as the true people of Athens. 

But, as we have noticed more than once before, nothing could less resemble 

41 Livy, XXIV. 27. « Livy, XXIV. 29. 

42 Livy, XXIV. 28, 29. 



550 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV. 

Marceiius takes Leon- the slowness and feebleness of Sparta than the tremendous energy 
tiin; ■*«■"*»*« of Rome. The praetor's army in Sicily at the beginning of the 
year consisted of two legions ; and it is probable that Marcellus had brought 
one at least of the two legions which had formed his consular army. With this 
powerful force Marcellus instantly attacked Leontini, and stormed it ; and in ad- 
dition to the usual carnage on the sack of a town, he scourged and in cold blood 
beheaded two thousand of the Roman deserters, whom he found bearing arms in 
the army of Hippocrates; Hippocrates and his brother escaping only with a 
handful of men, and taking refuge in the neighboring town of Herbessus. 44 

For nearly thirty years war had been altogether unknown in Sicily ; fifty years 
excite general indigo- had passed since a hostile army had made war in the territory of 
Syracuse. All men therefore were struck with horror at the fate 
of Leontini : if iEtna had rolled down his lava flood upon the town, its destruc- 
tion would scarcely have been more sudden and terrible. But with honor in- 
dignation was largely mingled : the bloodiness of the Romans in the sack of 
towns wenk far beyond the ordinary practice of the Greeks ; the Syracusan 
government had betrayed their countrymen of Leontini to barbarians more cruel 
than the Mamertines. 

The tidings spread far and wide, and met a Syracusan army, which two of 
The syracusan army the captains-general, Sosis and Dinomenes, both of them assassins 
refuses to march, Q f Hieronymus, and devoted to the cause of Rome, were leading 
out to co-operate with Marcellus. The soldiers, full of grief and fury, refused 
to advance a step further : their blood, they said, would be sold to the Romans, 
like that of their brethren at Leontini. The generals were obliged to lead them 
back to Megara, within a few miles of Syracuse : then hearing that Hippocrates 
and Epicydes were at Herbessus, and dreading their influence at a moment 
like this, they led their troops to attack t>he town where they had taken refuge. 15 

Hippocrates and his brother threw open the gates of Herbessus, and came out 
and to act against Hi P . to meet them. At the head of the Syracusan army marched six 
pocates and Epicydes. himdred Cretans, old soldiers in Hiero's service, whom he had 
sent over into Italy to act as light troops in the Roman. army against Hannibal's 
barbarians, but who had been taken prisoners at Thrasy menus, and with the 
other allies or auxiliaries of Rome had been sent home b} r Hannibal unhurt. 
They now saw Hippocrates and Epicydes coming towards them with no hostile 
array, but holding out branches of olive tufted here and there with wool, the 
well-known signs of a suppliant. They heard them praying to be saved from the 
treachery of the Syracusan generals, who were pledged to deliver up all foreign 
soldiers serving in Sicily to the vengeance of the Romans. The Cretans felt that 
the cause of Hippocrates and Epicydes was their own, and swore to protect there. 
In vain did Sosis and Dinomenes ride forward to the head of the column, and 
trying what could be done by authority, order the instant arrest of the two sup- 
pliants. They were driven off with threats; the feeling began to spread through 
the army; and the Syracusan generals had no resource but to march back to 
Megara, leaving the Cretan auxiliaries, it seems, with Hippocrates and Epicydes 
in a state of open revolt. 40 

Meantime the Cretans sent out parties to beset the roads leading to Leontini ; 
Triumph of the popular aod a letter was intercepted, addressed by the Syracusan generals 
party in Syracuse. to ]\r arce ]] us> congratulating him on his exploit" at Leontini, and 
urging him to complete his work by the extermination of every foreign soldier in 
the service of Syracuse. Hippocrates took care that the purport of this letter 
should be quickly made known to the army at Megara ; and he followed closel) 
with the Cretans to watch the result. The army broke out into mutiny: Sosis 
and Dinomenes, protesting in vain that the letter was a mere forgery of the 

** Livy, XXIV. 30. *» Liw, XXIV. 30, 81. 

« Livy, XXIV. 30. 



Chap. XLV.] DISSENSIONS IN SYBACTJSE. 55 1 

enemy, were obliged to escape for their lives to Syracuse : even the Syracusan 
soldiers were accused of sharing in their generals' treason, and were for a time in 
great danger from the fury of the foreigners, their comrades. But Hippocrates 
and Epicydes prevented this mischief, and being received as leaders by the whole 
army, set out forthwith for Syracuse. They sent a soldier before them, most 
probably a native Syracusan, who had escaped from the sack of Leontini, and 
could tell his countrymen as an eye-witness what acts of bloodshed, outrage, 
and rapine the Romans had committed there. Even in moderate men, who for 
Hiero's sake were well inclined to Rome, the horrors of Leontini overpowered all 
other thoughts and feelings : within Syracuse and without, all followed one 
common impulse. When Hippocrates and Epicydes arrived, at the gates, the 
citizens threw them open : the captains-general in vain endeavored to close them ; 
they fled to Achradina, the lower part of the city, with such of the Syracusan 
soldiers as still adhered to them, whilst the stream of the hostile army burst 
down the slope of Epipolse, and, swelled by all the popular party, the foreign 
soldiers, and the old guards of Hiero and Hieronymus, came sweeping after them 
with irresistible might. Achradina was carried in an instant ; some of the cap- 
tains-general were massacred ; Sosis escaped to add the betrayal of his country 
hereafter to his multiplied crimes. The confusion raged wild and wide ; slaves 
were set free ; 'prisoners were let loose; and amidst the horrors of a violent 
revolution, under whatever name effected, the popular party, the party friendly 
to Carthage, and adverse to aristocracy and to Ptome, obtained the sovereignty 
of Syracuse. 41 

Sosis, now in his turn a fugitive, escaped to Leontini, and told Marcellus of the 
violence done to the friends of Rome. The fiery old man, as ve- 
hement at sixty against his country's enemies, as when he slew the 213. Malceiius besieges 
Gaulish king in single combat in his first consulship, immediately *" acU3£ 
moved his army upon Syracuse. He encamped by the temple of Olympian 
Jupiter, on the right bank of the Anapus, where two solitary pillars still remain, 
and serve as a sea-mark to guide ships into the great harbor. Appius Claudius 
with the fleet beset the citj'- by sea ; and Marcellus did not doubt that in the 
wide extent of the Syracusan walls some unguarded spot would be found, and 
that the punishment of Leontini would soon be effaced by a more memorable ex- 
ample of vengeance. 48 

Thus was commenced the last siege of Syracuse ; a siege not inferior in in- 
terest to the two others which it had already undergone, from the 
Athenians, and from the Carthaginians. It should be remem- y andan yse ' 
bered that the city walls now embraced the whole surface of Epipolse, terminat- 
ing, like the lines of Genoa, in an angle formed by the converging sides of the 
hill or inclined table-land, at the point where it becomes no more than a narrow 
ridge, stretching inland, and connecting itself with the hills of the interior. The 
Romans made their land attack on the south front of the walls, while their fleet, 
unable, as it seems, to enter the great harbor, carried on its assaults against the 
sea-wall of Achradina. 

The land attack was committed to Appius Claudius, while Marcellus in person 
conducted the operations of the fleet. The Roman army is spoken is baffled hyAx<ihime . 
of as large, but no details of its force are given : it cannot have des- 
been less than twenty thousand men, and was probably more numerous. No 
force in Sicily, whether of Syracusans or Carthaginians, could have resisted it in 
the field ; and it had lately stormed the walls of Leontini as easily, to use the 
Homeric comparison, as a child tramples out the towers and castles which he has 
scratched upon the sand of the sea-shore. But at Syracuse it was checked by 
an artillery such as the Romans had never encountered before, and which, had 
Hannibal possessed it, would long since have enabled him to bring the war to a 

47 Livy, XXIV. 31, 32. « Livy, XXIV. 33. 



552 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV. 

triumphant issue. An old man of seventy-four, a relation and friend of king 
Hiero, 1oik>- known as one of the ablest astronomers and mathematicians of his 
age, now proved that his science was no less practical than deep ; and amid all 
the crimes and violence of contending factions, he alone won the pure glory of 
defending his country successfully against a foreign enemy. This old man was 
Archimedes. 49 

Many years before, at Hiero's request, he had contrived the engines which 
His estnulihLv en- were now used so effectively. 60 Marcellus brought up his ships 
sines to defend the city. a g a inst the sea-wall of Achradina, and endeavored by a constant 
discharge of stones and arrows to clear the walls of their defenders, so that his 
men might apply their ladders, and mount to the assault. These ladders rested 
on two ships lashed together broadside to broadside, and worked as one by their 
outside oars ; and when the two ships were brought close up under the wall, one 
end of the ladder was raised by ropes passing through blocks affixed to the two 
mast-heads of the two vessels, and was then let go, till it rested on the top of the 
wall. But Archimedes had supplied the ramparts with an artillery so powerful, 
that it overwhelmed the Romans before they could get within the range which 
their missiles could reach ; and when they came closer, they found that all the 
lower part of the wall was loopholed ; and their men were struck down with fatal 
aim by an enemy whom they could not see, and who shot his arrows in perfect 
security. If they still persevered, and attempted to fix their ladders, on a sudden 
they saw long poles thrust out from the top of the wall, like the arms of a giant ; 
and enormous stones, or huge masses of lead, were dropped from these upon 
them/ by which their ladders were crushed to pieces, and their ships were almost 
sunk. At other times machines like cranes, or such as are used at the turnpikes 
in Germany, and in the market-gardens round London, to draw water, were thrust 
out over the wall ; and the end of the lever, with an iron grapple affixed to it, 
was lowered upon the Roman ships. As soon as the grapple had taken hold, 
the other end of the lever was lowered by heavy weights, and the ship raised 
out of the water, till it was made almost to stand upon its stern ; then the grap- 
ple was suddenly let go, and the ship dropped into the sea with a violence which 
either upset it, or filled it with water. With equal power was the assault on the 
land side repelled ; and the Roman soldiers, bold as they were, were so daunted 
by these strange and irresistible devices, that if they saw so much as a rope or 
a stick hanging or projecting from the wall, they would turn about and run away, 
crying, " that Archimedes was going to set one of his engines at work against 
them." Their attempts, indeed, were a mere amusement to the enemy, till Mar- 
cellus, in despair, put a stop to his attacks ; and it was resolved merely to block- 
ade the town, and to wait for the effect of famine upon the crowded population 
within. 51 

Thus far, keeping our eyes fixed upon Syracuse only, Ave can give a clear and 
tfifflcuiuoeintiieiiiBto- probable account of the course of events. But when we would 
ianwar. cx t enc j onr v | ew further, and connect the war in Sicily with that 
in Italy, and give the relative dates of the actions performed in the several coun- 
tries involved in this great contest, we see the wretched character of our mate- 
rials, and must- acknowledge that, in order to give a comprehensive picture of the 
whole war, we have to supply, by inference or conjecture, what no actual testi- 
mony has recorded. We do not know for certain when Marcellus came into 
Sicily, when he began the siege of Syracuse, or how long the blockade was con- 
tinued. We read of Roman and Carthaginian fleets appearing and disappearing 
at different times in the Sicilian seas; but of the naval operations on either side 
we can give no connected report. Other difficulties present themselves, of no 
great importance, but perplexing because they shake our confidence in the narra- 

" Livy, XXIV. 84. Polybiua, VIII. 7. M Polybius, VIII. 6-9. Livy, XXIV. St. 

60 Plutarch, Marcellus, 14. Plutarch, Marcellus, 15-17. 



Chap. XLV.] WAR IN SICILY. 553 

tive which contains them. So easy is it to transcribe the ancient writers ; so 
hard to restore the reality of those events of which they themselves had no clear 
conception. 

The first attacks upon Syracuse are certainly misplaced by Livy, when he 
classes them among the events of the year 540. 52 The Sicilian • 
war belongs to the year following, to the consulship of Q. Fabius, 
the dictator's son, and of Ti. Gracchus. Even when this is set right, it is diffi- 
cult to reconcile Polybius' statement, 53 " that the blockade of Syracuse lasted 
eight months," with the account which places the capture of the city in the au- 
tumn of 542. Instead of eight months, the blockade would seem to have lasted 
for more than twelve : nor is there any other solution of this difficulty, than to 
suppose that the blockade was not persevered in to the end, and was in fact 
given up as useless, as the assaults had been before. I notice these points, be- 
cause the narrative which follows is uncertain and unsatisfactory, and no care can 
make it otherwise. 

The year 541 saw the whole stress of the war directed upon Sicily. Little or 
nothing, if we can trust our accounts, was done in Italy ; there Avas sicUy be( , ome3 the 
a pause also in the operations in Spain; but throughout Sicily the aiainsea t<>t'wu-. 
contest was raging furiously. Four Roman officers were employed there : P. 
Cornelius Lentulus held the old Roman province, that is, the western part of the 
island ; and his head-quarters were at Lilybseum : T. Otacilius had the command 
of the fleet : 54 Appius Claudius and Marcellus carried on the war in the kingdom 
of Syracuse ; the latter certainly as proconsul ; the former as propraetor, or pos- 
sibly only as the lieutenant, legatus, of the proconsul. Marcellus, however, as 
proconsul, must have had the supreme command over the island ; and all its re- 
sources must have been at his disposal ; so that the fleet which he conducted in 
person at the siege of Syracuse, was probably a part of that committed to T. 
Otacilius, Otacilius himself either serving under the proconsul, or possibly remain- 
ing still at Lilybceum. It is remarkable that, although he is said to have had 
the command of the fleet continued to him for five successive years, 55 yet his 
name never occurs as taking an active part in the siege of Syracuse ; and how 
he employed himself we know not. Nor is it less singular that he should have 
retained his naval command year after year, though he was so meanly esteemed 
by the most influential men in Rome, that his election to the consulship was twice 
stopped in the most decided manner, first by Q. Fabius in 540, and again by T. 
Manlius Torquatus in 544. 56 But the clue to this, as to other things which be- 
long to the living knowledge of these times, is altogether lost. 

While the whole of Sicily was become the scene of war, an army of nine or 
ten thousand old soldiers was purposely kept inactive by the Ro- 
man government, and was not even allowed to take part in any senate towards the f n - 

.- ,• mi ,1 » ,, /» ri gitives from Cannre. 

active operations, these were the remains 01 the army 01 Cannae, 
and a number of citizens who had evaded their military service : as we have seen 
they had been all sent to Sicily in disgrace, not to be recalled till the end of the 
war. 51 Now, however, that there was active service required in Sicily itself, 
these condemned soldiers petitioned Marcellus that they might be employed in 
the field, and have some opportunity of retrieving their character. This petition 
was presented to him at the end of the first year's campaign in Sicily, and was 
referred by him to the senate. The answer was remarkable : " The senate could 
see no reason for* intrusting the service of the commonwealth to men who had 
abandoned their comrades at Cannae, while they were fighting to the death : but 
if M. Claudius thought differently, he might use his discretion ; provided always 
that none of these soldiers should receive any honorary exemption or reward, 

52 Livy, XXIV. 34. 65 Livy, XXII. 32. XXIV. 10, 44. XXV. 3. 

» s Polybius, VIII. 9. XXVI. 1. 

64 Livy, XXIV. 10. 66 Livy, XXIV. 9. XXVI. 22. 

57 Livy, XXIII. 25. See above, p. 523. 



f)54 HISTORY OF ROME. Chap. XLY. 

however they might distinguish themselves, nor be allowed to return to Italv 
till the enemy had quitted it." 5S Here was shown the consummate policy of the 
Roman government, in holding out so high a standard of military dutv, while, 
without appearing to yield to circumstances, they took care not to push their 
severity so far as to hurt themselves. Occasions might arise, when the services 
of these disgraced soldiers could not be dispensed with ; in such a case Marcellus 
might employ them. Yet even then their penalty was not wholly remitted ; it 
was grace enough to let them serve their country at all ; nothing that they could 
do was more than their bounden duty of gratitude for the mercy shown them ; 
they could not deserve exemption or reward. It was the glory and happiness of 
Rome that her soldiers could bear such severity. Sicily was full of mercenary 
troops, whose swords were hired by foreigners to fight their battles ; and if these 
disgraced Romans had chosen to offer their services to Carthage, they might have 
enjoyed wealth and honors, with full vengeance on their unforgiving country. 
Greek soldiers at this time would have done so : the proudest of the nobility of 
France in the sixteenth century did not scruple to revenge his private wrongs by 
treason. But these ten thousand Romans, although their case was not only hard, 
but grievously unjust, inasmuch as their rich and noble countrymen, who had 
escaped like them from Cannse, had received no punishment, still bowed with en- 
tire submission to their country's severity, and felt that nothing could tempt them 
to forfeit the privilege of being Romans. 

We must not suppose, however, that these men were useless, even while they 
were kept at a distance from the actual field of war. As soon as 

Use of these troops. x „_. •i-i/^i 

Syracuse became the enemy ot Kome, it was certain that the Car- 
thaginians would renew the struggle of the first Punic war for the dominion of 
Sicily ; and the Roman province, from its neighborhood to Carthage, was especi- 
ally exposed to invasion. Lilybseum, therefore, and Drepanum. Eryx. and Panor- 
mus, required strong garrisons for their security ; and the soldiers of Cannae, by 
forming these garrisons, set other troops at liberty who must otherwise have been 
withdrawn from active warfare. As it was, these towns were never attacked : 
and the keys of Sicily, Lilybaaum at one end of the island, and Messana at the 
other, remained throughout in the hands of the Romans. 

Yet the example of Syracuse produced a very general effect. The cities 
Efforts of oifl canha- which had belonged to Hiero's kingdom mostly followed it, un- 
BiniansmSiciij-. less where the Romans secured them in time with sufficient gar- 

risons. Himilconi, the Carthaginian commander, who had been sent over to 
Pachynus with a small fleet to watch the course of events, sailed back to Car- 
thage, as soon as the Carthaginian party had gained possession of Syracuse, and 
urged the government to increase its armaments in Sicily. 69 Hannibal wrote from 
Italy to the same effect; for Sicily had been his father's battle-field for five 
years ; he had clung to it till the last moment ; and his son was no less sensible 
of its importance. Accordingly. Himilcon was supplied with an army, notwith- 
standing the pressure of the Numidian war in Africa, ami landing on the south coast 
of Sicily, he presently reduced Heraclea, Minoa, and Agrigentum, and encouraged 
many of the smaller towns in the interior of the island to declare tor Carthage. 
Hippocrates broke out of Syracuse and joined him. Marcellus, who had left his 
camp to quell the growing spirit of revolt among the Sicilian cities, was obliged 
to fall back again ; and the enemy, pursuing him closely, encamped on the banks 
of the Anapus. Meanwhile a Carthaginian fleet ran over to Syracuse, and en- 
tered the great harbor; its object being apparently to provision the place, and 
thus lender the Unman blockade nugato 

It was clear that Marcellus could not make head against a Carthaginian army 
Diffioaitu. of tho Ro- supported by Syracuse and half the other cities of Sicily. 
**'"■ The fleet also was unequal to the service required of it ; many 

M Livy, XXV. 5-7. M Livy, XXIV. 85. «• Livy, XXIV. 35, 36. 



Chap. XLV.] REVOLT OF THE SICILIANS. 555 

ships had probably been destroyed by Archimedes ; Lilybaeum could not be left 
unguarded, and some ships were necessarily kept there ; and in the general re- 
volt of the Sicilian cities, the Roman army could not always depend on being 
supplied by land, and would require corn to be brought sometimes from a dis- 
tance by sea. Besides, the reinforcements which Marcellus so needed must be 
sent in ships and embarked at Ostia ; for Hannibal's army cut off all communica- 
tion by the usual line, through Lucania to Rhegium, and over the strait to Mes- 
sana. Thirty ships therefore had to sail back to Rome, to take on board a legion 
and transport it to Panormus ; from whence, by a circuitous route along the 
south coast of the island, the fleet accompanying it all the way, it reached Mar- 
cellus' head-quarters safely. And now the Romans again had the superiority by 
sea ; but by land Himilcon was still master of the field ; and the Roman garri- 
son at Murgantia, a little to the north of Syracuse, was betrayed by the inhabit- 
ants into his hands. 61 

This example was no doubt likely to be followed, and should have, increased 
the vigilance of the Roman garrisons. But it was laid hold of by Ma59Mre f the inhab- 
it. Pinarius, the governor of Enna, as a pretence for repeating the itanl60fEnna - 
crime of the Campanians at Rhegium, and of the Praenestines more recently at 
Casilinum. Standing in tjie centre of Sicily on the top of a high mountain plat- 
form, and fenced by precipitous cliffs on almost every side, Enna was a strong- 
hold nearly impregnable, except by treachery from within ; and whatever became 
of the Roman cause in Sicily, the holders of Enna might hope to retain it, as the 
Mamertines had kept Messana. Accordingly Pinarius, having previously prepared 
his soldiers for what was to be done, on a signal given ordered them to fall 
upon the people of Enna, when assembled in the theatre, and massacred them 
without distinction. The plunder of the town Pinarius and his soldiers kept to 
themselves, with the consent of Marcellus, who allowed the necessity of the times 
to be an apology for the deed. 6 ' 2 

The Romans alleged that the people of Enna were only caught in their own 
snare ; that they had invited Hippocrates and Himilcon to at- , . . 

, , . i i i • i 1 i t-»' • • Revolt of the Sicilians : 

tack the city, and had vainly tried to persuade Pinarius to o - ive Marceiius winters be- 

J ' J J: o f ore Syracuse. 

them the keys of the gates, that they might admit the enemy to 
destroy the garrison. But the Sicilians saw that, if the people of Enna had 
meditated treachery, the Romans had practised it : a whole people had been 
butchered, their city plundered, and their wives and children made slaves, when 
they were peaceably met in the theatre in their regular assembly ; and this new 
outrage, added to the sack of Leontini, led to an almost general revolt. Marcel- 
lus having collected some corn from the rich plains of Leontini, carried it to the 
camp before Syracuse, and made his dispositions for his winter-quarters. Ap- 
pius Claudius went home to stand for the consulship, and was succeeded in his 
command by T. Quinctius Crispinus, a brave soldier, who was afterwards Mar- 
cellus' colleague as consul, and received his death-wound by his side, when 
Marcellus was killed by Hannibal's ambush. Crispinus lay encamped near the 
sea, not far from the temple of Olympian Jupiter, and also commanded the na- 
val force employed in the siege ; while Marcellus, with the other part of the 
armj^, chose a position on the northern side of Syracuse, between the city and 
the peninsula of Thapsus, apparently for the purpose of keeping up his commu- 
nications with Leontini. 63 As to the blockade of Syracuse, it was in fact virtually 
raised ; all the southern roads were left open ; and as a large part of the Roman 
fleet was again called away either to Lilybceum or elsewhere, supplies of all sorts 
were freely introduced into the town by sea from Carthage. 

The events of the winter were not encouraging to the Romans. Hannibal had 
taken Tarentum ; and the Tarentine fleet was employed in besieg- A . u. c . 542. a. c 
ing the Roman garrison, which still held the citadel. Thus the R„ s ma n parfrin syra 8 - 
Roman naval force was still further divided, as it was necessary cuae - 

61 Livy, XXIV. 36. ■* Livy, XXIV. 37-39. 63 Livy, XXIV. 89. 



556 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chat. XLV. 

to convey supplies by sea to the garrison ; so that, when spring- returned, Mar- 
cellus was at a loss what to attempt, and bad almost resolved to break up from 
Syracuse altogether, and to carry the Avar to the other end of Sicily. But Sosis, 
and other Syracusans of the Roman party, were intriguing actively with their 
countrymen within the city ; and although one conspiracy, in which eighty persons 
were concerned, was detected by Epicydes, and the conspirators all put to death, 
yet the hopes they had held out of obtaining easy terms from the Romans were 
not forgotten ; and the lawlessness of the Roman deserters, and of the other for- 
eign soldiers, made many of the Syracusans long for a return of the happy times 
under Hiero, when Rome and Syracuse were friends. 64 

Thus the spring wore away ; and the summer had come, and had reached its 
prime, and yet the war in Sicily seemed to slumber: for the 

The Syracusans send x ci •• i • i *i i ii /-> i 

to solicit aid from Ma- greater part ot the cities which had revolted to Carthage were 
undisturbed by the Romans ; yet the Carthaginians were not strong 
enough to assail the heart of the Roman province, and to besiege Drepanum or 
Lilybseum. In this state of things, the Syracusans turned their eyes to Greece, 
and thought that the king of Macedon, who was the open enemy of Rome, and 
the covenanted ally of Carthage, might serve his own cause no less than theirs 
by leaving his ignoble warfare on the coast of Epirus, and crossing the Ionian 
sea to deliver Syracuse. Damippus, a Lacedaemonian, and one of the counsel- 
lors of Hieronymus and of Hiero, was accordingly chosen as ambassador, and put 
to sea on his mission to solicit the aid of king Philip. 63 

Again the fortune of Rome interposed to delay the interference of Macedon in 
the contest. The ship which was conveying Damippus was taken 

The Romans prepare tit-. i mi r, i I l ■ 

to scale the waiis at by the Romans on the voyage. Ihe Syracusans valued him 

the festival of Diana. , i . , , , r' P . , -, J ,, , . 

highly, and opened a negotiation with Marcellus to ransom him. 
The conferences were held between Syracuse and the Roman camp ; and a Ro- 
man soldier, it is said, was struck with the lowness of the wall in one particular 
. place, and having counted the rows of stones, and so computed the whole height, 
reported to Marcellus that it might be scaled with ladders of ordinary length. 
Marcellus listened to the suggestion ; but the low point was for that very reason 
more carefully guarded, because it seemed to invite attack ; he therefore thought 
the attempt too hazardous, unless occasion should favor it. 66 But the great fes- 
tival of Diana was at hand, a three days' solemnity, celebrated with all honors 
to the guardian goddess of Syracuse. It was a season of universal feasting ; 
and wine was distributed largely among the multitude, that the neighborhood of 
the Roman army might not seem to have banished all mirth and enjoyment. 
One vast revel prevailed through the city; Marcellus, informed of all this by 
deserters, got his ladders ready ; and soon after dark two cohorts were marched 
in silence and in a long thin column to the foot of the wall, preceded by the 
soldiers of one maniple, who carried the ladders, and were to lead the way to 
the assault, 

The spot selected for this attempt was in the wall which ran along the north - 
They gain possession oi em edge of Epipolre, where the ground was steep, and where ap- 
Tyoneand tfeapoiis ; parently there was no gate, or regular approach to the city. But 
the vast lines of Syracuse inclosed a wide space of uninhabited ground ; the 
new quarters of Tyche and Neapolis, which had been added to the original town 
since the greal Athenian siege, were still far from reaching the top of the hill; 
and what wis called the quarter of Epipolae only occupied a small part of the 
sloping ground known in earlier times by that name. Thus, when the Romans 
scaled the northern line, they found that all was quiet and lonely; nor was there 
any one to spread the alarm, except the soldiers who garrisoned the several 
towers of the wall itself. These however, heavy with wine, and dreaming of no 

04 Liw, XXV. 23. M Liw. XXV. 23. Plutarch, Marcellus, 18. 

86 Livy, XXV. 23. PolybiuB, Vol. V. p. 32, 33. 



Chap. XLV.] SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 557 

danger, were presently surprised and killed ; and the assailants, thus clearing 
their way as they went, swept the whole line of the wall on their right, following 
it up the slope of the hill towards the angle formed at the summit by the meet- 
ing of the northern line with the southern. Here was the regular entrance into 
Syracuse from the 1 and side ; and this point, being the key of the whole forti- 
fied inclosure, **vas secured by the strong work called Hexapylon, or the Six 
Gates ; probably from the number of barriers which must be passed before the 
lines could be fully entered. To this point the storming party made their way 
in the darkness, not blindly, however, nor uncertainly, for a Syracusan was guid- 
ing them, — that very Sosis, 67 who had been one of the assassins of Hieronymus, 
and one of the murderers of Hiero's daughters, and who, when he was one of 
the captains-general of Syracuse, must have become acquainted with all the secrets 
of the fortifications. Sosis led the two Roman cohorts towards Hexapylon : from 
that commanding height a fire-signal was thrown up, to announce the success of 
their attempt ; and the loud and sudden blast of the Roman trumpets from the 
top of the walls called the Romans to come to the support of their friends, and 
told the bewildered Syracusans that the key of their lines was in the hands of 
the enemy. 68 

Ladders were now set, and the wall was scaled in all directions : for the main 
gates of Hexapylon could not be forced till the next morning ; and and take tne Hexa py- 
the only passage immediately opened was a small side-gate at no lon - 
great distance from them. But when daylight came, Hexapylon was entirely 
taken, and the main entrance to the city was cleared ; so that Marcellus marched 
in with his whole army, and took possession of the summit of the slope of 
Epipolae. 

From that high ground he saw Syracuse at his feet, and, he doubted not, in 
his power. Two quarters of the city, the new town as it was 

■>,.-, i m 1 i i • r ■ i 1 ,1 ■ t r Marcellus looking down 

called, and lyche, were open to his first advance ; their only tor- on Syracuse, sheds 
tification being;; the general inclosure of the lines, which he had 
already carried. Below, just overhanging the sea, or floating on its waters, lay 
Achradina and the island of Ortygia, fenced by their own separate walls, which 
till the time of the first Dionysius had been the limit of Syracuse, the walls 
which the great Athenian armament had besieged in vain. Nearer on the right, 
and running so deeply into the land, that it seemed almost to reach the foot of 
the heights on which he stood, lay the still basin of the great harbor, its broad 
surface half hidden by tk? >uills of a hundred Carthaginian ships ; while further 
on the right was the camp of his lieutenant, T. Crispinus, crowning the rising 
ground beyond the Anapus, close by the temple of Olympian Jupiter. So strik- 
ing was the view on every side, and so surpassing was the glory of his conquest, 
that Marcellus, old as he was, was quite overcome by it : unable to contain the 
feelings of that moment, he burst into tears. 69 

A deputation from the inhabitants of Tyche and Neapolis approached him, 
bearing the ensigns of suppliants, and imploring him to save them 

r W j x *■ TT ,1,1.° ■,,.,! His troops plunder the 

from tire and massacre. He granted their prayer, but at the captured pans of the 
price of every article of their property, which was to be given up c " y ' 
to the Roman soldiers as plunder. At a regular signal the army was let loose 
upon the houses of Tyche and Neapolis, with no other restriction than that of 
offering no personal violence. How far such a command would be heeded in 
such a season of license, we can only conjecture. The Roman writers extol the 
humanity of Marcellus ; but the Syracusans regarded him as a merciless spoiler, 
who had wished to take the town by assault, rather than by a voluntary sur- 
render, that he might have a pretence for seizing its plunder. 70 Such a prize, in- 
deed, had never before been won by a Roman army ; even the wealth of Taren« 

67 Livy, XXVI. 21. °» Livy, XXV. 24. 

68 Livy, XXV. 24. Plutarch, Marcellus, 18. 70 Livy, XXVI. 30. 



558 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV. 

mm was not to be compared with that of Syracuse. But as yet the appetites of 
the Roman soldiers were fleshed rather than satisfied ; less than half of Syracuse 
was in their power ; and a fresh siege wa.s necessary to win the spoils of Aehra- 
dina and Ortygia. Still what they had already gained gave Mffrcellus large 
means of corruption ; the fort of Euryalus, on the summit of Epipola?, near Hex- 
apylon, which might have caused him serious annoyance on his rear while en- 
gaged in attacking Achradina, was surrendered to him by its governor, Philode- 
mus, an Argive ; and the Romans set eagerly to work to complete their con- 
quest. Having formed three camps before Achiadina, they hoped soon to starve 
the remaining quarters of the city into a surrender. 11 

Epicydes meanwhile showed a courage and activity worthy of one who had 
The c^thaginjan army learned war under Hannibal. A squadron of the Carthaginian fleet 
Pyra'ull', 1? is 'destroyed P ut t° sea one stormy night, when the Roman blockading ships 
b y afever - were driven off from the mouth of the harbor, and ran across to 

Carthage to request fresh succors. These were prepared with the greatest ex- 
pedition : while Hippocrates and Himilcon, with their combined Carthaginian and 
Sicilian armies, came from the western end of the island to attack the Roman 
army on the land side. They encamped on the shore of the harbor, between 
the mouth of the Anapus and the city, and assaulted the camp of Crispinus, 
while Epicydes sailed from Achradina to attack Marcellus. But Roman soldiers 
fighting behind fortifications were invincible; their lines at Capua in the following 
year repelled Hannibal himself ; and now their positions before Syracuse were 
maintained with equal success against Hippocrates and Epicydes. Still the 
Carthaginian army remained in its camp on the shore of the harbor, partly in the 
hope of striking some blow against the enemy, but more to overawe the remains 
of the Roman party in Syracuse, which the distress of the siege, and the calami- 
ties of Neapolis and Tyche, must have rendered numerous and active. Mean- 
while the summer advanced ; the weather became hotter and hotter ; and the 
usual malaria fevers began to prevail in both armies, and also in Syracuse. But 
the air here, as at Rome, is much more unhealthy without the city than within ; 
above all, the marshy ground by the Anapus, where the Carthaginian army lay, 
was almost pestilential ; and the ordinary summer fevers in this situation soon 
assumed a character of extreme malignity. The Sicilians immediately moved 
their quarters, and withdrew into the neighboring cities ; but the Carthaginians 
remained on the ground, till their whole army was effectually destroyed. Hip- 
pocrates and Himilcon both perished with their soldiers." 2 

The Romans suffered less ; for Marcellus had quartered his men in the houses 
Their fleet fails in a of Neapolis and Tyche ; and the high buildings and narrow streets 
uke attempt. f t ] ie ancient towns kept off the sun, and allowed both the sick 

and the healthy to breathe and move in a cooler atmosphere. Still the deaths 
were numerous ; and as the terror of Archimedes and his artillery restrained the 
Romans from any attempts to batter or scale the walls, they had nothing to trust 
to save famine or treason. But Bomilcar was on his way from Carthage with 
130 ships of war, and a convoy of seven hundred storeships, laden with supplies 
of every description : he had reached the Sicilian coast near Agrigentum, when 
prevailing easterly winds checked his further advance, and he could not reach 
Pachynus. Alarmed at this most unseasonable delay, and fearing lest the fleet 
should return to Africa in despair, Epicydes himself left Syracuse, and -went to 
meet it, and to hasten its advance. The storeships, which were worked by sails. 
were obliged to remain at Heraclea ; but Epicydes prevailed on Bomilcar to 
bring on his ships of war to Pachynus, where the Roman fleet, though inferior 
in numbers, was waiting to intercept his progress. The east winds at length 
abated, and Bomilcar stood out to sea to double Pachynus. But when the Ro- 
man fleet advanced against him, he suddenly changed his plans, it is said ; and 

, •" Livy, XXV. 26. n Livv, XXV. 26. 



Chap. XLV.] SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 559 

having dispatched orders to the storeships at Heraclea to return immediately to 
Africa, he himself, instead of engaging the Romans, or making for Syracuse, 
passed along the eastern coast of Sicily, without stopping, and continued his 
course till he reached Tarentum. 73 

Here again the story in its present state greatly needs explanation. It is true 
that Hannibal was very anxious at this time to reduce the citadel 

Till! *inj_ j. 'i.1 Epicvdes quitsthe eitv, 

01 Tarentum ; and he probably required a fleet to co-operate with wWh becomes « prey 
him, in order to cut off the garrison's supplies by sea. But Bo- 
milcar had been sent out especially to throw succors into Syracuse ; and we can- 
not conceive his abandoning this object on a sudden, without any intelligible 
reason. The probability is, that the easterly winds still kept the storeships at 
Heraclea ; and if they could not reach Syracuse, nothing was to be gained by a 
naval battle. And then, as the service at Tarentum was urgent, he thought it 
best to go thither, and to send back the convoy to Africa, rather than wait in- 
active on the Sicilian coast, till the wind became favorable. After all, Syracuse 
did not fall for want of provisions : the havoc caused by sickness, both in the 
city and in the Carthaginian camp on the Anapus, must have greatly reduced the 
number of consumers, and made the actual supply available for a longer period. 
It seems to have been a worse mischief than the conduct of Bomilcar, that Epi- 
cydes himself, as if despairing of fortune, withdrew to Agrigentum, instead of 
returning to Syracuse ; for from the moment of his departure the city seems to 
hav« been abandoned to anarchy. At first the remains of the Sicilian army, 
which now occupied two towns in the interior, not far from Syracuse, began to 
negotiate with Marcellus, and persuaded the Syracusans to rise on the generals 
left in command by Epicydes, and to put them to death. New captains-generals 
were then appointed, probably for the Roman party ; and they began to treat 
with Marcellus for the surrender of Syracuse, and for the general settlement of 
the war in Sicily. 74 

Marcellus listened to them readily : but his army was longing for the plunder 
of Achradina and Ortygia ; and he knew not how to disappoint insurrection of the mer- 
them : for we may be sure that no pay was issued at this period cMura,s3mtliecit r> 
to any Roman army serving out of Italy ; in the provinces, war was by fair 
means or foul to support war. Meanwhile the miserable state of affairs in Syra- 
cuse was furthering the wish of the Roman soldiers. A besieged city, with no 
efficient government, and full of foreign mercenaries, whom there was no native 
force to restrain, was like a wreck in mutiny : utter weakness and furious con- 
vulsions were met in the same body. The Roman deserters first excited the 
tumult, and persuaded all the foreign soldiers to join them ; a new outbreak of 
violence followed; the Syracusan captains-general were massacred in their turn; 
and the foreign soldiers were again triumphant. Three officers, each with a dis- 
trict of his own, were appointed to command in Achradina, and three more in 
Ortygia. 73 

The foreign soldiers now held the fate of Syracuse in their hands ; and they 
began to consider that they might make their terms with the Ro- who betray it t0 the 
mans, although the Roman deserters could not. Their blood was Romans - 
not called for by the inflexible law of military discipline ; by a timely treachery 
they might earn not impunity merely, but reward. So thought Mericus, a Span- 
iard, who had the charge of a part of the sea-wall of Achradina. Accordingly 
he made his bargain with Marcellus, and admitted a party of Roman soldiers by 
night at one of the gates which opened towards the harbor. As soon as morning 
dawned, Marcellus made a general assault on the land front of Achradina ; the 
garrison of Ortygia hastened to join in the defence ; and the Romans then sent 
boats full of men round into the great harbor, and, effecting a landing under the 

75 Livy, XXV. 27. 15 Livy, XXV. 29. 

74 Livy, XXV. 28. 



560 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV. 

•walls, carried the island with little difficulty. Meanwhile Mericus had openly- 
joined the Roman party, whom he had admitted into Achradina ; and Marcellus, 
having his prey in his power, called off his soldiers from the assault, lest the 
royal treasures, which were kept in Ortygia, should be plundered in the general 
sack of the town. 76 

In the respite thus gained, the Roman deserters found an opportunity to escape 
out of Syracuse. Whether they forced their way out, or Avhether 

Syracuse is tn!;en nmi . iti j- i -\ i i • i • i 

plundered. Archimedes the soldiers, hungry tor plunder, and not wishing to encounter the 
resistance of desperate men, obliged Marcellus to connive at then- 
escape, we know not: but with them all wish or power to hold out longer van- 
ished from Syracuse ; and a deputation from Achradina came once more to Mar- 
cellus, praying for nothing beyond the lives and personal freedom of the citizens 
and their families. This, it seems, was granted; but as soon as Marcellus had 
sent his quaestor to secure the royal treasures in Ortygia, the soldiers were let 
loose upon the city to plunder it at their discretion. They did not merely plun- 
der, however : blood was shed unsparingly, partly by the mere violence of the 
soldiers, partly by the axes of the lictors, as the punishment of rebellion against 
the majesty of Rome. Amidst the horrors of the sack of the city, Archimedes 
was slain." The stories of his death vary ; and which, if any of them, is the true 
one, we cannot determine. But Marcellus, who made it his glory to carry all 
the finest works of art from the temples of Syracuse to Rome, 1s would no doubt 
have been glad to have seen Archimedes walking amongst the prisoners at his 
triumph. He is said to have shown kindness to the relations of Archimedes for 
his sake ;" 9 and if this be true, he earned a glory which few Romans ever deserved, 
that of honoring merit in an enemy. 

Old as Archimedes was, the Roman soldier's sword dealt kindly with him, in 
Miserable condition of cutting short his scanty term of remaining life, and saving him from 
the Syracuse™. beholding the misery of his country. It was a wretched sight to 

see the condition of Syracuse when the sack was over, and what was called a 
state of peace and safety had returned. Every house was laid bare, every tem- 
ple stript ; and the empty pedestals showed how sweeping the spoiler's work had 
been. The Syracusans beheld their captive gods carried to the Roman quarters, 
or put on shipboard to be conveyed to Rome ; the care with which they were 
handled, lest the conqueror's triumph should lose its most precious ornaments, 
only adding to the grief and indignation of the conquered. Those fathers and 
mothers, who were so happy as to gather all their children safe around them 
when the plunder was over, had escaped the sword, indeed, and they and their 
sons and daughters were not yet sold as slaves ; but their only choice was still 
between slavery or death. They had lost every thing. What food was still 
remaining in the besieged city, the sack had either carried off or destroyed ; and 
if food had been at hand, they had no money to buy it. And this came upon 
them after a heavy visitation of sickness ; when the body, reduced by that weak- 
ening malaria fever, needed all tender care and comfort to restore it, instead of 
being harassed by alarm and anxiety, and exposed to destitution and starvation. 
Many therefore sold themselves to the Roman soldiers, to escape dying by hun- 
ger ; and the family circle, which the sack of the city had spared, was again 
broken up forever. Those who, being unmarried and childless, had given no 
hostages to fortune, and who might yet hope to live in personal freedom, were 
only the more able to feel the ruin and degradation of their country. 80 Syracuse. 
who had led captive the hosts of Athens, and seen the invading armies of Car- 
thage melt away by disease under her walls, till scarce any remained to fly — 
Syracuse, where Dionysius had reigned, which Timoleon had freed, which Hiero 

""> Liw, XXV. w Liw. XXV. 40. Polybius, IX.lfc Cicero, 

" Iivy, XXV. 31. Plutarch, Marcellus, 10. LnVerrem, [V. 54. 
Valerius Maximus, V11I. 7, 7. 70 Liw. XXV. 81. Plutarch, Marcellus, 19.. 

*° Diodorus, XXVI. Fragm. Mai. 



Chap. XLV.] MUTINES. 561 

had cherished and sheltered under his long paternal rule — was now become sub- 
ject to barbarians, whom she had helped in their utmost need, and who were 
repaying the unshaken friendship of Hiero with the plunder of his city and the 
subjugation of his people. If there was yet a keener pang to be felt by every 
noble Syracusan, it was to behold their countrymen, who had fought in the Ro- 
man army, returning in triumph, establishing themselves in the empty houses of 
the slaughtered defenders of their country, and insulting the general misery by 
displaying the rewards of their treason. Among these was Sosis, assassin, mur- 
derer, and traitor, who was looking forward to the triumph of Marcellus, as one 
to whom the shame of his country was his glory, and her ruin the making of his 
fortune. 81 

Syracuse had fallen ; and the cities in the eastern part of Sicily had no other 
hope now, than to obtain pardon, if it mio-ht be, from Rome, by 

. r , . . . . _ r . i,ji . i Cruelty of Marcellus. 

immediate submission. .But it was too late : they were treated as 
conquered enemies ; 82 that is to say, Marcellus put to death those of their citi- 
zens who were most obnoxious, and imposed such forfeitures of land on the cities, 
and such terms of submission for the time to come, as he judged expedient. It 
became the fashion afterwards to extol his humanity, and even his refinement, 83 
because he showed his taste for the works of Greek art by carrying the statues 
of the Syracusan temples to Rome. But his admiration of Greek art did not 
make him treat the Greeks themselves with less severity ; and the Sicilians taxed 
him with perfidy as well as cruelty, and regarded him as the merciless oppressor 
of their country. 84 

Meantime Hannibal's comprehensive view had not lost sight of Sicily. When 
he heard of the havoc caused by the epidemic sickness, and of the 
death of Hippocrates, he sent over another of his officers to share neato siciiy ; ws «ue- 
with Epicydes, and with the general who came from Carthage, in 
the command of the war. This was Murines, or Myttonus, a half-caste Cartha- 
ginian, excluded on that account from civil honors ; 85 but Hannibal's camp recog- 
nized no such distinctions ; and brave and able men, whatever was their race or 
condition, were sure to be employed and rewarded there. Muti- A . u. c . 543. a. c. 
nes proved the unerring judgment of Hannibal in his choice of 2M " 
officers. His arrival in Sicily was equivalent to an army : being put at the 
head of the Numidian cavalry then serving under Epicydes and Hanno, he over- 
ran the whole island, encouraging the allies of Carthage, harassing those of Rome, 
and defying pursuit or resistance by the rapidity and skill of his movements. 
He renewed the system of warfare which Hamilcar had maintained so long in 
the last war ; and having the strong place of Agrigentum to retire to in case of 
need, he perplexed the Roman generals not a little. Marcellus was obliged to 
take the field, and march from Syracuse westward as far as the Himera, where 
the enemy's army lay encamped. But he met with a rough reception ; the Nu- 
midian cavalry crossed the river, and came swarming round his camp, insulting 
and annoying his soldiers on guard, and confining his whole army to their 
intrenchments ; and when on the next day, impatient of this annoyance, he offered 
battle in the field, Murines and his Numidians broke in upon his lines with such 
fury, that he was fain to retreat with all speed, and seek the shelter of his camp 
again. It appears that other arms were then tried with better success : the Nu- 
midians were tampered with ; their irregular habits and impatient tempers made 
them at all times difficult to manage ; and a party of them having left the Car- 
thaginian camp in disgust, Murines went after them to pacify and win them back 
to their duty, earnestly conjuring Hanno and Epicydes not to venture a battle 
till he should return. But Hanno was jealous of Hannibal's officers ; and hold- 
ing his own commission directly from the government of Carthage, he could not 

81 Livy, XXVI. 21. M Livy, XXVI. 29-32. Plutarch, Marcellus, 

w Livy, XXV. 40. . 23. 

83 Cicero, in Verrem, IV. 52-59. » Livy, XXV. 40. Polybius, IX. 22. 
36 



562 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLV 

bear to be restrained by a half-caste soldier, sent to Sicily from Hannibal's camp, 
by the mere authority of the general. His rank probably gave him a casting 
vote, when only one other commander was present, so that Epicydes in vain pro- 
tested against his imprudence. 86 A battle was ventured ; and not only was the 
genius of Mutines wanting, but the Numidians whom he had left with Hanno, 
thinking their commander insulted, would take no active part in the action, and 
Hanno was defeated with loss. 

Marcellus, rejoiced at having thus retrieved his honor, had no mind to risk 
Magnus returns to another encounter with Mutines : he forthwith retreated to Syr- 
Rome - acuse ; 81 and as the term of his command was now expired, his 

thoughts were all turned to Rome, and to his expected triumph. He left Sicily 
after the fall of Capua, towards the end of the summer of 543, and about a year 
after the conquest of Syracuse ; but he was not allowed to carry his army home 
with him ; and M. Cornelius Cethegus, one of the prsetors, who succeeded him 
in his command, found that his province was far from being in a state of peace. 
The Carthaginians had reinforced their army : Mutines, with his Numidians, was 
a. u. c. 544. a. c. scouring the whole country ; the soldiers were discontented be- 
m cause they had not been permitted to return home ; and the Si- 

cilians were driven desperate by the oppressions which Marcellus had commanded 
or winked at, and were ready to break out in revolt again. 88 

In fact, it appears that in the year 544, nearly two years after the fall of Syr- 
Lamims is sent to si- acuse, there were as many as sixty-six towns in Sicily in a state 
cUr - of revolt from Rome, and in alliance with Carthage. 89 So greatly 

had Mutines restored the Carthaginian cause, that it was thought necessary to 
send one of the consuls over with a consular army, to bring the war to an end. 
Accordingly, M. Valerius Lasvinus, who had been employed for the last three or 
four years on the coast of Epirus, conducting the war against Philip, and who 
was chosen consul with Marcellus in the year 544, carried over a regular con- 
sular army into Sicily ; while L. Cincius, one of the new praetors, and probably 
the same man who is known as one of the earliest Roman historians, took the 
command of the old province, and of the soldiers of Cannae who were still quar- 
tered there. 90 The army with which Marcellus had won Syracuse was now at 
last disbanded, and the men were allowed to return home with as much of their 
plunder as they had not spent or wasted : but four legions were even now em- 
ployed in Sicily, besides a fleet of one hundred ships ; and yet Mutines and his 
Numidians were overrunning all parts of the island, and the end of the war 
seemed as distant as ever. 

Lsevinus advanced towards Agrigentum, with small hope, however, of taking 
Mutines i 3 insulted by the place ; for Mutines sallied whenever he would, and carried 
AgrigeuturTto the'iS- back his plunder in safety whenever he would : whilst the neigh- 
man8 ' borhood of Carthage made relief by sea always within calculation, 

whatever naval force the Romans might employ in the blockade. In this state 
of things, Lasvinus to his astonishment received a secret communication from Mu- 
tines, offering to put Agrigentum into his power. The half-caste African, the 
officer of Hannibal, the sole stay of the Carthaginian cause in Sicily, was on all 
these accounts odious to Hanno ; and it is likely that Mutines did not bear his 
glory meekly, and that he expressed the scorn which Hannibal's soldier was 
likely to feel for the pride and incapacity of the general sent out by the govern- 
ment at home, and probably by the party opposed to Hannibal, and afraid of his 
glory. But whatever was the secret of the quarrel, its effects were public 
enough : Hanno ventured to deprive Mutines of his command. The Numidians, 
however, would obey no other leader, while him they would obey in every thing ; 
and at his bidding they rose in open mutiny, took possession of one of the gates 

* Livy, XX Y. ; «> Livy, XXVI. 40. 

« Livy, XXV. 41. *> Livy, XXVI. 28. 

88 Livy, XXVI. 21. 



Chap. XLV.] DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF SICILY. 563 

of the town, and let in the Romans. Hanno and Epicydes had just time to fly 
to the harbor, to hasten on board a ship, and escape to Carthage ; but their sol- 
diers, surprised and panic-struck, were cut to pieces with little resistance ; and 
Laevinus won Agrigentum. He treated it more severely than Marcellus had 
dealt with Syracuse ; after executing the principal citizens, he sold all the rest 
for slaves, and sent the money' which he received for them to Rome. 91 

This blow was decisive. Twenty other towns, which still held with the Cartha- 
ginians, were presently betrayed to the Romans, either by their LiEvimi8 accomplishes 
garrisons, or by some of their own citizens ; six were stormed by thecoD q ue8tofSioil y. 
the Roman army ; and the remainder, to the number of forty, then submitted at 
discretion. The consul dealt out his rewards to the traitors who had betrayed 
their country ; and his lictors scourged and beheaded the brave men who had 
persevered the longest in their resistance : thus at last he was able to report to 
the senate that the war in Sicily was at an end. 

Four thousand adventurers of all descriptions, who in the troubled state of Sicily 
had taken possession of the town of Agathyrna on the north coast and reduces it to entire 
of the island, and were maintaining themselves there by robbery, 8Ubmisai011 - 
Laevinus carried over into Italy at the close of the year, and landed them at 
Rhegium, to be employed in a plundering warfare in Bruttium. Having thus 
cleared the island of all open disturbers of its peace, he obliged the Sicilians, says 
Livy, to turn their attention to agriculture, that its fruitful soil might grow corn 
to supply the wants of Italy and of Rome. 92 And he assured the senate, at the 
end of the year, that the work was thoroughly done ; that hot a single Cartha- 
ginian was left in Sicily ; that the towns were repeopled by the return of their 
peaceable inhabitants, and the land was again cultivated ; that he had laid the 
foundation of a state of things equally happy for the Sicilians and for Rome. 93 

So Laevinus said ; and so he probably believed. But with the return of peace 
to the island, there came a host of Italian and Roman speculators ; Deplorable condition of 
who, in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large tracts SicIly- 
of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates which had belonged to 
Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had been forfeited to Rome after the ex- 
ecution or flight of their owners. The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the 
example, and became rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were 
to be had cheap ; and corn was likely to find a sure market, whilst Italy was suf- 
fering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded with slaves, 
employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors, whether Sicilian or 
Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters, that they soon began to provide for 
themselves by robbery. The poorer Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil ; 
and as the masters were well content that their slaves should be maintained at 
the expense of others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus, 
although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and though ex- 
porting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with evils, which, seventy 
or eighty years after, broke out in the horrible atrocities of the Servile War. 94 

91 Livy, XXVI. 40. 9 * Diodorus, XXXIV. Excerpt. Photii, p. 525, 

92 Livy, XXVI. 40. &c. and Excerpt. Valesii, p. 599. Floras, III. 

93 Livy, XXVII. 5. 19. 



564 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

STATE OF ITALY— DISTRESS OE THE PEOPLE— TWELVE COLONIES EEFUSE TO 
SUPPOET THE WAE— EIGHTEEN COLONIES OFFER ALL THEIR RESOURCES TO 
THE ROMANS— EVENTS OF THE WAR— DEATH OF MARCELLUS— FABIUS RE- 
COVERS TARENTEM— MARCH. OF HASDRUBAL INTO ITALY— HE REACHES THE 
COAST OF THE ADRIATIC— GREAT MARCH OF C. NERO FROM APULIA TO 
OPPOSE HIM— BATTLE OF THE METAURUS, AND DEATH OF HASDRUBAL.— 
A. U. C. 543 TO A. U. C. 547. 

In following the war in Sicily to its conclusion we have a little anticipated the 
a. u.c. 543. a.c. course of our narrative ; for we have been speaking of the consul- 
h 1 o'stiiiti I e n 8 t Xr S tbe n t a k- f ship °f M. Leevinus, whilst our account of the war in Italy has not 
in g of capua. advanced beyond the middle of the preceding year. The latter 

part of the year 543 was marked, however, by no military actions of consequence ; 
so great an event as the fall of Capua having, as was natural, produced a pause, 
during which both parties had to shape their future plans according to the altered 
state of their affairs and of their prospects. 

Hannibal on his side had retired, as we have seen, into Apulia, after his un- 
Hannibfti abandons the successful attempt upon Rhegium, and there allowed his soldiers 
west of itaiy. to enjoy an interval of rest. The terrible example of Capua shook 

the resolution of his Italian allies, and made them consider whether a timely sub- 
mission to Rome might not be their wisest policy ; nay, it became a question 
whether their pardon might not be secured by betraying Hannibal's garrisons, 
and returning to their duty not empty-handed. Hannibal therefore neither dared 
to risk his soldiers by dispersing them about in small and distant towns ; nor 
could he undertake, even if he kept his army together, to cover the wide extent 
of country which had revolted to him at different periods of the war. His men 
would be worn out by a succession of flying marches ; and after all, the Roman 
armies were so numerous, that he would always be in danger of arriving too late 
at the point attacked. Accordingly he found it necessary to abandon many 
places altogether ; and from some he obliged the inhabitants to migrate, and 
made them remove within the limits which he still hoped to protect. In this 
manner, it is probable, the western side of Italy, from the edge of Campania to 
Bruttium, was at once left to its fate ; including what had been the territory of 
the Capuans on the shores of the Gulf of Salernum, the country of the Picen- 
tians, and Lucania ; while Apulia and Bruttium were carefully defended. But 
in evacuating the towns which they could not keep, and still more in the com- 
pelled migrations of the inhabitants, Hannibal's soldiers committed many ex- 
cesses ; property was plundered, and blood was shed ; and thus the minds of 
the Italians were still more generally alienated. 1 

We have seen that, immediately after the fall of Capua, C. Nero, with a part 
Movements of the Ro- of the troops which had been employed on the blockade, had been 
manannie.. sent off tQ gp a j n s q Fulvius remained at Capua, with another 

part, amounting to a complete consular army ; 3 and some were probably sent 
home. The two consuls marched into Apulia, which was to be their province ; 4 
but no active operations took place during the remainder of the season ; and at 
the end of the year P. Sulpicius was ordered to pass over into Epirus, and suc- 
ceed M. Laevinus in the .command of the war against Philip. The home admin- 
istration was left in the hands of C. Calpurnius Piso, the city prcetor. 

About the time that the two consuls took the command in Apulia, M. Corne- 

» Livy, XXVI. 38. 3 Livy, XXVI. 28. 

1 Livy, XXVI. 17. * Livy, XXVI. 22. 



Chap. XLVL] ELECTION OF CONSULS. 565 

lius Cethegus, who had obtained that province as prastor at the 

O 7 r<* *i J 1 Marcellus is unable to 

beginning of the year, was sent over to Sicily to command the obtain a triumph, hi. 

o o J ' t m . •* j splendid ovaUou. 

army there, Marcellus having just left the island to return to 
Rome. Marcellus was anxious to obtain a triumph for his conquest of Syracuse : 
but the Avar in Sicily was still raging ; and Murines was in full activity. The 
senate therefore would not grant a triumph for an imperfect victory, but allowed 
Marcellus the honor of the smaller triumph or ovation. He was highly dissatis- 
fied at this, and consoled himself by going up in triumphal procession to the tem- 
ple of Jupiter on the highest summit of the Alban hills, and offering sacrifice 
there, a ceremony which by virtue of his impertum he could lawfully perform : 
he might go in procession where he pleased, and sacrifice where he pleased, except 
within the limits of Rome itself. On the day after his triumph on the hill of Alba, 
he entered Rome with the ceremony of an ovation, walking on foot according to the 
rule, instead of being drawn in a chariot in kingly state, as in the proper triumph. 
But the show was unusually splendid : for a great picture of Syracuse with all its 
fortifications was displayed, and with it some of the very artillery which Archi- 
medes had made so famous in his defence of them ; besides an unwonted display of 
the works of art of a more peaceful kind, the spoils of Hiero's palace, and of the 
temples in his city, silver and bronze figures, embroidered carpets and coverings 
of couches, and, above all, some of the finest pictures and statues. Men also ob- 
served the traitor Sosis walking in the procession, with a coronet of gold on his 
head, as a benefactor of the Roman people : he was further to be rewarded with 
the Roman franchise, with a house at his own choice out of those belonging to 
the Syracusans who had remained true to their country, and with five hundred 
jugera of land, which had either been theirs, or part of the royal domain. 5 

At the end of the year Cn. Fulvius was summoned to Rome from Apulia to 
preside at the consular comitia. On the day of the election, the 
first century of the Veturian tribe, which had obtained the first 210. 'comma: nobie 
voice by lot, gave its votes in favor of T. Manlius Torquatus and MarceiiusandLajviDua 
T. Otacilius Crassus. As the voice of the tribe first called was 
generally followed by the rest, Manlius, who was present, was immediately greeted 
by the congratulations of his friends : but, instead of accepting them, he made 
his way to the consul's seat, and requested him to call back the century which 
had just voted, and allow him to say a few words. The century was summoned 
again, all men wondering what was about to happen. Manlius had been consul 
five-and-twenty years before, in the memorable year when the temple of Janus 
was shut in token of the ratification of peace with Carthage ; twenty years had 
passed since he was censor ; and though his vigor of body and mind was still 
great, he was an old man, and age had made him nearly blind. " I am unfit to 
command," he said ; " for I can only see through the eyes of others. This is no 
time for incompetent generals ; let the century make a better choice." But the 
century answered unanimously, " that they could not make a better ; that they 
again named Manlius and Otacilius consuls." " Your tempers and my rule," said 
the old man, " will never suit. Give your votes over again ; and remember that 
the Carthaginians are in Italy, and that their general is Hannibal." A murmur 
of admiration burst from all around, and the voters 6*f the century were moved. 
They were the younger men of their tribe ; and they besought the consul to sum- 
mon the century of their elders, that they might be guided by their counsel. 
Fulvius accordingly summoned the century of elders of the Veturian tribe ; and 
the two centuries retired to confer on the question. The elders recommended 
that Fabius and Marcellus should be chosen ; or, if a new consul were desirable, 
that they should take one of these, and with him elect M. Laevinus, who for some 
years past had done good service in conducting the war against Philip. Their 
advice was adopted, and the century gave its votes now in favor of Marcellus 

6 Livy, XXVI. 21. 



566 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVL 

and Laevinus. All the other centuries confirmed their choice; and thus T. Ota- 
cilius was for the second time, by an extraordinary interference with the votes 
of the centuries, deprived of the consulship, to which some uncommonly amiable 
qualities, or some peculiar influence, had twice recommended him, in spite of his 
deficient ability. 6 

He probably never knew of this second disappointment ; for scarcely was the 
election over, when news arrived from Sicily of his death. 1 Cn. Fulvius re- 
turned to his army in Apulia ; and as M. Laevinus was still absent in Epirus, 
Marcellus on the usual day, the ides of March, entered upon the consulship alone. 
Q. Fulvius was still at Capua ; but Q. Fabius and T. Manlius were at Rome ; 
and their counsels, together with those of Marcellus, were of the greatest influ- 
ence in the senate, and probably directed the government. 

There was need for all their ability and all their firmness, for never had the 
. posture of affairs been more alarmino-. Hannibal's unconquered 

Alarming posture of 1 - . ... 1 • i i t rt t 1 

Roman affairs. Pa- and unconquerable army, although it had not saved Capua, had 

tnotic proposition of - T J- • i i i • i i • i • 

Lffivinus: seif-devotion wasted Italy more widely than ever in the last campaign; and it 
eiampie followed by had struck particularly at countries which had hitherto escaped 
its ravages, the valleys of the Sabines, and the country of the 
thirty-five tribes themselves, up to the very gates of Rome. Many of the citi- 
zens had not only lost their standing crops, but their cattle had been carried off, 
and their houses burned to the ground. 8 Actual scarcity was added to other 
causes of distress ; insomuch that the modius of wheat rose to nearly three 
denarii, which, in a plentiful season eight years afterwards, was sold at four ases, 
or the fourth part of one denarius. 9 The people were becoming unable to bear 
further burdens ; and some of the Latin colonies, which had hitherto been the 
firmest support of the commonwealth, were suspected to be not only unable, but 
unwilling. It was probably to meet the urgent necessity of the case that the 
armies were somewhat reduced this year, four legions, it seems, being dis- 
banded. 10 But this fruit of the fall of Capua was in part neutralized by the 
necessity of raising fresh seamen ; for unless the commonwealth maintained its 
naval superiority, Sicily would be lost, and Philip might be expected on the 
coasts of Italy ; and the supply of corn which was looked for from Egypt in the 
failure of all nearer resources, would become very precarious. 11 Accordingly a 
tax was imposed, requiring all persons to provide a certain number of seamen, in 
proportion to the returns of their property at the last census, with pay and pro- 
visions for thirty days. But our own tax of ship-money did not excite more op- 
position, though on different grounds. The people complained aloud : crowds 
gathered in the Forum, and declared that no power could force from them what 
they had not got ; that the consuls might sell their goods, and lay hold on their 
persons, if they chose ; but they had no means of payment. 12 The consuls — for 
Laevinus was by this time returned home from Macedonia — with that dignity 
which the Roman government never forgot for an instant, issued an order, giving 
the defaulters three days to consider their determination ; thus seeming to giant 
as an indulgence, what necessity obliged them to yield. Meanwhile they sum- 
moned the senate ; and when every one was equally convinced of the necessity 
of procuring seamen, and the impossibility of carrying through the tax, Laninus, 
in his colleague's name and his own, proceeded to address the senators. He told 
them that, before they could call on the people to make sacrifices, they must 
set the example. " Let each senator," he said, " keep his gold ring, and the 
rings of his wife and children: let him keep the golden bulla worn by his sons 
under age, and one ounce of gold for ornaments for his wife, and an ounce for 
each of his daughters. All the rest of the gold which we possess, let us offer 

8 Livy, XXVI. 22. 10 Livv, XXVT. 28. 

7 Livy, XXVI. 23. » Polybius, IX. 10. 

■ LivV, XXVI. 26. M livy. XXVI. 86. 

• Polybius, IX. 44. Livy, XXXI. 5. 



Chap. XLVL] SEVERITY OF FULVIUS AND MARCELLUS. 567 

for the public service. Next, let all of us who have borne curule offices, reserve 
the silver used in the harness of our war-horses ; and let all others, including 
those just mentioned, keep one pound of silver, enough for the plate needful in 
sacrifices, the small vessel to hold the salt, and the small plate or basin for the 
libation ; and let us each keep five thousand ases of copper money. With these 
exceptions, let us devote all our silver and copper to our country's use, as we 
have devoted all our gold. And let us do this without any vote of the senate, 
of our own free gift, as individual senators, and carry our contributions at once 
to the three commissioners for the currency. Be sure that first the equestrian 
order, and then the mass of the people, will follow our example." He spoke to 
hearers who so thoroughly shared his spirit, that they voted their thanks to the 
consuls for this suggestion. The senate instantly broke up ; the senators hastened 
home, and thence came crowding to the Forum, their slaves bearing all their stores 
of copper, and silver, and gold, each man being anxious to have his contribution 
recorded first ; so that, Livy says, neither were there commissioners enough to 
receive all the gifts that were brought, nor clerks enough to record them. The 
example, as the consuls knew, was irresistible ; the equestrian order and the com- 
mons poured in their contributions with equal zeal ; and no tax could have sup- 
plied the treasury so plentifully as this free-will offering of the whole people. 13 

There is no doubt that the money thus contributed was to be repaid to the 
contributors, when the republic should see better days ; but the V aiue of these sacn- 
sacrifice consisted in this, that, while the prospect of payment was ficea - 
distant and uncertain, the whole profit of the money in the mean time was lost : 
for the Roman state creditors received no interest on their loans. Therefore it 
was at their own cost mainly, and not at the cost of posterity, that the Romans 
maintained their great struggle ; and from our admiration of their firmness and 
heroic devotion to their country's cause, nothing is in this case to be abated. 

Nor is it less striking, that the senate at this very moment listened to accusa- 
tions brought by vanquished enemies against their conquerors, and 

. ° J r-i-i'i l 'a Complaints ot thesever- 

tnese conquerors men ot the hio-nest name and greatest influence HyofFuiviusimdMar- 

■*■ o o . ■ cellus 

in the commonwealth, Marcellus and Q. Fulvius. When Leevinus . 
passed through Capua on his way to Rome, he was beset by a multitude of the 
Capuans, who complained of the intolerable misery of their condition under the 
dominion of Q. Fulvius, and besought him to take them with him to Rome, that 
they might implore the mercy of the senate. Fulvius made them swear that they 
would return to Capua within five days after they received their answer, telling 
Larrinus that he dared not let them go at liberty ; for if any Capuan escaped 
from the city, he instantly became a brigand, and scoured the country, burning, 
robbing, and murdering all that fell in his way ; even at Rome, Lasvinus would 
find the traces of Capuan treason, for the late destructive fire in the city was 
their work. So a deputation of Campanians, thus hardly allowed to go, followed 
Laninus towards Rome ; and when he approached the city, a similar deputation 
of Sicilians came out to meet him, with like complaints against Marcellus. 14 

The provinces assigned to the consuls were this year to be the conduct of the 
war with Hannibal, and Sicily ; and Sicily fell by lot to Marcellus. 

rr,, . .<■. , ,•' . J J , ... The Sicilians entreat 

Ihe (Sicilians present were thrown into despair when this was an- that Marceiiua may not 
nounced to them: they put on mourning and beset the senate- 
house, weeping and bewailing their hard fate, and saying that it would be better 
for their island to be sunk in the sea, or overwhelmed with the lava floods of 
./Etna, than given up to the vengeance of Marcellus. Their feeling met with 
much sympathy in the senate ; and this was made so intelligible, that Marcellus, 
without waiting for any resolution on the subject, came to an agreement with his 
colleague, and they exchanged their provinces. 15 • 

This having been settled, the Sicilians were admitted into the senate, and 

13 Livy, XXVI. 86. M Livy, XXVI. 27. " Livy, XXVI. 29. 



568 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVL 

Their complaint is brought forward their complaint. It turned principally on the cru- 
co e ™fer b 6 V tat , e h ment nat oJ elty of making them responsible for the acts, first of Hieronymus, 
MarceUus. and then of a mercenary soldiery which they had no means of re- 

sisting ; while the long and tried friendship of Hiero, proved by the R,omans in 
the utmost extremity of their fortune, had been forgotten. MarceUus insisted 
that the deputation should remain in the senate, and hear his statement, — answer 
he would not call it, and far less defence, as if a Roman consul could plead to 
the accusations of a set of vanquished Greeks, — but his statement of their offences, 
which had justly brought on all that they had suffered. He said that they had 
acted as enemies, had rejected his frequent offers of peace, and had resisted his 
attacks with all possible obstinacy, instead of doing as Sosis, whom they called a 
traitor, had done, and surrendering their city into his hands. He then left the 
senate-house together with the Sicilians, and went to the Capitol to carry on the 
enlistment of the newly raised legions. 16 

There was a strong feeling in the senate that Syracuse had been cruelly used ; 

and old T. Manlius expressed this as became him, especially urging 

Marceiius becomes the the unworthy return which had been made to the country of Hiero 

patronus of Syracuse. rni'fJT t> t» r ■» <r n 5 • l 

for all his fidelity to Kome. But a sense ot MarceUus signal ser- 
vices, and of the urgency of the times, prevailed ; and a resolution was passed con- 
firming all that he had done, but declaring that for the time to come the senate 
would consult the welfare of the Syracusans, and would commend them especially 
to the care of Laevinus. A deputation of two senators was then sent to the con- 
sul to invite him to return to the senate ; the Syracusans were called in, and the 
decree was read. Then the Syracusan deputies threw themselves at the feet of 
MarceUus, imploring him to forgive all that they had said against him, to receive 
them under his protection, and to become the patronus of their city. n He gave 
them a gracious answer, and accepted the office ; and from that time forward the 
Syracusans found it their best policy to extol the clemency of MarceUus ; and 
later writers echoed their language, not knowing, or not remembering, that these 
expressions of forced praise were their own strongest refutation. 

The Campanian deputation was heard with less favor ; but still it was heard ; 
severe treatment of the an d the senate took their complaint into consideration. But in this 
Campania™. case no mercy was shown ; and it was now that those severe de- 

crees were passed, fixing the future fate of the Campanian people, which I 
have already mentioned by anticipation, at the end of the story of the siege of 
Capua. 18 

The military history of this year is again difficult to comprehend, owing to the 
opening of the cam- omissions and incoherence in Livy's narrative. Two armies, as we 
v?urii' h r D rojed Fu by have seen, were employed against Hannibal : that of Cn. Fulvius, 
Hannibal - the consul of the preceding year, in Apulia ; and that of MarceUus 

in Samnium. Where Hannibal had passed the winter, or the end of the preced- 
ing summer, we know not ; not a word being said of his movements after his in- 
effectual attempt upon Rhegium, till we hear of his march against Fulvius. We 
may suppose, however, that he had wintered in Apulia ; and we are told that, 
Salapia having been betrayed to the Romans, and a detachment of Numidians 
having been cut off in it, Hannibal again retreated into Bruttium. 19 With two 
armies opposed to him, it was of importance not to let either of them advance to 
attack Tarentum and the towns on the coast, while he was engaged with the 
other. He was obliged therefore to abandon his garrisons in Samnium and 
Apulia to their own resources, and kept his army well in hand, ready to strike a 
blow whenever opportunity should offer. As usual, he received perfect inform- 
ation of the enemy's proceedings through his secret emissaries ; and having 
learned that Fulvius was in the neighborhood of Herdonea, trying to win the 

* Livy, XXVI. 30, 81. » Above, p. 540, foil. Livy, XXVI. 83. 

17 Livy, XXVI. 82. M Livy, XXVII. 1. 



Chap. XLVL] ALARMING NEWS FROM AFRICA. 569 

place, and that, relying on his distance from the Carthaginian army, he was not suf- 
ficiently on his guard, Hannibal conceived the hope of destroying this army by an 
unexpected attack. Again the details are given variously ; but the result was, 
that Hannibal's attempt was completely successful. The army of Fulvius was 
destroyed, and the proconsul killed ; and Hannibal, having set fire to Herdonea, 
and executed those citizens who had been in correspondence with the enemy, sent 
away the rest of the population into Bruttium, and himself crossed the mountains 
into Lucania, to look after the army of Marcellus. 20 

Marcellus, on the news of his colleague's defeat, left Samnium, and advanced 
into Lucania : his object now was to watch Hannibal closely, lest Marceii™ adopts the 
he should again resume the offensive; all attempts to recover P olio y ot F abius - 
more towns in Samnium or elsewhere must for the time be abandoned. And 
this service he performed with great ability and resolution, never leaving Hanni- 
bal at rest, and taking care not to fall into any ambush, but unable, notwithstand- 
ing the idle stories of his victories, to do any thing more than keep his enemy in 
sight, as Fabius had done in his first dictatorship. Thus the rest of the season 
passed away unmarked by any thing of importance : Marcellus wintered ap- 
parently at Venusia ; Hannibal in his old quarters, in the warm plains near 
the sea. 21 

In spite, therefore, of the reduction of Capua, the Roman affairs in Italy had 
made no progress. On the contrary, another army had been to- . 

nl t i in ■ -i 11 ■ i i i • Advantages gained by 

tally destroyed ; and the war, with all its burdens, seemed inter- the Romans out of 
minable. But in other quarters this year had been more success- 
ful : Laevinus had ended the war in Sicily, and the resources of that island were 
now at the disposal of the Romans ; while the Carthaginian fleets had no point 
nearer than Carthage itself to carry on their operations, whether to the annoy- 
ance of the enemy's coasts, or the relief of their own garrisons at Tarentum, 
and along the southern coast of Italy. In addition to this, the alliance which 
Lasvinus had concluded with the ^Etolians before he quitted Epirus, had left a 
far easier task to his successor, P. Sulpicius, and removed all danger of Philip's 
co-operating with Hannibal. Meanwhile Laevinus was summoned home to hold 
the comitia, Marcellus being too busily employed with Hannibal to leave his 
army ; and accordingly he crossed over directly from Lilybaeum or Panormus to 
Ostia, accompanied by the African, Mutines, who was now to receive the reward 
of his desertion, in being made a citizen of Rome by a decree of the people. 22 

Before his departure from Sicily, Laevinus had sent the greater part of his 
fleet over to Africa, partly to make plundering descents on the Alarming news from 
coast, but chiefly to collect information as to the condition and Africa ' 
plans of the enemy. Messalla, who had succeeded to T. Otacilius in the com- 
mand :f the fleet, accomplished this expedition in less than a fortnight ; and the 
information which he collected was so important, that, finding Lasvinus was gone 
to Rome, he forwarded it to him without delay. Its substance bore, that the 
Carthaginians were collecting troops with great diligence, to be sent over into 
Spain ; and that the general report was, that these soldiers were to form the 
army of Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, and were to be led by him immediately 
into Italy. This intelligence so alarmed the senate, that they would not detain 
the consul to hold the comitia, but ordered him to name a dictator for that pur- 
pose, and then to return immediately to his province. 23 

With all the patriotism of the Romans, it was not possible that personal am- 
bition and jealousy should be wholly extinct among them ; and the 
influence exercised at the present crisis by Q. Fabius, and his pref- a 'dictator appointed to' 
erence of Q. Fulvius and Marcellus to all other commanders, was mi^AyS^ahoiwcm. 
no doubt regarded by some as excessive and overbearing. The 8ul3 ' 

20 Livy, XXVII. 1. 22 Livy XXVII. 5. 

81 Livy, XXVIL 2, 4, 12-14, 20. as Livy, XXVII. 5. 



570 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVL 

magistrate who presided at the comitia enjoyed so great a power over the elec- 
tions, that the choice of the dictator on this occasion was of some consequence ; 
and Leevinus intended to name the commander of his fleet, M. Messala, not with- 
out some view, possibly, to his own re-election, if the comitia were held under 
the auspices of a man not entirely devoted to Fabius and Fulvius. But when he 
declared his intention to the senate, it was objected that a person out of Italy 
could not be named dictator ; and the consul was ordered to take the choice of 
the people, and to name whomsoever the people should fix upon. Indignant at 
this interference with his rights as consul, Lsevinus refused to submit the question 
to the people, and forbade the praetor, L. Manlius Acidinus, to do so. This, how- 
ever, availed him nothing ; for the tribunes called the assembly, and the people 
resolved that the dictator to be named should be Q. Fulvius. Lsevinus probably 
expected this, and, as his last resource, had left Rome secretly on the night be- 
fore the decision, that he might not be compelled to go through the form of 
naming his rival dictator. Here was a new difficulty, for the dictator could only 
be named by one of the consuls : so it was necessary to apply to Marcellus ; and 
he nominated Q. Fulvius immediately. 24 The old man left Capua forthwith, and 
proceeded to Rome to hold the comitia, at which the century first called gave its 
votes in favor of Fulvius himself and Fabius. This, no doubt, had been precon- 
certed : but two of the tribunes shared the feelings of Laevinus, and objected to 
such a monopoly of office in the hands of two or three men ; they also complained 
of the precedent of allowing the magistrate presiding at the election to be himself 
elected. Fulvius, with no false modesty, or what in our notions would be real 
delicacy, maintained that the choice of the century was good, and justified by 
precedents ; and at last the question was submitted by common consent to the 
senate. The senate determined that, under actual circumstances, it was import- 
ant that the ablest men and most tried generals should be at the head of affairs ; 
and they therefore approved of the election. Accordingly Fabius and Fulvius were 
once more appointed consuls ; the former for the fifth time, the latter for the fourth. 25 
Thus was the great object gained of employing the three most tried generals 
, „ of the republic, Fabius, Fulvius, and Marcellus, ao-ainst Hannibal 

Plan for the campaign. , *■ . . . „ , ° , - ,, 

in the approaching campaign. Lach was to command a lull con- 
sular army, Marcellus retaining that which he now had, with the title of procon- 
sul ; and the plan of operations was, that, while Marcellus occupied Hannibal on 
the side of Apulia, a grand movement should be made against Tarentum and the 
other towns held by the enemy on the southern coast. Fabius was to attack 
Tarentum, while Fulvius was to reduce the garrisons still retained by Hannibal 
in Lucania, 26 and then to advance into Bruttium ; and that band of adventurers 
from Sicily, which Laevinus had sent over to Rhegium to do some service in that 
quarter, was to attempt the siege of Caulon, or Caulonia. Every exertion was 
to be made to destroy Hannibal's power in the south, before his brother could 
arrive in Italy to effect a diversion in the north. 27 Laevinus, it seems, paid the 
penalty of his opposition to Fulvius' election, in being deprived of his consular 
army, which he was ordered to send over to Italy to be commanded by Fulvius 
himself; and he and the propraetor, L. Cincius, were left to defend Sicily with 
the old soldiers of Canine, and the remains of the defeated armies of the two 
Fulvii, the praetor and the proconsul, which had been condemned to the same 
banish mint, together with the forces which they had themselves raised within 
the island, partly native Sicilians, and partly Numidians, who had come over to 
the Etonians with Mutines. 23 With these resources, and with a fleet of seventy 
ships, Sicily was firmly held ; and Laevinus, it is said, was able in the course of 
the year to send supplies of corn to Rome, and also to the army of Fabius be- 
fore Tarentum. 29 

* Livy, XXVII. 5. * Livy, XXVII. 12. 

54 I.iv'y, XXVII. 6. » Livy. XXVII. 7. 

M Livy, XXV 11. 7. » Livy, XXVII. 8. 



Chap.XLVI] eevolt of twelve latin - colonies. 571 

But before the consuls could take the field, a storm burst forth more threaten- 
ing than any which the republic had yet experienced. The sol- ^^ rf the ^^ 
diers of the army defeated at Herdonea, who were now to be sent colonies refuse fresh 

J .._..,. supplies. 

over to Sicily, were in a large proportion Latins of the colonies ; 
and as they were to be banished for the whole length of the war, fresh soldiers 
were to be levied to supply their places in Italy. This new demand was the 
drop which made the full cup overflow. The deputies of twelve of the colonies, 
who were at Rome as usual to receive the consul's orders, when they were re- 
quired to furnish fresh soldiers, and to raise money for their payment, replied 
resolutely that they had neither men nor money remaining. 30 

" The Roman people," says Livy, " had at this period thirty colonies ; of 
which number twelve thus refused to support the war any longer. The consu]8 „ mon . 
The number mentioned by the historian has occasioned great per- 8trflto with ihem " rain - 
plexity ; but its coincidence with the old number of the states of the Latin con- 
federacy leaves no doubt of its genuineness ; and when the maritime colonies are 
excepted, which stood on a different footing, as not being ordinarily bound to 
raise men for the regular land-service, it agrees very nearly with the list which 
we should draw up of all the Latin colonies mentioned to have been founded be- 
fore this period. But what particular causes determined the twelve recusant colo- 
nies more than the rest to resist the commands of Rome, we cannot tell. Amongst 
them we find the name of Alba, which two years before had shown, such zeal in 
hastening to the assistance of Rome unsummoned, when Hannibal threatened its 
very walls ; we also find some of the oldest colonies, Circeii, Ardea, Cora, 
Nepete, and Sutrium ; Cales, which had so long been an important position dur- 
ing the revolt of Capua, Carseoli, Suessa, Setia, JSarnia, and Interamna, on the 
Liris. The consuls, thunderstruck at their refusal, attempted to shame them 
from their purpose by rebuke. " This is not merely declining to furnish troops 
and money," they said ; " it is open rebellion. Go home to your colonies ; for- 
get that so detestable a thought ever entered your heads ; remind your fellow- 
citizens that they are not Campanians nor Tarentines, but Romans, Roman born, 
and sent from Rome to occupy lands conquered by Romans, to multiply the race 
of Rome's defenders. All duty owed by children to their parents, you owe to 
the senate and people of Rome." But in vain did Fabius and Fulvius, with all 
the authority of their years and their great name, speak such language to the 
deputies. They were coldly answered, "that it was useless to consult their 
countrymen at home ; the colonies could not alter their resolution : for they had 
no men nor money left." Finding the case hopeless, the consuls summoned 
the senate, and reported the fatal intelligence. The courage which had not 
yielded to the slaughter of Cannae, was shaken now. " At last," it was said, 
" the blow is struck, and Rome is lost : this example will be followed by all our 
colonies and allies : there is doubtless a general conspiracy amongst them to give 
us up bound hand and foot to Hannibal." 31 

The consuls bade the senate to take courage ; the other colonies were yet true ; 
" even these false ones will return to their duty, if we do not con- . 

J'. ,, Patriotic spirit of the 

descend to entreat them, but rather rebuke them for their treason, other eighteen colonies; 

1J1# . _ in t " e senale resolves to 

Every thing was left to the consuls discretion : they exerted all take no notice of the 
their influence with the deputies of the other colonies privately ; 
and having ascertained their sentiments, they then ventured to summon them 
officially, and to ask, " Whether their appointed contingents of men and money 
were forthcoming ?" Then M. Sextilius of Fregellae stood up and made answer 
in the name of the eighteen remaining colonies : " They are forthcoming ; 
and if more are needed, more are at your disposal. Every order, every wish of the 
Roman people, we will with our best efforts fulfil : to do this we have means 
enough, and will more than enough." The consuls replied, " Our thanks are all 
too little for your desert : the whole senate must thank you themselves." They 

30 Livy, XXVII. 9. 31 Livy, XXVII. 9. 



572 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap.XLVL 

led the deputies into the senate-house ; and thanks were voted to them in the 
warmest trims. Then the consuls were desired to lead them before the people, 
to remind the people of all the services which the colonies had rendered to them 
and to their fathers, services all surpassed by this last act of devotion. The 
thanks of the people were voted no less heartily than those of the senate. "Nor 
shall these eighteen colonies even now," says Livy, " lose their just glory. They 
were the people of Sigma, of Norba, of Saticula, of Brundisium, of Fregellae, of 
Luceria, of Venusia, of Hadria, of Firmum, and of Ariminum ; and from the low- 
er sea, the people of Pontia, and of Psestum, and of Cosa ; and from the midland 
country, the people of Beneventum, and of JKsernia, and of Spoletum, and of 
Plaeentia. and of Cremona." The aid of these eighteen colonies on that day saved 
the Roman empire. Satisfied now, and feeling their strength invincible, the sen- 
ate forbade the consuls to take the slightest notice of the disobedient colonies ; 
they were neither to send for them, nor to detain them, nor to dismiss them ; 
they were to leave them wholly alone. 32 

It is enough for the glory of any nation, that its history in two successive 
Mapianimiiy of iheir years should record two such events as the magnanimous liberality 
Suoe in'ii^'sabs^ of the senate in sacrificing their wealth to their country, and the 
Ee onSSiandof n0 less magnanimous firmness and wisdom of their behavior to- 
F«geihe. wards their colonies. An aristocracy endowed with such virtue 

deserved its ascendency ; for its inherent faults were now shown only towards 
the enemies of Rome ; its nobler character alone was displayed towards her citi- 
zens. But when M. Sextilius of Fregellae was standing before Q. Fulvius, prom- 
ising to serve Rome to the death, and the old consul's stern countenance was 
softened to admiration and joy, and his lips, which had so remorselessly doomed 
the Capuan senators to a bloody death, were now uttering thanks and praises to 
Rome's true colonists, how would each have started, could he have looked for a 
moment into futurity, and seen what events were to happen, before a hundred 
years were over ! By a strange coincidence, each would have seen the selfsame 
hand red with the blood of his descendants, and extinguishing the country of the 
one and the family of the other. Within ninety years, the Roman aristocracy 
were to become utterly corrupted ; and its leader, L. Opimius, as base person- 
ally as he was politically cruel, was to destroy Fregellae, and treacherously in 
cold blood to slay an innocent youth, the last direct representative of the great 
Q. Fulvius, after he had slain M. Fulvius, the youth's father, in civil conflict with- 
in the walls of Rome. 33 Fregellae, to whose citizens Rome at this time owed her 
safety, was within ninety years to be so utterly destroyed by the Roman arms, 
that at this day its very site is not certainly known : the most faithful of colonies 
has perished more entirely than the rebellious Capua. 34 

Rome could rely on the fidelity of the majority of her colonies ; but their very 
The nerd treasure is readiness made it desirable to spare them to the utmost. There- 
fore a treasure, which was reserved in the most sacred treasury 
for the extremest need, was now brought out ; amounting, it is said, to four 
thousand pounds weight of gold ; and which had been accumulating during a 
period of about 150 years, being the produce of the tax at five per cent, on the 
value of every emancipated slave, paid by the person who gave him his liberty. 
With this money the military chests of the principal armies were well replenished; 
and supplies of clothing were sent to the army in Spain, which P. Scipio was now 
commanding, and was on the point of leading to the conquest of New Carthage.* 1 

At length the consuls took the field. Marcellus, according to the plan 
samnium ami [mania agreed upon, broke up from his quarters at Venusia, and proceed- 
S. n Bri?tSJ. R SSr^ ed to watch and harass Hannibal ; while Fabius advanced upon 
boDtratiiniMiaa. Tarentum, and Fulvius marched into Lucania. Caulonia at the 

32 livy, XXVII. 10. M Velleius, II. 6, 4. Strabo, V. p. 868. 

33 Velleius, II. 6, 4. II. 7, 2. Plutarch, Auctor ad Ilcrcnuium, IV. 15. 
C. Gracchus, c. xvi. Appian, 13. C. I. K. * Livy, XXVII. 10. 



Chap. XLVI] FALL OF TARENTUM. 573 

'same time was besieged by the band of adventurers from Sicily. The mass of 
forces thus employed was overwhelming ; and Hannibal, while he clung to Apu- 
lia and Bruttium, was unable to retain his hold on Samnium and Lucania. Those 
great countries, or rather the powerful party in both, which had hitherto been in 
revolt from Rome, now made their submission to Q. Fulvius, and delivered up 
such of Hannibal's soldiers as were in garrison in any of their towns. They had 
apparently chosen their time well ; and by submitting at the beginning of the 
campaign they obtained easy terms. Even Fulvius, though not inclined to show 
mercy to revolted allies, granted them full indemnity : the axes of his lictors 
were suffered this time to sleep unstained with blood. This politic mercy had 
its effect on the Bruttians also : some of their leading men came to the Roman 
camp to treat concerning the submission of their countrymen on the terms which 
had been granted to the Samnites and Lucanians ; and the base of all Hannibal's 
operations, the southern coast of Italy, was in danger of being torn away from 
him, if he lingered any longer in Apulia. 36 

Then his indomitable genius and energy appeared once more in all its brilliancy. 
He turned fiercely upon Marcellus, engaged him twice, and so Hannibal's brilliant ex- 
disabled him, that Marcellus, with all his enterprise, was obliged £yed T to en the m Ro- 
to take refuge within the walls of Venusia, and there lay helpless mans- 
during the remainder of the campaign. 37 Freed from this enemy, Hannibal flew 
into Bruttium : the strength of Tarentum gave him no anxiety for its immediate 
danger; so he hastened to deliver Caulonia. The motley band who were be- 
sieging it fled at the mere terror of his approach, and retreated to a neighboring 
hill ; thither he pursued them, and obliged them to surrender at discretion. 38 He 
then marched back with speed to Tarentum, hoping to crush Fabius, as he had 
crushed Marcellus. He was within five miles of the city w^ien he received intel- 
ligence that it was lost. The Bruttian commander of the garrison had betrayed 
it to Fabius : the Romans had entered it in arms : Carthalo, the Carthaginian 
commander, and Nico and Philemenus, who had opened its gates to Hannibal, 
had all fallen in defending it : the most important city and the best harbor in 
the south of Italy were in the hands of the Romans. 39 

The news of the fall of Paris, when Napoleon was hastening from Fontaine- 
bleau to deliver it, can scarcely have been a heavier disappoint- 
ment to him, than the news of the loss of Tarentum was to Han- rab^fntoaTnarefb^ 
nibal. Yet, always master of himself, he was neither misled by fa1 ' 8 ' 
passion nor by alarm : he halted and encamped on the ground, and there re- 
mained quiet for some days, to show that his confidence in himself was unshaken 
by the treason of his allies. Then he retreated slowly towards Metapontum, and 
contrived that two of the Metapontines should go to Fabius at Tarentum, offer- 
ing to surrender their town and the Carthaginian garrison, if their past revolt 
might be forgiven. Fabius, believing the proposal to be genuine, sent back a 
favorable answer, and fixed the day on which he would appear before Metapon- 
tum with his army. On that day Hannibal lay in ambush close to the road lead- 
ing from Tarentum, ready to spring upon his prey. But Fabius came not : his 
habitual caution made him suspicious of mischief ; and it was announced that the 
omens were threatening : the haruspex, on inspecting the sacrifice, which was 
offered to learn the pleasure of the gods, warned the consul to beware of hidden 
snares, and of the arts of the enemy. The Metapontine deputies were sent back 
to learn the cause of the delay ; they were arrested, and, being threatened with 
the torture, disclosed the truth. 40 

The remaining operations of the campaign are again unknown : the Romans, 
however, seem to have attempted nothing further ; and Hannibal He remaiDS master u 
kept his army in the field, marching whither he would without op- the field - 

" J4yy> ii£5- 15 - 89 Livy, xxvii. 15, 16. 

" £PK XXVII 12-14. « Livy XXVII. 16.' 

*» Livy, XXVII. 15, 16. J ' 



574 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVL 

position, and again laying waste various parts of Italy with fire and sword. 41 So* 
far as we can discover, he returned at the end of the season to his old winter- 
quarters in Apulia. 

It is not wonderful that this result of a campaign, from which so much had 
Dissatisfaction «t Rome; been expected, should have caused great disappointment at Rome. 
ceiTus^whif^verthe- However much men rejoiced in the recovery of Tarentum, they 
less is elected consul. COVi ]& not but feel that even this success was owing to treason ; 
and that Hannibal's superiority to all who were opposed to him was more mani- 
fest than ever. This touched them in a most tender point ; because it enabled 
him to continue his destructive ravages of Italy, and thus to keep up that distress 
which had long been felt so heavily. Above all, indignation was loud against 
Marcellus ; 42 and if in his lifetime he indulged in that braggart language, which 
his son used so largely after his death, the anger of the people against him was 
very reasonable. If he called his defeats victories, as his son no doubt called 
them afterwards, and as the falsehood through him has struck deep into Roman 
history, well might the people be indignant at hearing that a victorious general 
had shut himself up all the summer within the walls of Venusia, and had allowed 
the enemy to ravage the country at pleasure. The feeling was so strong, that 
C. Publicius, one of the tribunes, a man of an old and respected tribunician 
family, brought in a bill to the people to deprive Marcellus of his command. 
Marcellus returned home to plead his cause, when Fulvius went home also to 
hold the comitia ; and the people met to consider the bill in the Flaminian circus, 
without the walls, to enable Marcellus to be present ; for his military command 
hindered his entering the city. It is likely that the influence of Fulvius was ex- 
erted strongly in his behalf ; and his own statement, if he told the simple truth, 
left no just cause ofiicomplaint against him. He had executed his part of the 
compaign to the best of his ability : twice had he fought with Hannibal to hinder 
him from marching into Bruttium ; and it was not his fault, if the fate of all 
other Roman generals had been his also ; he had but failed to do what none had 
done, or could do. The people felt for the mortification of a brave man, who 
had served them well from youth to age, and in the worst of times had never lost 
courage : they not only threw out the bill, but elected Marcellus once more con- 
sul, giving him, as his colleague, his old lieutenant in Sicily, T. Quintius Crispi- 
nus, who was now praetor, and during the last year had succeeded to Fulvius in 
the command at Capua. 43 

It marks our advance in Roman history, that among the praetors of this year 
A.r.c.546. a.c.208. we nri & tne name of Sex. Julius Cassar ; the first Caesar who ap- 

JuiiOesar pretor. ' pear g J fl the R Qman ^aS^. 

For some time past the Romans seem to have mistrusted the fidelity of the 
douu. «bout the fidei- Etruscans ; and an army of two legions had been regularly stationed 
ityofEtruriu. m Etniria, to check any disposition to revolt. But now C. Calpur- 

nius Piso, who commanded in Etruria, reported that the danger was becoming 
imminent, and he particularly named the city of Arretium as the principal seat 
of disaffection. 44 Why this feeling should have manifested itself at this moment, 
we can only conjecture. It is possible that the fame of Hasdrubal's coming may 
have excited the Etruscans. It is possible that Hannibal may have had some 
correspondence with them, and persuaded them to co-operate with his brother. 
But other causes may be imagined ; the continued pressure of the war upon all 
Italy, and the probability that the defection of the twelve colonies must have 
compelled the Romans to increase the burdens of their other allies. If, as Nie- 
buhr thinks, 45 the Etruscans were not in the habit of serving with the legions in 
the regular infantry, their contributions in money, and in seamen for the fleets, 

41 Liw, XXVII. 20. " Vngantc per Italiam " Livy, XXVII. 20, 21. 

Hannibale." « Livy, XXVII. 21. 

• Livy, XXVII. 20. « See page 505. 



Chap. XLVI] STATE OF ETRURIA. 575 

would have been proportionably greater ; and both these would fall heavily on 
the great Etruscan chiefs, or Lucumones, from whose vassals the seamen would 
be taken, as their properties would have to furnish the money. Again, in the 
year 544, when corn was at so enormous a price, we read of a large quantity 
purchased in Etruria by the Roman government for the use of their garrison in 
the citadel of Tarentum. 46 This corn the allied states were bound to sell at a fixed 
price ; so that the Etruscan landowners would consider themselves greatly injured, 
in being forced to sell at a low price, what in the present condition of the markets 
was worth four or five times as much. But whatever was the cause, Marcellus 
was sent into Etruria, even before he came into office as consul, to observe the 
state of affairs, that, if necessary, he might remove the seat of war from Apulia 
to Etruria. The report of his mission seemed satisfactory ; and it did not appear 
necessary to bring his army from Apulia. 4,1 

Yet some time afterwards, before Marcellus left Rome to take the field, the re- 
ports of the disaffection of Arretium became more serious ; and C. Disaffection of a™. 
Hostilius, who had succeeded Calpurnius in the command of the tiam - 
army stationed in Etruria, was ordered to lose no time in demanding hostages 
from the principal inhabitants. C. Terentius Varro was sent to receive them, to 
the number of 120, and to take them to Rome. Even this precaution was not 
thought sufficient ; and Varro was sent back to Arretium to occupy the city with 
one of the home legions, while Hostilius, with his regular army, was to move up 
and down the country, that any attempt at insurrection might be crushed in a 
moment. 48 It appears also that, besides the hostages, several sons of the wealthy 
Etruscans were taken away to serve in the cavalry of Marcellus' army, to prevent 
them at any rate from being dangerous at home. 49 

The two consuls were to conduct the war against Hannibal, whilst Q. Claudius, 
one of the praetors, with a third army, was to hold Tarentum, and Di 8 p 03 i tion of t h e r - 
the country of the Sallentines. Fulvius with a single legion re- JXes aF from Jmta^ 
sumed his old command at Capua. Fabius returned to Rome, and 8ervice - 
from this time forward no more commanded the armies of his country, although 
he still in all probability directed the measures of the government. 50 

Crispinus had left Rome before his colleague, and, with some reinforcements 
newly raised, proceeded to Lucania, to take the command of the 
army which had belonged to Fulvius. His ambition was to rival 
the glory of Fabius, by attacking another of the Greek cities on the southern 
coast. He fixed upon Locri, and having sent for a powerful artillery from Sicily, 
with a naval force to operate against the sea front of the town, commenced the 
siege. Hannibal's approach, however, forced him to raise it ; and as Marcellus 
had now arrived at Venusia, he retreated thither to co-operate with his colleague. 
The two armies were encamped apart, about three miles from each other : two 
consuls, it was though 0, must at any rate be able to occupy Hannibal in Apulia, 
while the siege of Locri was to be carried on by the fleet and artillery from Sicily, 
with the aid of one of the two legions commanded by the praetor Q, Claudius at 
Tarentum. Such was the Roman plan of campaign for the year 546, the eleventh 
of this memorable war. 51 

The two armies opposed to Hannibal must have amounted at least to 40,000 
men ; he could not venture to risk a battle against so large a force : 

i , i ■ i 11 •,-!•. Hannibal destroys a 

but his eye was everywhere ; and he was neither ignorant nor legion sent to besiege 
unobservant of what was going on in his rear, and of the intended 
march of the legion from Tarentum to carry on the siege of Locri by land. So 
confident was he in his superiority, that he did not hesitate to detach a force of 
3000 horse and 2000 foot from his already inferior numbers, to intercept these 

16 Livy, XXV. 15. *> Livy, XXVII. 26. 

47 Livy, XXVII. 21. so Livy, XXVII. 22. 

« Livy, XXVII. 24. " Livy XXVII. 25. 



570 HISTORY OF ROME.* [Chap. XLVI. 

troops on their way : and while the Romans marched on in confidence, supposing 
that Hannibal was far away in Apulia, they suddenly found their road beset ; and 
Hannibal's dreaded cavalry broke in upon the flanks of their column. The rout 
was complete in an instant ; the whole Roman division was destroyed or dis- 
persed ; and the fugitives, escaping over the country in all directions, fled back 
to Tarentum. 52 The fleet from Sicily were obliged therefore to carry on the siege 
of Locri as well as they could, with no other help. 

This signal service rendered, Hannibal's detachment returned to his camp, 

bringing back their numerous prisoners. Frequent skirmishes took 

amies" Marceijus is place between the opposed armies ; and Hannibal was continually 

killed in an ambush. , r . . «,.-,. , , . , .,, ■', 

hoping for some opportunity ot striking a blow. A hill covered 
with copsewood rose between the two armies, and had been occupied hitherto 
by neither party ; only Hannibal's light cavalry were used to lurk amongst the 
trees at its foot, to cut off any stragglers from the enemy's camp. The consuls, 
it seems, wished to remove their camp — for the two consular armies were now 
encamped together — to this hill ; or, at any rate, to occupy it as an intrenched 
post, from which they might command the enemy's movement. But they re- 
solved to reconnoitre the ground for themselves ; and, accordingly, they rode for- 
ward with two hundred cavalry, and a few light-armed soldiers, leaving their 
troops behind in the camp, with orders to be in readiness on a signal given to 
advance and take possession of the hill. 53 The party ascended the hill without 
opposition, and rode on to the side towards the enemy, to take a view of the 
country in that direction. Meantime the Numidians, who had always one of their 
number on the lookout, to give timely notice of any thing that approached, as 
they were lurking under- the hill, were warned by their scout, that a party of 
Romans were on the heights above them. No doubt he had marked the scarlet 
war-cloaks of the generals, and the lictors who went before them, and told his 
companions of the golden prize that fortune had thrown into their hands. The 
Numidians stole along under the hill, screened by the trees, till they got round 
it, between the party on the summit and the Roman camp ; and then they charged 
up the ascent, and fell suddenly upon the astonished enemy. The whole affair 
was over in an instant : Marcellus was run through the body with a spear, and 
killed on the spot ; his son and Crispinus were desperately wounded ; the Etrus- 
can horsemen, who formed the greater part of the detachment, had no inclination 
to fight in a service which they had been forced to enter ; the Fregellans, who 
formed the remainder of it, were too few to do any thing ; all were obliged to 
ride for their lives, and to leap their horses down the broken ground on the hill- 
sides to escape to their camp. The legions in the camp saw the skirmish, but 
could not come to the rescue in time. Crispinus and the young Marcellus rode 
in covered with blood, and followed by the scattered survivors of the party ; but 
Marcellus, six times consul, the bravest and stoutest of soldiers, who had dedi- 
cated the spoils of the Gaulish king, slain by his own hand, to Jupiter Feretrius 
in the capitol, was lying dead on a nameless hill ; and his arms and body were 
Hannibal's. 54 

The Numidians, hardly believing what they had done, rode back to their camp 
The Roman *° ^P 01 ^ their extraordinary achievement. Hannibal instantly put 

treat.. Hanuibai "raises his army in motion, and occupied the fatal hill. There he found 

the body of Marcellus, which he is said to have looked at for some 
time with deep interest, but with no word of look of exultation : then he took the 
ring from the finger of the body, and ordered, as he had done before in the case 
of Flaminius and Gracchus, that it should be honorably burned, and that the 
ashes should be sent to Marcellus' son. 55 The Romans left their camp under 
cover of the night, and retreated to a position of greater security : they no longer 

H Livy, XXVII. 26. " Livy, XXVII. 27. 

M Livy, XXVII. 26. M Plutarch, Marcellus, c. 20. 



Chap. XLVL] HASDRUBAL IN" GAUL. 577 

thought of detaining Hannibal from Bruttium ; their only hope was to escape out 
of his reach. Then Hannibal flew once more to the relief of Locri : the terror 
of the approach of his Numidian cavalry drove the Romans to their ships ; all 
their costly artillery and engines were abandoned ; and the siege of Locri, no 
less disastrous to the Roman naval force than to their land army, was effectually 
raised. 56 

During the rest of the season the field was again left free to Hannibal ; and 
his destructive ravages were carried on, we may be sure, more He «, on ti nues mas ter of 
widely than even in the preceding year. The army of Marcellus Crispins' Jes" of°Tu 
lay within the walls of Venusia ; that of Crispinus retreated to yrouadB - 
Capua ;" officers having been sent by the senate to ^ake the command of each 
provisionally. Crispinus was desired to name a dictator for holding the comitia; 
and he accordingly nominated the old T. Manlius Torquatus ; soon after which 
he died of the effect of his wounds ; and the republic, for the first time on rec- 
ord, was deprived of both its consuls before the expiration of their office, by a 
violent death. 68 

The public anxiety about the choice of new consuls was quickened in the high- 
est degree by the arrival of an embassy from Massilia. The Mas- 

.,. ° J . . t t r • ii- •iT-i ii j T ' ,e Massiliana Beno. 

silians, true to their old friendship with Rome, made haste to ac- tiainga of Hasdmbai-s 
quaint their allies with the danger that was threatening them. 
Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, had suddenly appeared in the interior of Gaul ; 
he had brought a large treasure of money with him, and was raising soldiers 
busily. Two Romans were sent back to Gaul with the Massilian ambassadors 
to ascertain the exact state of affairs ; and these officers, on their return to Rome, 
informed the senate, that, through the connections of Massilia with some of the 
chiefs in the interior, they had made out that Hasdrubal had completed his levies, 
and was only waiting for the first melting of the snows to cross the Alps. The 
senate therefore must expect in the next campaign to see two sons of Hamilcar 
in Italy. 59 — 

Reserving the detail of the war in Spain for another place, I need only relate 
here as much as is necessary for understanding Hasdrubal's expe- Hi6 route out 0{ Spaini 
dition. Early in the season of 546, while the other Carthaginian aaaa ^ k Gml - 
generals were in distant parts of the peninsula, Hasdrubal had been obliged with 
his single army to give battle to Scipio at Baccula, a place in the south of Spain, 
in the upper part of the valley of the Bsetis ; and having been defeated there, had 
succeeded, nevertheless, in carrying off his elephants and money, and had retreated 
first towards the Tagus, and then towards the western Pyrenees, whither Scipio 
durst not follow him, for fear of abandoning the sea-coast to the otke? Carthagin- 
ian generals. 60 By this movement Hasdrubal masked his projects from the view 
of the Romans ; they did not know whether he had merely retired to recruit his 
army, in order to take the field against Scipio, or whether he was preparing for 
a march into Italy. 61 But even if Italy were his object, it was supposed that he 
would follow the usual route, by the eastern Pyrenees along the coast of the Med- 
iterranean; and Scipio accordingly took the precaution of securing the passes 
of the mountains in this direction, on the present road between Barcelona and 
Perpignan ; 62 perhaps also he secured those other passes more inland, leading 
from the three valleys which meet above Lerida into Languedoc, and to the streams 
which feed the Garonne. But Hasdrubal's real line of march was wholly unsus- 
pected : for passing over the ground now so famous in our own military annals, 
near the highest part of the course of the Ebro, he turned the Pyrenees at their 
western extremity, and entered Gaul by the shores of the ocean, by the Bidassoa 
and the Adour. 63 Thence striking eastward, and avoiding the neighborhood of 

66 Livy, XXVII. 28. 60 Livy, XXVII. 18, 19. Polybius, X. 38, 39. 

67 Livy, XXVII. 29. o: Polybius, X. 39, 7. Livy, XXVII. 20. 
58 Livy, XXVII. 83.' 6a Polybius, X. 40, 11. 

69 Livy, XXVII. 36. oa Livy, XXVII. 20. 

37 



57S HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLYI. 

the Mediterranean, he penetrated into the country of the Arverni ; and so would 
cross the Rhone near Lyons, and join Hannibal's route for the first time in the 
plains of Dauphine, at the very foot of the Alps. This new and remote line of 
march concealed him so long, even from the knowledge of the Massilians, and 
obliged them to seek intelligence of his movements from the chiefs of the inte- 
rior. 64 

Now then the decisive year was come, the year of the great struggle so long 
Donbt» a t Rome about delayed, but which the Carthaginians had never lost sight of, 
the choice of consols, w h en Italy was to be assailed at once from the north and from the 
south by two Carthaginian armies, led by two sons of Hamilcar. And at this 
moment Marcellus, so long the hope of Rome, was gone ; Fabius and Fulvius 
were enfeebled by age ; Lsevinus, whose services in Macedonia and Sicily had 
been so important, had offended the ruling party in the senate by his opposition 
to the appointment of Fulvius as dictator two years before ; and no important 
command would as yet be intrusted to him. In this state of things the general 
voice pronounced that the best consul who could be chosen was C. Claudius 
Nero. 65 

C. Nero came of a noble lineage, being a patrician of the Claudian house, and 
a. u. c. 547. a. c. a great-grandson of the famous censor, Appius the blind. He had 
207. c. Nero. served throughout the war, as lieutenant to Marcellus in 540 ; as 

praetor and propraetor at the siege of Capua, in 542 and 543 ; as propraetor in 
Spain in 544 ; and lastly as lieutenant of Marcellus in 545. 66 Yet it is strange 
that the only mention of him personally before his consulship which has reached 
us, is unfavorable : he is said to have shown a want of vigor when serving under 
Marcellus in 540, and a want of ability in his command in Spain. 61 But these 
stories are, perhaps, of little authority ; and if they are true, Nero must have re- 
deemed his faults by many proofs of courage and wisdom ; for his countrymen 
were not likely to choose the general rashly, who was to command them in the 
most perilous moment of the whole war ; and we know that their choice was 
amply justified by the event. 

But if Nero were one consul, who was to be his colleague ? It must be some 
one who was not a patrician, to comply with the Licinian law, and 
the now settled practice of the constitution. But there was no 
Decius livinor no Curius, no Fabricius ; and the fflorv of the o-reat house of the 
Metelli had hitherto, during the second Punic war, been somewhat in eclipse, 
bearing the shame of that ill-advised Metellus, who dared after the rout of 
Cannae to speak of abandoning Italy in despair. The brave and kindly Gracchus, 
the bold Flaminius, the unwearied and undaunted Marcellus, had all fallen in 
their country's cause. Varro was living, and had learnt wisdom by experience, 
and was serving the state well and faithfully ; but it would be of evil omen to 
send him again with the last army of the commonwealth to encounter a son of 
Hamilcar. At last men remembered a stern and sullen old man, M. Livius, who 
had been consul twelve years before, and had then done good service against the 
Illyrians, and obtained a triumph, the last which Rome had seen ; 68 but whose 
hard nature had made him generally odious, and who, having been accused be- 
fore the people of dividing the Illyrian spoil amongst his soldiers unfairly, had 
been found guilty and fined. 69 The shame and the sense of wrong had so struck 
him — for though ungracious and unjust from temper, he was above corruption — 
that for some years he lived wholly in the country ; and though he had since re- 
turned to Rome, and the last censors had obliged him to resume his place in the 
senate, yet he had never spoken there, till this very year, when the attacks made 
on his kinsman, the governor of Tarentum, had induced him to open his lips in 

M Livv, XXVII. 39. « Livy, XXIV. 17. XXVII. 14. 

86 LivV, XXVII. 84. w See above, p. 470. 

« LivV, XXIV. 17. XXV. 2, 8, 22. XXVI. CT Frontinua, IV. I. 45. 
17. XXVII. 14. 



Chap. XLVI] THE ROMAN ARMAMENT. 579 

his defence. He was misanthropical to all men, and especially at enmity with 
C. Nero : yet there were qualities in him well suited to the present need ; and 
the senators suggested to their friends, and tribesmen, and dependents, that no 
better consuls could be appointed than C. Nero and M. Livius. 10 

The people might agree to choose Livius, but would he consent to be chosen ? 
At first he refused altogether : " If he were fit to be consul, why He consents reluctantly 
had they condemned him ? if he had been justly condemned, how tobe chose11 consul; 
could he deserve to be consul ?" But the senators reproved him for this bitter- 
ness, telling him " that his country's harshness was to be borne like a parent's, 
and must be softened by patient submission." Overpowered, but not melted, he 
consented to be elected consul. 

Then the senators, and especially Q. Fabius, besought him to be reconciled to 
his colleague. " To what purpose ?" he replied : " we shall both and ts rec0QCi iea to 
serve the commonwealth the better, if we feel that an enemy's eye Nero - 
is watching for our faults and negligences." But here again the senate's authority 
prevailed ; and the consuls were publicly reconciled. 11 Yet the vindictive tem- 
per of Livius still burnt within him so fiercely, that, before he took the field, when 
Q. Fabius was urging him not to be rash in hazarding a battle, until he had well 
learnt the strength of his enemy, he replied, "that he would fight as soon as ever 
he came in sight of him ;" and when Fabius asked him why he was so impatient, 
he answered, " Because I thirst either for the glory of a victory, or for the 
pleasure of seeing the defeat of my unjust countrymen." 12 

It is worth while to remark what gigantic efforts the Romans made for this 
great campaign. One consul was to have Cisalpine Gaul for his Enormons armament of 
province, the other Lucania and Bruttium ; each with the usual the Romims - 
consular army of two legions, and an equal force of Italian allies. The army of 
the north was supported by two others of equal force ; one, commanded by L. 
Porcius, one of the praetors, was to co-operate with it in the field ; the other, 
commanded by C. Varro, was to overawe Etruria, and form a reserve. In like 
manner the consul of the army of the south had two similar armies at his dis- 
posal, besides his own ; one in Bruttium, of which old Q. Fulvius once more took 
the command, and another in the neighborhood of Tarentum. Besides these 
twelve legions, one legion occupied Capua, and two new home legions were raised 
for the immediate defence of Rome. Thus fifteen legions, containing 75,000 Ro- 
man citizens, besides an equal number of Italian allies, were in arms this year for 
the protection of Italy. In this same year the return of the whole population of 
Roman citizens of an age to bear arms according to the census, amounted only to 
137,108 ; and in addition to the forces employed in Italy, eight legions were 
serving abroad ; two in Sicily, two in Sardinia, and four in Spain. 73 

Soldiers were raised with a strictness never known before ; insomuch that even 
the maritime colonies were called upon to furnish men for the le- MeaD8 taken t0 raiM 
gions, although ordinarily exempted from this service, on the ground troops - 
that their citizens were responsible for the defence of the sea-coast in their neigh- 
borhood. Only Antium and Ostia were allowed to retain their customary exemp- 
tion ; and the men within the military age in both these colonies were obliged to 
swear that they would not sleep out of their cities more than thirty nights, so long 
as the enemy should be in Italy. The slaves also were again invited to enlist ; 
and two legions were composed out of them ; and after all, so perilous was the 
aspect of affairs in the north from the known disaffection of Etruria, and even of 
Umbria, that P. Scipio is said to have draughted 10,000 foot and 1000 horse 
from the forces of his province, and sent them by sea to reinforce the army of the 
north ; while the praetor commanding in Sicily sent 4000 archers and slingers for 

70 Livy. XXVII. 34. 72 Livy, XXVII. 40. Valerius Maximus, IX, 

71 LivyJ XXVII. 35. Valerius Maximus, IV. 3, 1. 

2, 2. VII. 2, 6. 73 Livy, XXVII. 36. 



580 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVI. 

the army of the south. The lot decided that M. Livius "was to be opposed to 
Hasdrubal, C. Nero to Hannibal. 74 

Meantime Hasdrubal had begun his march from the plains between the Rhone 
and the Isere, and proceeded to cross the Alps by the route for- 
Ai%,™nd advances up! merly followed by his brother. It is said that he found the ob- 
stacles of all kinds, both those presented by nature, and those 
offered by the hostility of the inhabitants, far less than had been experienced by 
Hannibal. The inhabitants were now aware that the stranger army meant them 
no ill ; that it was merely passing through their valleys on its way to a distant 
land, to encounter its enemies there. Nay, it is added that traces of Hannibal's 
engineering were still in existence, that the roads which he had built up along the 
steep mountain-sides, and the bridges which he had thrown over the torrents, and 
the cuttings which he had made through the rocks, after having been exposed for 
eleven years to the fury of the avalanches, and the chafing of the swollen streams, 
were even now serviceable to Hasdrubal. At any rate, Hasdrubal appeared in 
Italy sooner than either friend or foe had expected him ; 15 and having issued from 
the Alpine valleys, and crossed the Po, he descended along its right bank, and 
sat down before the Latin colony of Placentia. But the colony was one of the 
faithful eighteen, and did not forget its duty. It closed its gates ; and Hasdrubal 
had no artillery to batter down its walls ; he only lay before it therefore long 
enough for the Cisalpine Gauls and Ligurians to join him, and then pressed for- 
ward on his march by the line of the later JEmilian road, towards Ariminum and the 
shores of the Adriatic. The praetor L. Porcius retreated before him ; and Has- 
drubal sent off four Gaulish horsemen and two Numidians to his brother, to an- 
nounce his approach, and to propose that they should unite their two armies in 
Umbria, and from thence advance by the Flaminian road straight upon Rome. 16 
Livius had by this time arrived on the scene of action, and had effected his junc- 
tion with L. Porcius ; yet their combined forces were unable to maintain their 
ground on the frontier of Italy ; Ariminum was abandoned to its fate ; they fell 
back behind the Metaurus ; and still keeping the coast road, — for the later branch 
of the Flaminian road, which ascends the valley of the Metaurus, was not yet 
constructed, — they encamped about fourteen miles further to the south, under 
the walls of the maritime colony of Sena." 

On the other side of Italy, C. Nero, availing himself of the full powers with 
Nero encamps at venu- which the consuls were invested for this campaign, had incorpo- 
8ia- rated the two legions, which Q. Fulvius was to have commanded in 

Bruttium, with his own army, leaving Fulvius at the head of a small army of re- 
serve at Capua. With an army thus amounting to 40,000 foot and 2500 horse, 
Nero fixed his head-quarters at Venusia; his object being by all means to occupy 
Hannibal, and to hinder him from moving northwards to join his brother. 18 

At no part of the history of this war do we more feel the \*ant of a good mili- 
Difflcuities in the his. tary historian, than at the opening of this memorable campaign. 
tory of this campaign. What we have j Q Li V y j g absolutely worthless ; it is so vague, as 
well as so falsified, that the truth from which it has been corrupted can scarcely 
be discovered. We are told that Hannibal moved later from his winter-quarters 
than he might have done, because he thought that his brother could not arrive in 
Cisalpine Gaul so early as he actually did ; and we are told that he received in- 
formation of his having reached Placentia. 19 Yet, after having heard this, he 
wastes much time in moving about in the south, first into Lucania, then to Apulia, 
thence falling back into Bruttium, and finally advancing again into Apulia, and 
there remaining idle, till the fatal blow had been struck in the north. It is add- 
ed, that in the course of these movements he was several times engaged with the 



o o 



Livy, XXVII. 88. " Apphm, VI T. 52. 

Livy, XXVII. 39. Appian, VII. 52. ™ Liw, XXVII. 40. 

Livy, XXVII. 48. ™ LivV, XXVII. 89. 



Chap. XLVL] . NERO'S MARCH. 581 

Romans, and lost nearly 15,000 men, killed or taken. 80 Putting aside these ab- 
surdities, in which we cannot but recognize the perversions of Valerius Antias, or 
some annalist equally untrustworthy, we must endeavor as far as possible to con- 
jecture the outline of the real story. 

"With 40,000 men under an active general opposed to him in the field, and with 
20,000 more in his rear in the neighborhood of Tarentum, Hannibal . 

. _° . i-i-i- •• Hannibal's movements. 

could only act on the offensive by gathering all his remaining gar- 
risons into one mass, and by raising additional soldiers, if it were possible, amongst 
the allies who yet adhered to him. This was to be accomplished in the face of a 
superior enemy, and, as Hasdrubal was already arrived on the Po, without loss 
of time. It was for this object apparently that he entered Lucania, to raise sol- 
diers amongst his old partisans there ; with this view he crossed back into Apulia, 
and then moved into Bruttium to join the new Bruttian levies,, which had been 
collected by Hanno, the governor of Metapontum. All this he effected, baffling 
the pursuit of Nero, or beating off his attacks ; and having amassed a force suffi- 
cient for his purpose, he again turned northwards, re-entered Apulia, advanced, 
followed closely by Nero, to his old quarters near Canusium, and there halted. 81 
Whether he was busy in collecting corn for his further advance, or whether he 
was waiting for more precise intelligence from his brother, we know not ; but we 
do not find that he moved his army beyond Canusium. , 

Admitting, however, that Hannibal was aware of Hasdrubal's arrival before 
Placentia, we can understand why his own movements could not He walt9 for tidinga 
but be suspended, after he had collected all his disposable force *"**»***"• 
together, till he should receive a fresh communication from his brother. For from 
Placentia Hasdrubal had a choice of roads before him ; and it was impossible for 
Hannibal to know beforehand which he might take. But on this knowledge his 
own plans were to depend ; if Hasdrubal crossed the Apennines into Etruria, in 
order to rally the disaffected Etruscans around him, Hannibal might then ad- 
vance into Samnium and Campania : if, on the other hand, Hasdrubal were to 
move eastward towards the Adriatic, thinking it desirable that the two armies 
should act together, then Hannibal also would keep near the coast, and retracing 
the line of his own advance after the battle of Thrasymenus, would be ready to 
meet his brother in Picenum, or in Umbria. And it was in order to determine 
Hannibal's movements, that Hasdrubal, when he left Placentia, sent off the six 
horsemen, as has been already mentioned, to say that he was marching upon Ari- 
minum, instead of upon Etruria, and that the two brothers were to effect their 
junction in Umbria. 

With marvellous skill and good fortune Hasdrubal's horsemen made their way 
through the whole length of Italy. But Hannibal's rapid move- H asd.ubaPs messen- 
ment into Bruttium disconcerted them ; they attempted to follow Ss.Tnd'brought'to 
him thither ; but mistaking their way, and getting too near to Ta- Ne1 ' 0, # 

rentum, they fell in with some foragers of the army of Q. Claudius, and were 
made prisoners. The prsetor instantly sent them under a strong escort to Nero. 
They were the bearers of a letter from Hasdrubal to his brother, containing the 
whole plan of their future operations ; it was written, not in cipher, but in the 
common Carthaginian language and character ; and the interpreter read its con- 
tents in Latin to the consul. 82 

Nero took his resolution on the instant. He dispatched the letter to the senate, 
ursine: the immediate recall of Fulvius with his army from Capua 

■-' ° -. ,, . _ , nil x , Nero leaves bis camp, 

to Rome, the calling out every Roman who could bear arms, and 
the marching forward the two home legions to Narnia, to defend that narrow 
gorge of the Flaminian road against the invader. At the same time he told the 
senate what he was going to do himself. He picked out 7000 men, of whom 
1000 were horse, the flower of his whole army; he ordered them to hold them- 

80 Livy, XXVII. 41, 42. 81 Livy, XXVII. 42. *> Livy, XXVII. 43. 



582 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVL 

selves in readiness for a secret expedition into Lucania, to surprise one of Hanni- 
bal's garrisons ; and as soon as it was dark, he put himself at their head, leaving 
his lieutenant, Q. Catius, in the command of the main army, and began his 
march. 83 

His march was not towards Lucania. Already before he left his camp had 
and marches to joia he sent forward horsemen on the road leading to Picenum and 
LiTiD8 - Umbria, with the consul's orders, that all the provisions of the 

country should be brought down to the road-side, that all horses and draught 
cattle should be led thither also, and carriages for the transport of the weak and 
wearied soldiers. Life and death were upon his speed, the life and death of his 
country. His march was towards the camp of his colleague, before Sena ; his 
hope was to crush Hasdrubal with their combined and overwhelming forces, 
whilst Hannibal, waiting for that letter which he would never receive, should re- 
main still in Apulia. 

When Nero had reached a sufficient distance from Hannibal, he disclosed the 
secret of his expedition to his soldiers. They felt the glory of their 
mission, and shared the spirit of their leader. Nor was it a little 
thing to witness the universal enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed their 
march. Men and women, the whole population of the country, crowded to the 
road-side ; meat, drink, clothing, horses, carriages, were pressed upon the soldiers ; 
and happy was the man from whom they would accept them. Every tongue 
blessed them as deliverers ; incense rose on hastily built altars, where the people, 
kneeling as the army passed, poured forth prayers and vows to the gods for their 
safe and victorious return. The soldiers would scarcely receive what was offered 
to them : they would not halt ; they ate standing in their ranks ; night and day 
they hastened onwards, scarcely allowing themselves a brief interval of rest. 84 In 
six or seven days the march was accomplished : Livius had been forewarned of 
his colleague's approach ; and, according to his wish, Nero entered the camp by 
night, concealing his arrival from Hasdrubal no less successfully than he had 
hidden his departure from Hannibal. 85 

The new-comers were to be received into the tents of Livius' soldiers ; for any 
Theydetermine to fight enlargement of the camp would have betrayed the secret ; and 
without delay. t k e y were more than seven thousand men: for their numbers had 

been swelled on their march ; veterans who had retired from war, and youths too 
young to be enlisted, having pressed Nero to let them share in his enterprise. A 
council was held the next morning ; and though Livius and L. Porcius, the prae- 
tor, urged Nero to allow his men some rest before he led them to battle, he 
pleaded so strongly the importance of not losing a single day, lest Hannibal 
should be upon their rear, that it was agreed to fight immediately. The red 
ensign was hoisted as soon as the council broke up ; and the soldiers marched 
out and formed in order of battle. 86 

The enemy, whose camp, according to the system of ancient warfare, was only 
half a mile distant from that of the Romans, marched out and 
formed in line to meet them. But as Hasdrubal rode forward to 
reconnoitre the Roman army, their increased numbers struck him ; and other cir- 
cumstances, it is said, having increased his suspicions, he led back his men into 
their camp, and sent out some horsemen to collect information. The Romans 
then returned to their own camp ; and Hasdrubal's horsemen rode round it at a 
distance to see if it were larger than usual, or in the hope of picking up some 
stragglers. One thing alone, it is said, revealed the secret: the trumpet which 
gave the signal for the several duties of the day, was heard to sound as usual 
once in the camp of the praetor, but twice in that of Livius. This, we are told, 
satisfied Hasdrubal that both the consuls were before him ; unable to understand 

" Livy, XXVII. 43. » Livv, XXVII. 46. 

84 Liv*y, XXVII. 45. M Livj-, XXVII. 46. 



Chap. XL VI.] HASDRUBAL IS OVERTAKEN. 593 

how Nero had escaped from Hannibal, and, dreading the worst, he resolved to 
retire to a greater distance from the enemy ; and having put out all his fires, 
he set his army in motion as soon as night fell, and retreated towards the Me- 
taurus. 87 

Whose narrative Livy has followed here, we cannot tell ; it is not that of Po- 
lybius, except in part ; and some points speak ill for the credibility al0Dg the banka of the 
of its author. According to this account, Hasdrubal marched back Metaurus - 
fourteen miles to the Metaurus : but his guides deserted him and escaped unob- 
served in the darkness, so that, when the army reached the Metaurus, they could 
not find the fords, and began to ascend the right bank of the river, in the hope 
of passing it easily when daylight came, and they should be arrived at a higher 
part of its course. But the windings of the river, it is said, delayed him : as he 
ascended further from the sea, he found the banks steeper and higher ; and no 
ford was to be gained. 88 

The Metaurus, in the last twenty miles of its course, flows through a wide 
valley or plain, the ground rising into heights rather than hills, DeBCription of t]l9 
while the mountains from which it has issued ascend far off in the courseoltbe Metaurus. 
distance, and bound the low country near the sea with a gigantic wall. But, as 
is frequently the case in northern Italy, the bed of the river is like a valley within 
a valley, being sunk down between steep cliffs, at a level much below the ordi- 
nary surface of the country ; which yet would be supposed to be the bottom of 
the plain by those who looked only at the general landscape, and did not observe 
the kind of trough in which the river was winding beneath them. Yet this lower 
valley is of considerable width ; and the river winds about in it from one side to 
the other, at times running just under its high banks, at other times leaving a 
large interval of plain between it and the boundary. The whole country, both 
in the lower valley and in the plain above, is now varied with all sorts of culti- 
vation, with scattered houses and villages, and trees ; an open, joyous, and hab- 
itable region, as can be found in Italy. But when Hasdrubal was retreating 
through it, the dark masses of uncleared wood still, no doubt, in many parts cov- 
ered the face of the higher plain, overhanging the very cliffs of the lower valley ; 
and the river below, not to be judged of by its present scanty and loitering 
stream, ran like the rivers of a half-cleared country, with a deep and strong body 
of waters. 

These steep cliffs would, no doubt, present a serious obstacle to an army wish- 
ing to descend to the edge of the river ; and if their summits were The Romans overtake 
covered with wood, they would at once intercept the view, and Hasdrubal > 
make the march more difficult. Thus Hasdrubal was overtaken by the Romans, 
and obliged to fight. It is clear from Polybius that he had encamped for the 
night after his wearisome march ; and retreat being fatal to the discipline of bar- 
barians, the Gauls became unmanageable, and indulged so freely in drinking, 
that, when morning dawned, many of them were lying drunk in their quarters, 
utterly unable to move. 89 And now the Roman army was seen advancing in 
order of battle ; and Hasdrubal, finding it impossible to continue his retreat, 
marched out of his camp to meet them. 90 

No credible authority tells us what was the amount of his army : that the 
Roman writers extravagantly magnified it, is certain; and that wh0llrawBupllisarmy 
he was enormously outnumbered by his enemy is no less so. Po- forbattle - 
lybius 91 says, that he deepened his lines, diminishing their width, and drawing up 
his whole force in a narrow space, with his ten elephants in front. We hear 
nothing of his cavalry, the force with which his brother had mainly won his vic- 
tories ; and he had probably brought scarcely any African horse from Spain : 
what Gaulish horsemen had joined him since he had crossed the Alps, we know 

87 Livy, XXVII. 47. 9 ° Livy, XXVII. 48. 

88 Livy, XXVII. 47. « Polybius, XL 1. 

89 Polybius, XL 3. 



584 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVI 

not. His Gaulish infantry, as many as were fit for action, were stationed on his 
left, in a position naturally so strong as to be unassailable in front ; and its flank 
would probably be covered by the river. He himself took part with his Spanish 
infantry, and attacked the left wing of the Roman army, which was commanded 
by Livius. Nero was on the Roman right, the praetor in the centre. 92 

Between Hasdrubal and Livius the battle was long and obstinately disputed, 
He i 8 bleated and the elephants being, according to Polybius, an equal aid, or rather 
aam ' an equal hindrance, to both parties ; 93 for, galled by the missiles 

of the Romans, they broke sometimes into their own ranks, as well as into those 
of the enemy. Meanwhile Nero, seeing that he could make no progress on his 
front, drew off his troops out of the line, and passing round on the rear of the 
praetor and of Livius, fell upon the right flank and the rear of the enemy. Then 
the fate of the day was decided ; and the Spaniards, outnumbered and surrounded, 
were cut to pieces in their ranks, resisting to the last. Then too, when all was 
lost, Hasdrubal spurred his horse into the midst of a Roman cohort, and there 
fell sword in hand, fighting, says Livy with honorable sympathy, as became the 
son of Hamilcar and brother of Hannibal. 94 

The conquerors immediately stormed the Carthaginian camp, and there slaugh- 
tered many of the Gauls, whom they found still lying asleep in 
the helplessness of brute intoxication. 95 The spoil of the camp was 
rich, amounting in value to 300 talents : of the elephants, six were killed in the 
action ; the other four were taken alive. All the Carthaginian citizens who had 
followed Hasdrubal were either killed or taken ; and 3000 Roman prisoners were 
found in the camp, and restored to liberty. The loss of men on both sides was 
swelled prodigiously by the Roman writers, ambitious, it seems, of making the 
victory an exact compensation for the defeat of Cannae ; but Polybius 96 states it 
at 10,000 men on the side of the vanquished, and 2000 on that of the Romans ; 
a decisive proof that Hasdrubal's army actually engaged cannot have been numer- 
ous, for of those in the field few can have escaped. But the amount of the slain 
mattered little ; Hasdrubal's army was destroyed, and he himself had perished ; 
and Hannibal was left to fight out the war with his single army, which, how- 
ever unconquerable, could not conquer Italy. 

Polybius 91 praises the heroic spirit of Hasdrubal, saying that he knew when it 
value of Hasdnibai'i was ti me f° r him to die ; that, having be^n careful of his life, so 
m ~ long as there was any hope of accomplishing his grand enterprise, 

when all was lost, he gave his country, what Pericles calls the greatest and no- 
blest gift of a true citizen, the sacrifice of his own life. And doubtless none can 
blame the spirit of self-devotion to the highest known duty : Hasdrubal was true 
to his country in his death as in his life. Yet the life of a son of Hamilcar was 
to Carthage of a value beyond all estimate : Hasdrubal's death outweighed the 
loss of many armies; and had he deigned to survive his defeat, he might again 
have served his country, not only in peace as Hannibal did after his defeat at 
Zama, but as the leader of a fresh army of Gauls and Ligurians, of Etruscans and 
Umbrians, co-operating with his brother in marching upon Rome. 

With no less haste than he had marched from Apulia, Nero hastened back thi- 
„ _ . ther to rejoin his army. All was quiet there : Hannibal still lay 

Hannibal receives in- ... . J . . /» • it r tt ill tt 

wiigence or hi* broth- in Ins camp, waiting for intelligence from Hasdrubal. He received 

er'fl death. > i o O 

it too soon ; not from Hasdrubal, but from Nero : the Carthaginian 
prisoners were exhibited exultingly before his camp ; two of them were set at 
liberty, and sent to tell him the story of their defeat; and a head was thrown 
down in scorn before his outposts, if his soldiers might know whose it was. They 
took it up, and brought to Hannibal the head of his brother. 93 He had not 

82 Livy, XXVII. 48. "" XI. 3. 

M XL 1. m XI. 2. 

94 Livy, XXVII. 49. Polybius, XL 2. 9B Livy, XXVII. 51. 

* Tolybius, XL 3. 



Chap. XLVI] ANXIETY AND JOY AT ROME. 585 

dealt so with the remains of the Roman generals : but of this Nero recked noth- 
ing ; as indifferent to justice and humanity in his dealings with an enemy, as his 
imperial descendants showed themselves towards Rome, and all mankind. 

Meanwhile, from the moment that Nero's march from the south had been 
heard of at Rome, intense anxiety possessed the whole city. A nxiot y and joy at 
Every day the senate sat from sunrise to sunset ;• and not a sena- Rome - 
tor was absent : every day the Forum was crowded from morning till evening, as 
each hour might bring some great tidings ; and every man wished to be among 
the first to hear them. A doubtful rumor arose, that a great battle had been 
fought, and a great victory won only two days before : two horsemen of Narnia 
had ridden off from the field to carry the news to their home ; it had been heard 
and published in the camp of the reserve army, which was lying at Narnia to 
cover the approach to Rome. But men dared not lightly believe Avhat they so 
much wished to be true ; and how, they said, could a battle fought in the ex- 
tremity of Umbria be heard of only two days after at Rome ? Soon, howev er, it 
was known that a letter had arrived from L. Manlius Acidinus himself, who com- 
manded the army at Narnia : the horsemen had certainly arrived there from the 
field of battle, and brought tidings of a glorious victory. The letter was read first 
in the senate, and then in the Forum from the rostra : but some still refused 
to believe : fugitives from a battle-field might carry idle tales of victory to hide 
their own shame : till the account came directly from the consuls it was rash to 
credit it." At last word was brought that officers of high rank in the consuls' 
army were on their way to Rome ; that they bore a dispatch from Livius and Nero. 
Then the whole city poured out of the walls to meet them, eager to anticipate 
the moment which was to confirm all their hopes. For two miles, as far as the 
Milvian bridge over the Tiber, the crowd formed an uninterrupted mass ; and 
when the officers appeared, they could scarcely make their way to the city, the 
multitude thronging around them, and overwhelming them and their attendants 
with eager questions. As each man" learnt the joyful answers, he made haste to 
tell them to others : " The enemy's army is destroyed ; their general slain ; our 
own legions and both the consuls are safe." So the crowd re-entered the city; 
and the three officers, all men of noble names, L. Veturius Philo, P. Licinius 
Varus, and Q. Metellus, still followed by the thronging multitude, at last reached 
the senate-house. The people pressed after them into the senate-house itself: 
but even at such a moment the senate forgot not its accustomed order ; the 
crowd was forced back ; and the consuls' dispatch was first read to the senators 
alone. Immediately afterwards the officers came out into the Forum ; there L. 
Veturius again read the dispatch ; and as its contents were short, and it told 
only the general result of the battle, he himself related the particulars of what 
he had seen and done. The interest of his hearers grew more intense with every 
word, till at last the whole multitude broke out into a universal cheer, and then 
rushed from the Forum in all directions to carry the news to their wives and chil- 
dren at home, or ran to the temples to pour out their gratitude to the gods. The 
senate ordered a thanksgiving of three days ; the prsetor announced it in the Fo- 
rum ; and for three days every temple was crowded ; and the Roman wives and 
mothers, in their gayest dresses, took their children with them, and poured forth 
their thanks to all the gods for this great deliverance. It was like the burst of 
all nature, when a long frost suddenly breaks up, and the snow melts, and the 
ground resumes its natural coloring, and the streams flow freely. The Roman 
people seemed at last to breathe and move at liberty ; confidence revived ; and with 
it the ordinary business of life regained its activity : he who wanted money found 
that men were not afraid to lend it ; what had been hoarded came out into cir- 
culation ; land might be bought without the dread that the purchase would be 
rendered worthless by Hannibal's ravages ; and in the joy and confidence of the 

99 Livy, XXVII. 50. 



586 - HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

moment, men almost forgot that their great enemy with his unbroken army was 
still in Italy. 100 

At the end of the year both consuls returned to Rome, and triumphed. Many 
years had passed since this spectacle had been exhibited in its full 
tnnmp . g0 ] emn j£y . f or Marcellus had only obtained the smaller triumph, 
or ovation, in which the general passed through the streets on foot. But now the 
kingly chariot once more carried a Roman consul in the pomp of kingly state up 
to the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter ; and the streets once more resounded 
with the shouts and rude jests of the victorious soldiers, as they moved in long 
array after their general. The spoil of Hasdrubal's camp was large ; each sol- 
dier received a donation of three denarii and a half ; and three millions of sester- 
ces in silver, besides 80,000 pounds of the old Italian copper money, were carried 
into the treasury. Nero rode on horseback by the side of his colleague's chariot ; 
a distinction made between them, partly because Livius had happened to have 
the command on the day of the battle, and partly because Nero had come with- 
out his army ; his province still requiring its usual force, as Hannibal was there. 
But the favor of the multitude, if we can trust the writers under Augustus, when 
they speak of his adopted son's ancestor, amply compensated to Nero for this 
formal inferiority : they said that he was the real conqueror of Hasdrubal, while 
his name, even in absence, had overawed Hannibal. 10 ' One thing, however, is re- 
markable, that Nero was never employed again in a military command : we only 
hear of him after his consulship as censor. Fabius and Fulvius and Marcellus had 
been sent out year after year against Hannibal ; whilst the man whose military 
genius eclipsed all the Roman generals hitherto engaged in Italy, was never op- 
posed to him again. Men's eyes were turned in another direction ; and the con- 
queror of the Metaurus was less regarded than a young man whose career of 
success had been as brilliant as it was uninterrupted, and who was now almost 
entitled to the name of conqueror of all Spain. It is time that we should trace 
the events of the war in the west, and describe the dawn of the glory of Scipio. 



CHAPTER XLVIL 

P. CORNELIUS SCIPIO— HIS OPERATIONS IN SPAIN— SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF 
NEW CARTHAGE— BATTLE OF B^ECULA— THE CARTHAGINIANS EV ACHATE 
THE SPANISH PENINSULA— SCIPIO RETURNS TO ROME, AND IS ELECTED 
CONSUL.— A. U. C. 543 TO A. U. C. 548. 

Three generations of Scipios have already been distinguished in Roman his- 
tory : L. Scipio Barbatus. who was actively engaged in the third 

FsnJy of the Scipios. n •. t « • ■ 1 ■ 1 1 l • <.!. a i 

Samnite war; L. Scipio, his son, who was consul early m t lie nrst 
Punic war, and obtained a triumph ; and Publius and Cnosus Scipio, the sons of 
L. Scipio, who served their country ably in Spain in the second Punic war, and, 
as we have seen, were at last cut off there by the enemy towards the end of the 
siege of Capua. Publius Scipio, who was killed in Spain, left two sons behind 
him, Lucius and Publius : of these, Lucius, the elder, became afterwards the 
conqueror of king Antiochus ; Publius, the younger, was the famous Scipio 
Africanus. 

Athens abounded in writers at the time of the Peloponnesian war ; but, had 

100 Livy, XXVII. 51. 101 Livy, XXIX. 37. 



Chap. XLVIL] SCIPIO'S CHARACTER. 587 

not Thucvdides been one of them, how hard would it be rightly contradictory accounts 
to estimate the characters of the eminent men of that period ! And of Scipi0 ' 8 character - 
even Thucydides seems in one instance to have partaken of the common weak- 
nesses of humanity : his personal gratitude and respect for Antiphon has colored, 
not indeed his statement of his actions, but his general estimate of his worth : he 
attributes an over-measure of virtue to the conspirator, who scrupled not to use 
assassination as a means of overthrowing the liberty and independence of his 
country. But Polybius, whose knowledge of Rome was that of a foreigner, and 
for a long time of a prisoner, could not be to Roman history what Thucydides is 
to that of Greece, even if in natural powers he had approached more nearly to him ; 
and all his accounts of the Scipios are affecte_d by his intimacy with the younger 
Africanus, and are derived from partial sources, the anecdotes told by the elder 
Lselius, or the funeral orations and traditions of the family. On the other hand, 
there was a large party in Rome to whom Scipio was personally and politically 
obnoxious, and their writers would naturally circulate stories unfavorable to him. 
Hence, the accounts of his early life and character are varying, and sometimes 
contradictory ; and points, apparently the most notorious, are stated very differ- 
ently, so that we know not what to believe. His friend and companion, Lselius, 
told Polybius, 1 that in his first battle, when only seventeen, he saved his father's 
life ; but Ccelius Antipater said that this was a false pretension ; that the consul, 
P. Scipio, was saved, not by his son, but by the fidelity of a Ligurian slave. 2 By 
his friends again Scipio is represented as one who, amid all temptations of youth 
and power, maintained the complete mastery over his passions : 3 while his ene- 
mies said that his -youth was utterly dissolute ; and that the famous story of his 
noble treatment of the Spanish captive maiden was invented to veil conduct which 
had really been of the very opposite nature. 4 His common admirers extolled 
his singular devotion to the gods : he delighted, it was said, to learn their pleas- 
ure, and to be guided by their counsel ; nor would he ever engage in any im- 
portant matter, public or private, till he had first gone up to the capitol, and en- 
tered the temple of Jupiter, and there sat for a time alone, as it seemed, in the 
presence of the god, and doubtless enjoying unwonted communications from his 
divine wisdom. 5 But Polybius, by temper and by circumstances a rationalist, is 
at great pains to assure his readers, that Scipio owed no part of his greatness to 
the gods, and that his true oracle was the clear judgment of his own mind. 6 Ac- 
cording to him Scipio did but impose upon and laugh at the credulity of the vul- 
gar ; speaking of the favor shown him by the gods, while he knew the gods to 
be nothing. Livy, with a truer feeling, which taught him that a hero cannot be 
a hypocrite, suggests a doubt, though timidly, as if in fear of the skepticism of 
his age, whether the great Scipio was not really touched by some feelings of 
superstition, 7 whether he did not in some degree speak what he himself believed. 
A mind like Scipio's, working its way under the peculiar influences of his time 
and country, cannot but move irregularly ; it cannot but be full of 
contradictions. Two hundred years later, the mind of the dicta- 
tor Ccesar acquiesced contentedly in Epicureanism : he retained no more of en- 
thusiasm than was inseparable from the intensity of his intellectual power, and 
the fervor of his courage, even amidst his utter moral degradation. But Scipio 
could not be like Caesar. His mind rose above the state of things around him ; 
his spirit was solitary and kingly ; he was cramped by living among those as his 
equals, whom he felt fitted to guide as from some higher sphere ; and he retired 
at last to Liternum to breathe freely, 8 to enjoy the simplicity of childhood, since 

1 X. 3. 6 Polybius, X. 2, 5, 7. 

2 Livy XXI. 46. 7 XXVI. 19. Sive et ipse capti quadam su- 

3 Polybius, X. 18, 19. Livy, XXVI. 49, 50. perstitione animi. 

4 Cn. Nasvius and Valerius Antias, quoted by 8 Livy, XXXVIII. 52, 53. Valerius Maximus, 
A. Gellius, VI. 8. V. 3, 2. 

6 Polybius, X. 2, 5, 11. Livy, XXVI. 19. 



588 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chaf. XLVII. 

he could not fulfil his natural calling to be a hero king. So far he stood apart 
from his countrymen, admired, reverenced, but not loved. But he could not shake 
off all the influences of his time ; the virtue, public and private, which still existed 
at Rome, the reverence paid by the wisest and best men to the religion of their 
fathers, were elements too congenial to his nature not to retain their hold on it ; 
they cherished that nobleness of soul in him, and that faith in the invisible and 
divine, which two centuries of growing unbelief rendered almost impossible in the 
days of Caesar. Yet how strange must the conflict be, when faith is combined 
with the highest intellectual power, and its appointed object is no better than 
paganism ! Longing to believe, yet repelled by palpable falsehood, crossed in- 
evitably with snatches of unbelief, in which hypocrisy is ever close at the door, 
it breaks out desperately, as it may seem, into the region of dreams and visions, 
and mysterious communings with the invisible, as if longing to find that food in 
its own creations, which no outward objective truth offers to it. The proportions 
of belief and unbelief in the human mind in such cases, no human judgment can 
determine : they are the wonders of history ; characters inevitably misrepresented 
by the vulgar, and viewed even by those who in some sense have the key to them 
as a mystery, not fully to be comprehended, and still less explained to others. 
The genius which conceived the incomprehensible character of Hamlet, would 
alone be able to describe with intuitive truth the character of Scipio or of Crom- 
well. 

In both these great men, the enthusiastic element which clearly existed in them, 
did but inspire a resistless energy into their actions, while it in no 

Its effect on his life. . . » _ i i i i i 

way interfered with the calmest and keenest judgment in the 
choice of their means : nor in the case of Scipio did it suggest any other end of 
life, than such as was appreciated by ordinary human views of good. "Where 
religion contained no revelation of new truth, it naturally left men's estimate of 
the end of their being exactly what it had been before, and only furnished en- 
couragement to the pursuit of it. It so far bore the character of magic, that it 
applied superhuman power to the furtherance of human purposes : the gods aided 
man's work ; they did not teach and enable him to do theirs. 

The charge of early dissoluteness brought against Scipio by his enemies is likely 

to have been exaggerated, like the stories of our Henry Y. Yet 

Charge againstliini. , - ^° 1 , . . r n " r ii 

the sternest and firmest manhood has sometimes followed a youth 
marked with many excesses of passion ; and what was considered an unbecom- 
ing interruption to the cares of public business, was held to be in itself nothing 
blamable. That sanction of inherited custom, which at Rome at this period 
was the best safeguard of youthful purity, Scipio was not inclined implicitly to 
regard. 

With all his greatness there was a waywardness in him, which seems often to 

accompany genius ; a self-idolatry, natural enough where there 

Comparison between . ' « ° . . ^ , _ . _ S i/> 

. r and Han- is so keen a consciousness of power and of lofty designs ; a self- 
dependence, which feels even the most sacred external relations 
to be unessential to its own perfection. Such is the Achilles of Homer, the highest 
conception of the individual hero, relying on himself, and sufficient to himself. 
Bui the same poet who conceived the character of Achilles, has also drawn that 
of Hector; of the truly noble, because unselfish hero, who subdues his genius to 
make it minister to the good of others, who lives for his relations, his friends, and 
his country. And as Scipio lived in himself and for himself, like Achilles, so the 
virtue of Hector was worthily represented in the life of his great rival Hannibal, 
who, from his childhood to his latest hour, in war and in peace, through glory 
and through obloquy, amid victories and amid disappointments, ever remembered 
to what purpose his father had devoted him, and withdrew no thought or desire 
or deed from their pledged service to his country. 

Scipio had fought at Cannse, and, after the battle, had been forward, it was 
said, in putting down that dangerous spirit, which showed itself among some of 



Chap. XLVIL] WAR IN SPAIN. 589 



His first offices. 



high birth and name, when they were purposing to abandon Italy 
in despair, and seek their fortune in Greece, or Egypt, or Asia. 9 
His early manhood had attracted the favor of the people ; and although the de- 
tails are variously given, it is certain that he was made curule sedile at an early 
age, and with strong marks of the general good-will. 10 But he had 

o ' O o o , -.A. U.C 543. 

filled no higher office than the sedileship, when his father and uncle 
were killed in Spain, and when C. Nero, after the fall of Capua, was sent out as 
propraetor to command the wreck of their army, and joining it to the force which 
he brought from Italy, to maintain the almost desperate cause of the Roman 
arms in the west. 

He held his ground, and even ventured, if we may believe a story overrun with 
improbabilities, to act on the offensive, and to penetrate into the A . p . c . m . A . c . 
south of Spain, as far as the Baetis. 11 The faults of the Cartha- *&*?£*£ o S f P fhe 
ginian generals were ruining their cause, and vexing the spirit of ScllJ "" s - 
Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, who alone knew the value of the present oppor- 
tunity, and was eager to make use cf it. But the other Hasdrubal and Mago 
thought their work was done, and were nly anxious to enrich themselves out of 
the plunder of Spain. They disgusted the Spanish chiefs by their insolence and 
rapacity, while they were jealous of each other, and both, as was natural, hated 
and dreaded the son of Hamilcar. 12 Accordingly, all concert between the Car- 
thaginian generals was at an end ; they engaged in separate enterprises in differ- 
ent parts of the country : Hasdrubal, the son of Cisco, and Mago, moved off to 
the extreme west of the peninsula, to subdue and plunder the remoter Spanish 
tribes ; and only Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, remained to oppose the Ro- 
mans. Nero, therefore, whether he acted on the offensive or no, was certainly 
unassailed behind the Iberus ; and at the end of the year 544, eighteen months 
at least after the defeat of the Scipios, the Roman arms had met with no fresh 
disaster ; and the coast of the Mediterranean between the Pyrenees and the Ibe- 
rus still acknowledged the Roman dominion. 

It was at this period that the government resolved to increase its efforts in 
Spain, to employ a larger army there, and to place it under the A .u.c. 545. A.c.209. 
command of an officer of higher rank than Nero, who was only J^*Z£T£$£moll 
propraetor. It was probable that Hasdrubal's expedition to Italy vigor - 
was now* seriously meditated, and that the Romans, being aware of this, were 
anxious to detain him in Spain ; but, even without this special object, the im- 
portance of the Spanish war was evident ; and it was not wise to leave the Roman 
cause in Spain it its present precarious state, in which it was preserved only by 
the divisions and want of ability of the enemy's generals. Accordingly, the tribes 
were to meet to appoint a proconsul, who should carry out reinforcements to 
Spain, and, with a propraetor acting under him, take the supreme command of 
the Roman forces in that country. 

To the surprise of the whole people, P. Scipio, then only in his twenty-seventh 
year, and who had filled no hio-her office than that of curule fedile, . . . 

• „ , t 1 |,° -r . -11111 i - Scipio is elected pro- 

came forward as a candidate. It is said that he had no competi- consul for the Spanish 
tors, all men being deterred from undertaking a service which 
seemed so unpromising ; whereas Scipio himself had formed a truer judgment of 
the state of affairs in Spain, and felt that they might be restored, and that he 
himself was capable of restoring them. He expressed his confidence strongly in 
all his addresses to the people ; and there was that in him which distinguished 
his boldness from a young man's idle boastings, and communicated his hope to 
his hearers. 14 At the same age, and nearly under the same circumstances, in 
which Napoleon was appointed in 1796 to take the command of the French army 

9 Livy, XXII. 53. See above, p. 502. B Polybius, IX. 11. X. 36. 

10 Polvbius, X. 4. Livy, XXV. 2. " Livy, XXVI. 18. Polybius, X. 6. 
» Livy, XXVI. 17. 14 Livy, XXVI. 19. Polybius, X. 6. 



590 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVII. 

of Italy, was P. Scipio chosen by the unanimous voice of the Roman people, to 
take the command of their army in Spain. And great as were the consequences 
of the appointment of Napoleon, those which followed the appointment of Scipio 
were greater and far more lasting. 

At the same time a new propraetor was to be sent out in the room of C. Nero, 
and goes with i«rge re- whose year of command was come to an end. His successor was 
inforcemento to Spain. ^ Junius Silanus, 15 who had been praetor two years before, and 
since that time had been employed in overawing the party disaffected to Rome 
in Etruria. The two new generals were to take with them large reinforcements, 
amounting to 10,000 foot, 1000 horse, and a fleet of thirty quinqueremes. The 
troops were embarked at the mouth of the Tiber ; and the fleet proceeded along 
the coasts of Etruria, Liguria, and Gaul, till it arrived safely at Emporise, a Mas- 
saliot colony, lying immediately on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. Here the 
soldiers were disembarked, and proceeded by land to Tarraco ; the fleet followed ; 
and the head-quarters . of the proconsul were established at Tarraco for the 
winter, as it was too late in the season to admit of any active operations immedi- 
ately. 16 

And now that Spain has received that general and that army, by whom her 
fate was fixed through all after time, — for the expulsion of the 

wo spam. Carthaginians from the peninsula decided its subjection to the Ro- 

mans, and though the work of conquest was slow, and often interrupted, it was 
not the less sure, — let us for a moment survey the earliest known state of this 
great country ; what Spain was, and who were the earliest Spaniards, before Ro- 
mans, Goths, and Moors, had filled the land with stranger races, and almost ex- 
tirpated the race and language of its original people. 

The Spanish peninsula, joined to the main body of Europe by the isthmus of 
Description of the span- the Pyrenees, may be likened to one of the round bastion towers 
ish peninsula. which stand out from the walls of an old fortified town, lofty at 

once and massy. Spain rises from the Atlantic on one side, and the Mediter- 
ranean on the other, not into one or two thin lines of mountains divided by vast 
tracts of valleys or low plains, but into a huge tower, as I have called it, of table- 
land, from which the mountains themselves rise again like the battlements on the 
summit. The plains of Castile are mountain plains, raised nearly 2000 feet above 
the level of the sea ; and the elevation of the city of Madrid is nearly double that 
of the top of Arthur's Seat, the hill or mountain which overhangs Edinburgh. 
Accordingly the centre of Spain, notwithstanding its genial latitude, only par- 
tially enjoys the temperature of a southern climate ; while some of the valleys of 
Andalusia, which lie near the sea, present the vegetation of the tropics, the palm- 
tree, the banana, and the sugar-cane. Thus the southern coast seemed to invite 
an earlier civilization ; while the interior, with its bleak and arid plains, was fitted 
to remain for centuries the stronghold of barbarism. 

Accordingly the first visits of the Phoenicians to Spain are placed at a very 
remote period. Some stories ascribed the foundation of Gades to 
uemLts inTim"". The Archelaus, the son of Phoenix — Phoenix and Cadmus being the 
theTboriginT'iuhnbit- supposed founders of Tyre and Sidon, and belonging to the earli- 
est period of Greek tradition ; while other accounts of a more his- 
torical character made the origin of Gades contemporary with the reign of the 
Athenian Codrus, that is, about a thousand years before the Christian era. 11 
Three hundred years later, the Prophet Isaiah 18 describes the downfall of Tyre 
as likely to give deliverance to the land of Tarshish ; that is, to the south of 
Spain, where the Phoenicians had established their dominion. In the time of 
Ezekiel, the Tyrian trade with Spain was most flourishing ; and the produce of 
the Spanish mines, silver, iron, tin, and lead, are especially mentioned as the ar- 

16 Livy, XXVI. 19. " Velleius, I. II. 5. 

18 Livy, XXVI. 19, 20. 18 XXIII. 10. 



Chap. XLVIL] 



EARLY SETTLERS IN SPAIN. 



591 



tides which came from Tarshish to the Phoenician ports. 19 Nor did the Phoe- 
nicians confine themselves to a few points on the sea- coast ; they were spread 
over the whole south of Spain ; and the greatest number of the towns of Tur- 
ditania were still inhabited in Strabo's time by people of Phoenician origin. 20 
They communicated many of the arts of life to the natives, and among the rest 
the early use of letters ; for the characters which the Iberians used in their 
writing before the time of the Romans, 21 can scarcely have been any other than 
Phoenician. The Phoenicians visited Spain at a very remote period ; but they 
found it already peopled. Who the aboriginal inhabitants were, and from 
whence they came, it is impossible to determine. The Greeks called them 
Iberians, and said that, although they were divided into many tribes, and spoke 
many various dialects, they yet all belonged to the same race. 22 It cannot be 
doubted that their race and language still exist ; that the Basques, who inhabit 
the Spanish provinces of Guipuscoa, Biscay, Alava, and Navarre, and who in 
France occupy the country between the Adour and the Bidassoa, are the gen- 
uine descendants of the ancient Iberians. Their language bears marks of ex- 
treme antiquity ; and its unlikeness to the other languages of Europe is very 
striking, even when compared with Welsh, or with Sclavonic. The affinities of 
the Welsh numerals with those of the Teutonic languages, and the Greek and 
Latin, are obvious at the first glance ; and the same may be said of most of the 
Sclavonic numerals : but the Basque are so peculiar, that it is difficult to identify 
any one of them, except " sei," " six," with those of other languages. 23 And an 
evidence of its great antiquity seems furnished by the fact, that the inflexions of 
the nouns and verbs are manifestly so many distinct words, inasmuch as they 
exist in a separate form as such. We suspect this reasonably of the terminations 
of the nouns and verbs of Greek and Latin ; but in the Basque language it can 
be proved beyond question. 24 

We have seen that the Phoenicians were settled amongst the Iberians in the 
south ; and Keltic tribes were said to be mixed up with them in various traditions of 
parts of the north and centre, forming a people, whom the Greeks « ar 'y 8et0emeDt 8- 
called Keltiberians. How far strangers of other races were to be found in Iberia, 
it is difficult to decide. One or two Greek colonies from Massalia, such as Rhoda 
and Emporiae, were undoubtedly planted on the shore of the Mediterranean, just 
within the limits of Iberia, immediately to the south of the Pyrenees. 25 These 
belong to the times of certain history ; but stories are told of invasions of Spain, 
and of colonies founded on its territory, on which in their present form we can 
place no reliance. Carthaginian writers spoke of a great expedition of the Tyrian 



19 XXVII. 12. 23 I give the Welsh from Puehe's Welsh 

20 III. p. 149. Grammar, Denbigh, 1832 ; the Sclavonic (Bo- 

21 Strabo, III. p. 139. hemian), from Dobrowsky, Lehrgebaude der 

22 Herodotus, in a fragment of Stephanus Bokmischen Sprache, Prag. 1819 ; the Basque 
Byzairtius, v. 'I/fypiai, preserved by Constantine from Larramendi, Arte de la Lingua Bascon- 
Porphyrogenitus, and given by Berkelius : To gada, Salamanca, 1729. 

'iPripucbv yivos — SiiZpiarai ivdftaaiv, ev yivos iov, 
Kara <pv\a. 



Numerals from 1 to 10. 





WELSH. 


SCLAVONIC. 


One 


Un 


Geden 


Two 


Dau 


Dwa 


Three 


Tri 


Tri 


Four 


Pedwar 


Etyn 


Pive 


Pump 


Pet 


Six 


Chwech 


Ssest 


Seven 


Saith 


Sedm 


Eight 


Wyth 


Osm 


Nine 


Naw 


Dewet 


Ten 


Leg 


Deset 



BASQUE. 

Bat 
Bi 

Hirii 

Lau 

Bost 

Sei 

Zazpi 

Zortzi 

Bederatzi 

Amar. 



24 See W. Humboldt's Dissertation on the 
Basque Language in Adelung's Mithridates, 
vol. iv. p. 314-332. 



25 Strabo, III. pp. 159, 160. 



592 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XL VII. 

Hercules into Spain, at the head of an army of Medes, Persians, Armenians, and 
other nations of the east. 26 Megasthenes, 27 the Greek traveller and historian of 
India, said that Tearco, king of ^Ethiopia, and Nabuchodonosor, king of the Cb&l- 
deeans, had both carried their arms as far as Spain. Amongst the innumerable 
countries which were made the scene of the adventures of the Greek chiefs on 
their return from Troy, after they had been scattered by the famous storm, the 
coasts of Iberia, and even its coasts upon the ocean, are not forgotten. 23 Other 
stories, as we have seen, claimed a Greek origin for Saguntum ; while others 
again called it a Rutulian colony, from the Tyrrheno-Pelasgian city of Ardea. 29 
The settlements of the Greek chiefs on their way home from Troy are mere ro- 
mances, as unreal as the famous siege of Paris by the Saracens in the days of 
Charlemagne, or as the various adventures and settlements of Trojan exiles, which 
were invented in the middle ages. Whether any real events are disguised in the 
stories of the expeditions of Hercules, of Tearco, and of Nabuchodonosor, is a 
question more difficult to answer : for the early migrations from the east to the 
west are buried in impenetrable obscurity. But the Persians and ^Ethiopians 
may have made their way into Spain before historical memory, as the Vandals 
and Arabs invaded it in later times ; the fact itself is not incredible, if it rested 
on any credible authority. 

Not knowing, then, what strange nations may at one time or other have in- 
state of ^culture in vaded or settled in Spain, we cannot judge how much the Iberian 
Spa,n ' character and manners were affected by foreign influence. Agri- 

culture was practised from a period beyond memory : but the vine and olive, and 
perhaps the flax, were first introduced into the south of Spain by the Phoenicians, 
and only spread northwards gradually, the vine and fig advancing first, and the 
olive, as becomes its greater tenderness, following them more slowly and cau- 
tiously. Even in Strabo's time the vine had scarcely reached the northern coast 
of Spain ; and the olive, when Polybius wrote, appears not to have been culti- 
vated north of the Sierra Morena. 30 Butter supplied the place of oil to the inhab- 
itants of the northern coast, and beer that of wine. 31 

In the character of the people some traits may be recognized, which even to 
character of the ibe- this day mark the Spaniard. The grave dress, 32 the temperance 
nan8 ' and sobriety, the unyielding spirit, the extreme indolence, the per- 

severance in guerilla warfare, and the remarkable absence of the highest military 
qualities, ascribed by the Greek and Roman writers to the ancient Iberians, are 
all more or less characteristics of the Spaniards of modern times. The courtesy 
and gallantry of the Spaniard to women has also come down to him from his 
Iberian ancestors : in the eyes of the Greeks it was an argument of an imperfect 
civilization, that among the Iberians the bridegroom gave, instead of receiving, a 
dowry ; that daughters sometimes inherited to the exclusion of sons, and, thus 
becoming the heads of the family, gave portions to their brothers, that they might 
be provided with suitable wives. 33 In another point, the great difference between 
the people of the south of Europe, and those of the Teutonic stock, was remarked 
also in Iberia : the Iberians were ignorant, but not simple-hearted ; on the con- 
trary, they were cunning and mischievous, with habits of robbery almost indom- 
itable, fond of brigandage, though incapable of the great combinations of war. 34 
These, in some degree, are qualities common to almost all barbarians ; but they 
offer a strong contrast to the character of the Germans, whose words spoke what 
was in their hearts, and of whose most powerful tribe it is recorded, that their 
ascendency was maintained by no other arms than those of justice. 35 

28 SalluBt Jngurth. c. XVIII. OT Livy, XXI. 7. Sec Niebuhr, vol. i. note 127. 

21 Quoted by Strabo, XV. 1, § 6, p. 687, and 30 III. p. 164 

by Josephus, Antio. X. 11, § l, and contr. 3I Strabo, III. p. 155. Polybius in Atkense- 

Apion. I. 20. Strabo's character of Megas- ns, I. 28. 

tlicnes is not favorable : Sta<pcp6vTins a-iarctv w Strabo, III. p. 145, pcXavcliiovcs awavTcs. 

tifiov Atfiitaxv tc Kai MeyaaOivci. II. 1, p. 70. :,: ' Strabo, 111. p. 165. ** Strabo, III. p. 154. 

88 Strabo, 111. pp. 149, 150. » Tacitus, German. 22, 85. 



Chap. XLVIL] SPANISH MINES. 593 

Spanish soldiers had for more than two centuries formed one of the most efficient 
parts of the Carthaginian armies; 36 and on this account the Car- instance of Spain to 
thaginian government set a high value on its dominion in Spain, «« Carthaginians. 
But this dominion furnished Carthage with money, no less than with men. The 
Spanish mines had been worked for some centuries ; first by the Phoenicians of 
Asia, and latterly by their Carthaginian descendants ; yet they still yielded 
abundantly. And some of them have been worked for two thousand years since 
the Carthaginians were driven out of the country ; and to this hour their treas- 
ures are unexhausted. 31 

These mines existed for the most part in the mountains which divide the 
streams running to the Guadiana from those which feed the Gua- . 
dalquiver. 33 .This is the chain so well known by the name of the 
Sierra Morena ; but the several arms which it pushes out towards the sea east- 
ward and southward, were also rich in precious metals ; and some mines were 
worked in the valley of the Guadalquiver itself, as low down as Seville. The 
streams, moreover, which flowed from these mountains, brought down gold 
mingled with their sand and gravel ; 39 and this was probably collected long be- 
fore the working of the regular mines began. But in the time of th; second 
Punic war the mines were worked actively ; and a hundred years earlier the 
cinnabar, or sulphuret of quicksilver, of the famous mines of Almaden, was well 
known in the markets of Greece. 40 The Carthaginians honored as a hero or 
demi-god, the man who first discovered the most productive silver mines ; and 
one of these was in the immediate neighborhood of New Carthage itself. 41 Others 
were nearer the Guadalquiver, at Castulo and Ilipa* or on the feeders of the 
Guadiana, as at Sisapo, 42 the ancient name of the place near to which the great 
quicksilver mines were worked, now known as the mines of Almaden. One large 
and most productive silver mine, yielding three hundred pounds daily, is said to 
have been opened by Hannibal himself, 43 who, while he was in Spain, had mar- 
ried the daughter of one of the chiefs of Castulo, 44 and perhaps had acquired 
some possessions through her in the mining district, as Thucydides had through 
his wife in Thrace. 

The immense resources which the Carthaginians derived from their Spanish 
dominion, seemed now more than ever secured to them, by the de- S ci P io' 3 erst measures 
struction of the Roman army under the two Scipios, and the con- in Spam - 
sequent retreat of the Romans behind the Iberus. But the divisions between 
their generals, and the arrogance with which their officers now treated the Span- 
iards, as if it was no longer worth while to conciliate them, had made a fatal 
opening, exposing their power to the most deadly blow which it had yet sus- 
tained. Scipio, with intuitive sagacity, observed this opening, and with decision 
no less admirable struck his blow to the heart of his enemy. He formed his 
plans at Tarraco during the winter ; as soon as the season allowed his fleet to co- 
operate with him, he put it and his army in motion ; and while the three Car- 
thaginian generals were in places equally remote from one another, and from the 
point threatened by the enemy, Scipio crossed the Iberus, and led his land and 
sea forces to besiege New Carthage. 45 

His early and most intimate friend, C. Laelius, commanded the fleet ; the pro- 
praetor, M. Silanus, was left behind the Iberus with 3000 foot and A . u. c . 545 . A _ c _ 
500 horse, to protect the country of the allies of Rome, while ^ 9 a - nst % w ™ T c™ 
Scipio himself led 25,000 foot and 2500 horse on his expedition. thase - 
Polybius declares that the march from the Iberus to New Carthage was per- 
formed in seven days ; but as, according to his own reckoning, the distance was 

36 Herodotus, VII. 165. " Polybius, X. 10, 11. Strabo, III. p. 148. 

37 Strabo, III. 146-148. 42 Polybius, X. 38, 7. Strabo, III. p. 142. 

38 Strabo, III. p. 142. « Pliny, XXXIII. 31. 

39 Strabo, III. p. 146. 44 Livy, XXIV. 41. 

40 Strabo, III. p. 147. 4S Polybius, X. 6-9. Livy, XXVI. 42. 

38 



594 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

not less than 325 Roman miles, the accuracy of one or both of his statements 
may well be questioned. 46 Three degrees of latitude divide Carthagena from the 
Ebro ; and the ordinary windings and difficulties of a road in such a distance 
must make it all but an impossibility that an army with its baggage should have 
marched over it in a single week. However, the march was undoubtedly rapid ; 
and the Roman army established itself under the walls of New Carthage, while 
all succor was far distant, and when the actual garrison of a place so important 
did not exceed a thousand men. To the protection of a force so small was com- 
mitted the capital of the Carthaginian dominion in Spain, the base of their mili- 
tary operations, their point of communication with Africa, their treasures and 
magazines, and the hostages taken from the different Spanish tribes to secure 
their doubted fidelity. 47 

The present town of Carthagena stands at the head of its famous harbor, built 
Position of New Car- partly on some hills of tolerable height, and partly on the low 
thage - ground beneath them, with a large extent of marshy ground be- 

hind it, which is flooded after rains, and its inner port surrounded by the build- 
ings of the arsenal, running deeply into the land on its western side. But in the 
times of the second Punic war, the marshy ground behind was all a lagoon, and 
its waters communicated artificially with those of the port of the arsenal ; so that 
the town was on a peninsula, and was joined to the main land only by a narrow 
isthmus, which had itself been cut through in one place, to allow the lagoon- 
water to find an outlet. 43 Scipio then encamped at the head of this isthmus ; and 
having fortified himself on the rear, with the lagoon covering his flank, he left his 
front open, that nothing might obstruct the free advance of his soldiers to storm 
the city. 49 

Accordingly, without delay, he was preparing to lead on his men to the as- 
. sault, when he was himself assailed by Mago, who, with his scanty 

garrison, made a desperate sally along the isthmus against the 
Roman camp. After an obstinate struggle, the besieged were beaten back into 
the town with loss ; and the Romans, following them, fixed their ladders to the 
walls, and began to mount. But the height of the walls was so great, that the 
long ladders necessary to reach their summit broke in some instances under the 
weight of the soldiers who crowded on them : and the enemy made their defence 
so good, that towards afternoon Scipio found it expedient to recall his men from 
the assault. 50 

He had told his men before the assaiilt began, that the god Neptune had ap- 
peared to him in his sleep, and had promised to give him aid in 
the hour of need, so manifest, that all the army should acknowl- 
edge his interposition. 51 For the lagoon, it seems, was so shallow, that even the 
slight fall of the tide in the Mediterranean was sufficient to leave much of it un- 
covered, as is the case at this day in parts of the harbor of Venice. This would 
take place in the afternoon, and Scipio ordered five hundred men to be ready 
with ladders, to march across the lagoon as soon as the ebb began. Then he 
renewed his assault by the isthmus ; and whilst this in itself discouraged the ene- 
my, who had hoped that their work for the day was over, and whilst the soldiers 
again swarmed up the ladders, and the missiles of the besieged were beginning to 
fail, the five hundred men who were in readiness, boldly rushed across the lagoon, 
and, having guides to show them the hardest parts of u\ reached tli£ foot of the 
walls in safety, applied their ladders where there were no defenders, and mounted 
without opposition. 52 

No sooner had they won the walls, than they hastened to the main gate of the 

« Polybius, X. 9, 7. III. 30, 5. XXVI. 42. 00 Polybiue. X. 12, 13. Livy, XXVI. 45. 

« Polybius, X. 8. B1 Polj biuu. X. 11. Livy, XXVI. 45. 

" Polybius, X. 10. Livy, XXVI. 42. M Polybius, X. 14. Livy, XXVI. 46. 
« Polybius, X. 11. 



Chap. XLVIL] TAKING OF NEW CARTHAGE. 595 

city, towards the isthmus ; and when they had burst it open, their T hetowni S taken ana 
comrades from without rushed in like a torrent. At the same P lundered - 
moment the scaling parties on each side of the main gate overbore the defenders, 
and were now overflowing the ramparts. Mago reached the citadel in safety ; 
but Scipio in person pushed thither with a thousand picked men ; and the gov- 
ernor, seeing the city lost, surrendered. The other heights in the town were 
stormed with little difficulty ; and the soldiers, according to the Roman practice, 
commenced a deliberate massacre of every living creature they could find, whether 
man or beast, till, after the citadel had surrendered, a signal from their general 
called them off from slaughter, and turned them loose upon the houses of the 
town to plunder. Yet it marks the Roman discipline, that even before night fell, 
order was restored. Some of the soldiers marched back to the camp, from 
whence the light troops were sent for to occupy one of the principal heights of 
the town ; Scipio himself, with a thousand men, went to the citadel ; and the 
tribunes got the soldiers out of the houses, and made them bring all their plun- 
der into one heap in the market-place, and pass the night there quietly, waiting 
for the regular division of the spoil, which was to take place on the following 
morning. 53 

When the morning came, whilst the usual distribution of the money arising 
from the sale of the plunder was made by the tribunes, Scipio pro- Scipio , 8 conduct t0 the 
ceeded to inspect his prisoners. All were brought before him P risoiiers - 
together, to the number of nearly 10,000. He first caused them to be divided 
into three classes. One consisted of all the citizens of New Carthage, with their 
wives and families : all these Scipio set at liberty, and dismissed them to their 
homes unhur,f. The second class contained the workmen of handicraft trades, 
who were either slaves, or, if free, only sojourners in the city, enjoying no politi- 
cal rights. These men were told, that they were now the slaves of the Roman 
people, but that, if they worked well and zealously in their several callings, they 
should have their liberty at the end of the war. Meantime they were all to enter 
their names with the quaestor ; and a Roman citizen was set over every thirty of 
them as an overseer. These workmen were in all about two thousand. The 
third class contained all the rest of the prisoners, domestic slaves, seamen, fisher- 
men, and the mixed populace of the city ; and from these Scipio picked out the 
most ablebodied, and employed them in manning his fleet : for he found eighteen 
ships of the enemy at New Carthage ; and these he was able to add to his own 
naval force immediately, by putting some of his own seamen into them, and fill- 
ing up their places with some of the captives, taking care, however, that the 
number of these should never exceed a third of the whole crew. The seamen 
thus employed were promised their liberty at the end of the war, like the work- 
men, if they did their duty faithfully. 54 

The Carthaginian prisoners and the Spanish hostages were still to be attended 
to. The former were committed to the care of Leelius, to be taken His kind treatm ent of 
forthwith to Rome ; and there were amongst them fifteen mem- tlie SpaniBl1 hosta s^- " 
bers of the great or ordinary council of Carthage, and two members of the coun- 
cil of elders. The Spanish hostages were more than three hundred ; and amongst 
them were many young boys. To show kindness to these was an obvious policy ; 
accordingly Scipio made presents to them all, and desired them to write home 
to their friends, and assure them that they were well and honorably treated, and 
that they would all be sent back safely to their several countries, if their country- 
men were willing to embrace the Roman alliance. Particular attention was shown 
to the wife of a Spanish chief of high rank, who had been recently seized as a 
hostage by Hasdrubal Gisco, because her husband had refused to comply with 
his demands for money. Her treatment had been rude and insolent, if not worse ; 
but Scipio assured her that he would take as delicate care of her and of the other 

68 Polybius, X. 15. Livy, XXVI. 46. M Polybius, X. 16, 17. Livy, XXVI. 47. 



596 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

Spanish women, as ne would of his own sisters or daughters. This honorable 
bearing of the young conqueror, for Scipio was not more than twenty-seven 
years of age, produced a deep impression all over Spain. 55 

After this important conquest, Scipio remained for a time at New Carthage, 
Magazines takenin tie and busied himself in exercising his soldiers and seamen, and in 
C1,y " setting his workmen to labor in manufacturing arms. 56 He had 

taken a considerable artillery in the place, a large sum of money, abundant maga- 
zines of corn, and about sixtj T -three merchant-ships in the harbor, with their car- 
goes ; so that, according to Livy, the least valuable part of the conquest of New 
Carthage was New Carthage itself. 57 

Laslius with his prisoners arrived at Rome after a voyage of thirty-four days, 
and brought the welcome news of this great restoration of the Ro- 

Lcehus names the news rv • • o • s« a ■ l n r • c i ^ i 

of this conquest to man atiairs in Spain. Amidst the contusions of the chronology 

Rome. - . ~ . r . OJ 

ot the bpanish war, it is not easy to ascertain the exact time aj, 
which Lcelius reached Rome. But it is probable that he arrived there early in 
the year 545, perhaps at that critical moment when the disobedience of the 
twelve colonies excited such great alarm, and when the destruction of the army 
of Cn. Fulvius at Herdonea was still fresh in men's memories. Scipio's victory 
was therefore doubly welcome ; and his requests for supplies were favorably list- 
ened to ; for his army, although victorious, was still in want of many things, the 
old soldiers especially, who had been ill clothed and worse paid during several 
years. Accordingly we find that a sum of fourteen hundred pounds' weight of 
gold was brought out from the treasure reserved for the most extraordinary oc- 
casions, and expended in purchasing clothing for the army in Spain. 59 

Scipio himself returned from New Carthage to Tarraco, taking, his Spanish 
The rest of the year hostages with him. 60 It was early in the season ; but we hear of 
passes in inaction. no other m jii tary act ; on during the remainder of the year. This 
on Scipio's part is easily intelligible : his army was too weak to hold the field 
against the combined forces of the enemy ; and it was his object to strengthen 
himself by alliances with the natives, and to draw them off from the service of 
Carthage, if he could not induce them to enter that of Rome. He had struck 
one great blow with vigor, surprising the enemy by his rapidity : but what had 
been won by vigor might be lost by rashness ; and after so great an action as the 
conquest of New Carthage, he could well afford to lie quiet for the rest of the 
year, waiting for his supplies of clothing from Rome, and strengthening his in- 
terest amongst the chiefs of Spain. The inactivity of the Carthaginian generals 
would be more surprising, if we did not make allowance for the paralyzing effect 
of their mutual jealousies. No efficient co-operation could be contrived between 
them ; and Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, was too weak to act alone, and, dis- 
gusted with the conduct of his colleagues, was probably anxious to husband his 
own army carefully, looking forward now more than ever to the execution of his 
long projected march upon Raly. Thus there was a pause from all active oper- 
ations in Spain for several months ; whilst in Italy Fabius had recovered Taren- 
tum, and he and Fabius were on the point of being succeeded in the consulship 
by Marcellus and Crispinus. 

The loss of Tarentum made it more important than ever that Hasdrubal 
a.u.c.616. a.c.208. should join his brother in Italy ; while the growing disposition of 
SnuJn 8 °i U fluc.Ice rll, iu the Spaniards to revolt to Rome rendered the prospect of success 
K|,ui "- in Spain less encouraging. But with no Carthaginian accounts re- 

maining, and amidst the confusions, omissions, and contradictions of the Roman 
historians, it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of the events 
of the ensuing year, 54G, in Spain. Masinissa, then a very young man, the son 

M Polybius, X. 18. Livy, XXVI. 47, 49. M Livy, XXVII. 7. 

M Polybius, X. 20. ro Livy, XXVII. 10. 

67 XXVI. 47. Polybius, X. 19. w Livy, XXVII. 17. Polybius, X. 84. 



Chap. XLVII] SECOND CAMPAIGN. 597 

of a Numidian king, named Gala, was sent over from Africa with a large body 
of Numidian cavalry to reinforce Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, principally, it 
is said, in order to his march into Italy. 61 Still Hasdrubal made no forward 
movement, but remained in a very strong position near a place called variously 
Bsecula or Bebula, situated in the upper valley of the Guadalquiver, near the 
mining district ; and there he seemed rather disposed to await Scipio's attack, 
than to assume the offensive. 63 He saw that the fidelity of the Spaniards to Car- 
thage was deeply shaken, not only by the loss of their hostages, but by the en- 
couraging treatment which the hostages themselves had received from the Ro- 
mans. This feeling had been working ever since the fall of New Carthage ; and 
now its fruits were daily becoming more manifest ; insomuch that, when the time 
at which Scipio was expected to take the field drew near, Mandonius and Indi- 
bilis, two of the most influential of the Spanish chiefs, retired with all their fol- 
lowers from Hasdrubal's camp, and established themselves in a strong position, 
from which they might join the Romans, as soon as their army should appear in 
the south. 63 On the other hand, Scipio's Roman force was strengthened, by his 
having laid up his fleet, and draughted the best of his seamen into the legions, 
to increase the number of his soldiers. And although a combined effort of the 
three Carthaginian generals might yet have recovered New Carthage, or at any 
rate kept Scipio behind the Iberus, nothing of this sort was attempted ; and 
Hasdrubal Gisco, jealous, it seems, both personalty and politically of Hannibal's 
brother, left him unaided to sustain the first assault of the enemy. 

Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, therefore, under these circumstances, was 
doubtless anxious to carry into effect his expedition into Italy. H asdrubai leaves 
Yet, not wishing it to be said that he had abandoned his colleagues, Spam- 
he resolved first to try his strength with Scipio, to see what Spanish tribes would 
actually join him, and whether, by offering battle in a favorable position, he 
could repulse the enemy, and thus break that spell of Scipio's fortune which 
was working so powerfully. But in this hope he was disappointed. Scipio ad- 
vanced from the Iberus to the valley of the Bsetis, or Guadalquiver, before Has- 
drubal saw any thing of the armies of his colleagues hastening to his aid : many 
Spanish tribes joined the Roman army at the Iberus ; Mandonius and Indibilis 
hastened to it as soon as it approached the place where they were posted ; and 
Hasdrubal, unable to maintain his strong position, and, if we believe Scipio's 
statement, seeing it in the act of being carried by the enemy at the close of a 
successful assault, retreated accordingly, not towards the southern sea, nor to- 
wards the western ocean, but northwards towards the Tagus, 64 and from thence, 
as we have seen, towards the western Pyrenees ; there recruiting his army from 
those tribes which had not yet come under the influence of Rome, and preparing 
for that great expedition to Italy, of which we have already related the progress 
and the event. 

Before Hasdrubal finally retreated, he had lost many prisoners. All those who 
were Spaniards, were sent home free without ransom by the pol- Iacreaae of scipio's in- 
itio conqueror ; and he liberally rewarded those Spanish chiefs fluenoe - 
who had already come over to his side. They, on their part, saluted him with 
the title of king. The first Hasdrubal, the founder of New Carthage, had lived 
in kingly state amongst the Spaniards ; and they probably thought that Scipio 
meant to do the same, and would pass the rest of his life in their country. But 
the name of king, although perhaps not ungrateful to Scipio's ears, was intoler- 
able to those of his countrymen ; nor would he have been contented to reign in 
Spain over barbarians : his mind was already turned towards Africa, and antici- 
pated the glory of conquering Carthage. So he repressed the homage of the 
Spanish chiefs, and desired them to call him, not king, but general. He then 

61 Livy, XXIV. 49. XXV. 34. 63 Polybius, X. 35. Livy, XXVII. 17. 

82 Polybius, X. 38. Livy, XXVII. 18. Ap- 64 Polybius, X. 38, 39. Livy, XXVII. 17, 18. 
pian, VI. 24. Appian, VI. 25-28. 



598 HISTORY OF HOME. [Chap. XLVIL 

took possession of the strong position which Hasdrubal had evacuated ; and there 
he remained during the rest of the season, watching, so it is said, the movements 
of Hasdrubal Gisco, and Mago, who were now come upon the scene of action. 
On the approach of winter he again returned to Tarraco. 65 

Such is the account given by Polybius of the events of the war in Spain dur- 
Diffioities in the sc ™g the summer of the year 545 ; and such, no doubt, was the 
count of the campaign, statement given by Scipio himself, and obtained by Polybius from 
Scipio's old friend and companion, C. Laelius. What Silenus said of these events 
we know not ; and it is possible tha^t Hasdrubal's account of them was never 
known, owing to his subsequent fate, so that Silenus may have had no peculiar 
information about them, and may have passed them over slightly. It is evident 
that Scipio's pretended victory at Bcecula was of little importance. Hasdrubal 
carried off all his elephants, all his treasure, and a large proportion of his infantry : 
he was not pursued ; he retreated in the direction which best suited his future 
movements ; and these movements he effected without the slightest interruption 
from the enemy. Scipio did not follow him, says Polybius, 66 because he dreaded 
the arrival of the other Hasdrubal and Mago : he remained in the south, therefore, 
to keep them in check, and to prevent them from attacking New Carthage ; and 
not doubting that Hasdrubal would follow his brother's route, and attempt to 
enter Gaul by the eastern Pyrenees, he detached some troops from his army to 
secure the passes of the mountains, and other defensible positions between the 
Iberus and the frontiers of Gaul. 67 It is probable that his notions of the geogra- 
phy of the western parts of Spain and Gaul were so vague, that he had no con- 
ception of the possibility of Hasdrubal's marching towards the Alps without com- 
ing near the Mediterranean. The line which he actually took from the western 
Pyrenees to the upper part of the course of the Rhone, through the interior of 
Gaul, was one of which Scipio, in all probability, did not even suspect the existence. 

It may be asked why Hasdrubal, whose great object was to reach Italy, did 
Reasons for Hasdru- not commence his march at the beginning of the year, without 
bai'a delay. waiting so long at Baecula ; especially after the desertion of Man- 

donius and Indibilis had taught him that the Spaniards were no longer to be re- 
lied on. But he had himself on a former occasion won over the Celtiberians from 
the army of Scipio's father ; and any reverse sustained by the Romans might 
tempt the Spanish chiefs to return to their old alliance. It is possible also that 
he waited so long at Baecula for another reason, because he wished to carry with 
him as large a sum of money as possible ; and he was daily drawing a supply 
from the abundant silver mines in the neighborhood. The success of his expedi- 
tion depended on his being able to raise soldiers amongst the Cisalpine Gauls, as 
well as amongst the tribes of northwestern Spain ; and for both these purposes 
ready money was most desirable. 

A more inexplicable point in the story of these transactions is the alleged dis- 
jeain„ S i.. s of tho car- cord between Hasdrubal and the other Carthaginian generals ; 
generals. wne n one of them, Mago, was his own brother, and was not only 
a soldier of tried ability, but is expressly said to have conducted the war in Spain 
in accordance with Hannibal's directions, after Hasdrubal had marched into Italy. 68 
Whether Mago was placed under Hasdrubal Gisco's orders, and could not act 
independently, or whether jealousy, or any other cause, really made him careless 
of his brother's success and safety, we cannot pretend to determine: the interior 
of a Carthaginian camp, and still more the real characters and feelings of the 
Carthaginian generals, are entirely unknown to us. 

The one great advantage possessed by Scipio, far more important than his 

pretended victory at Baecula, was the remarkable ascendency which 

over the" min<u of The he had obtained over the minds of the Spaniards. Every thing 

in him was at once attractive and imposing ; his youth, and the 

» Polvbius. XXXVIII. 40. Liw, XXVII. 19. °' Polvbius, X. 40. 

" X. 39. M Polybius, IX. 22. 



Chap. XLVIL] HASDRUBAL MARCHES INTO ITALY. 599 

mingled beauty and majesty of his aspect ; his humanity and courtesy to the 
Spanish hostages and to their friends ; his energy and ability at the head of his 
army. Above all, there was manifest in him that consciousness of greatness, 
and that spirit, at once ardent, lofty, and profound, which naturally bows the 
hearts and minds of ordinary men, not to obedience only and respect, but to ad- 
miration, and almost to worship. The Carthaginian generals felt, it is said, that 
no Spanish troops could be trusted, if brought within the sphere of his influence ; 
Mago must go over to the Balerian islands, and raise soldiers there, who might 
be strangers to the name of Scipio ; while Masinissa should follow the course 
pursued by Murines in Sicily, and scour the whole country with his Numidian 
cavalry, relieving the allies of Carthage, and harassing the states which had re- 
volted. 69 But Masinissa himself was not secure from Scipio's ascendency : his 
nephew had been made prisoner at Baecula, and had been sent back to him with- 
out ransom : w some conciliatory messages were probably addressed to him at 
the same time, and Scipio never lost sight of him, till two years afterwards he 
gratified the Numidian's earnest wish for a personal interview, and then attached 
him forever to the interests of Rome. 71 

Meanwhile that memorable year was come, when the fortune of Rome tr as ex- 
posed to its severest trial, and rose in the issue signally triumphant. 
Vainly did Scipio's guards keep vigilant watch in the passes of the t»u eVaies scipio, and 
eastern Pyrenees, looking out for the first signs of Hasdrubal's 
approach, and hoping to win the glory of driving him back defeated, and of 
marring his long-planned expedition to Italy. They sat on their mountain posts, 
looking earnestly southwards, while he for whom they waited was passing far 
on their rear north wards, winning his way through the deep valleys of the chain 
of Cebenna, or the high and bleak plains of the Arverni, till he should descend 
upon the Rhone, where it was as yet unknown to the Massaliot traders, flowing 
far inland in the heart of Gaul. Hasdrubal had accomplished his purpose : his 
Spanish soldiers were removed out of the reach of Scipio's ascendency ; the accu- 
mulated treasures of his Spanish mines had purchased the aid of a numerous 
band of Gauls ; and the Alps had seemed to smooth their rugged fastnesses to give 
him an easy passage. All the strength which Rome could gather was needed 
for the coming struggle ; and Scipio, as we have seen, sent a large detachment 
from his own army, both of Roman soldiers and of Spaniards, to be conveyed by 
sea from Tarraco to Etruria, and to assist in conquering the enemy in Italy, whose 
march he had been unable to stop in Spain. 

Thus, with Hasdrubal's army taken away from the Carthaginian force in Spain, 
and with the Roman army weakened by its contributions to the A . v , c . 547 A a 
defence of Italy, the Spanish war was carried on but feebly dur- sSi'noTn^rkeTbyLy 
ing the summer of the year 547. A new general of the name of dedsiTCev ™ ta - 
Hanno had been sent over to take Hasdrubal's place ; and he and Mago proceeded 
to raise soldiers amongst the Celtiberians in the interior, 72 while Hasdrubal Gisco 
was holding Baetica, and while Scipio was still in his winter- quarters at Tarraco. 
But some Celtiberian deserters informed Scipio of the danger ; and he sent M. 
Silenus with a division of his army to put it down. A march of extreme rapidity 
enabled him to surprise the enemy ; the best of Hanno's new levies were cut to 
pieces, the rest dispersed. Hanno himself was made prisoner ; but Mago carried 
off his cavalry and his old infantry without loss, and joined Hasdrubal Gisco safely 
in Bsetica. 13 The formation of a Carthaginian army in the centre of Spain was 
thus effectually prevented ; and Scipio, encouraged by this success, ventured to 
resume the offensive, and to advance in pursuit of Hasdrubal Gisco into the 
south. Hasdrubal, instead of risking a general action, broke up his army into 
small detachments, with which he garrisoned the more important towns. Scipio 

69 Livy, XXVII. 20. "Livy, XXVIII. 1. 

TO Livy, XXVII. 19. " Livy, XXVIII. Appian, VI. 81. 

71 Livy, XXVIII. 35. 



600 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

shrank from the tedious and difficult service of a series of sieges, in a country at a 
distance from his resources, and where Mago and Masinissa with their cavalry 
would be sure to obstruct, if not destroy, all his communications. But to avoid 
the discredit of retreating without having done any thing, he singled out one of 
the wealthiest and strongest of the towns thus garrisoned against him, by name 
Oringis, and sent his brother, L. Scipio, with a large division of his army to attack 
it. It was stormed after an obstinate resistance ; and the conqueror, true to his 
brother's policy, after carrying off his Carthaginian prisoners in the garrison, 
restored the town unplundered to its Spanish inhabitants. 14 Thus much having 
been achieved for the honor of the Roman arms, Scipio carried back his whole 
army behind the Iberus, sent off L. Scipio to Rome, with Hanno and his other pris- 
oners of distinction, and himself went into winter-quarters as usual at Tarraco. 15 

But before the end of the season he must have received intelligence of the 
a. u. c. 6.4s. a. c. battle of the Metaurus. The troops which he had. sent to Italy 
MiioM S< for°a dSve w ere probably, in part at least, sent back to him ; and every mo- 
flCt,on- tive combined to make him desirous of marking the next campaign 

by some decisive action. Nero, whom he had succeeded in Spain, had won 
the greatest glory by his victory over Hasdrubal: it became Scipio to show that 
he too could serve his country no less effectively. 

The Carthaginian general, whether he had been reinforced from Africa, or 
strength and position whether he had used extraordinary vigor in his levies of sol- 
f the two armies. diers in western Spain, took the field early in the spring of the 
year 548, with an army greatly superior to that of his enemy. If Polybius, or 
rather Scipio may be trusted, he had *70,000 foot, 4000 horse, and thirty-two 
elephants ; while the Roman army, with all the aids which Scipio could gather 
from the Spanish chiefs in the Roman alliance, did not exceed 45,000 foot, and 
3000 horse. 16 Hasdrubal took up a position in the midst of the mining district, 
near a town which is variously called Elinga and Silpia ;" but neither its real 
name nor its exact situation can be determined. His camp lay on the last hills 
of the mountain country, with a wide extent of open plain in front of it. He 
wished to fight, and if possible on this ground, favorable at once to his superior 
numbers, and to his elephants. 

Scipio, no less anxious to bring on a general battle, marched straight towards 
the enemy. But when he saw their numbers, he was uneasy lest 
the faith of his Spanish allies should fail, as it had towards his 
father ; he dared not lay much stress on them ; yet without them his numbers 
were too weak for him to risk a battle. His object therefore was to use his 
Spaniards for show, to impose upon the enemy, while he won the battle with his 
Romans. And thus, when the day came on which he proposed to fight, he 
suddenly changed his dispositions. For some days previously, both armies had 
been drawn up in order of battle before their camps; and their cavalry and light 
troops had skirmished in the interval between. All this time the Roman troops 
had formed the centre of Scipio's line, opposite to Hasdrubal's Africans, while 
the Spanish auxiliaries in both armies were on the wings. But on the day of the 
decisive battle, the Spaniards formed the centre of Scipio's army, while his Roman 
and Italian soldiers were on the right and left. The men had eaten their break- 
fast before day ; and the cavalry and light troops pushed forward close under the 
camp of the enemy, as if challenging him to come out and meet them. Behind 
this cloud of skirmishes, the infantry were fast forming, and advancing to the 
middle of the plain ; and when the sun rose, it shone upon the Roman line with 
its order completed ; the Spaniards in the centre, the Romans and Italians on 
the right and left; the left commanded by M. Silanus and L. Marcius, Scipio in 
person leading his right. 18 

74 Livy, XXVIII. 8. bins, has been altered into Ilipa, on the au- 

16 Livy. XXVIII. 4. tlmiitv of Strabo ; in the text of Livy the name 

'• Polybius, XI.. 20. Livy, XXVIIT. 12. Btands Silpia. 

77 Eliuga in the MS. and old text of Poly- 7B Polybius, XL. 22. Livy, XXVIII. 14. 



Chap. XLVIL] CAMPAIGN OF 548. 601 

The assault of the Roman cavalry and light troops called out Hasdrubal's 
array ; the Carthaginians poured forth from their camp without 

• • . i t-» iii r m i • ,i The armies engage. 

waiting to eat, just as the Romans had done at the irebia ; their 
cavalry and light troops engaged the enemy ; while their infantry formed in its 
usual order, with the Spanish auxiliaries on the wings, and the Africans in the 
centre. In this state the infantry on both sides remained for a time motionless ; 
but when the day was advanced, Scipio called off his skirmishers, sent them to 
the rear, through the intervals of his maniples, and formed them behind his in- 
fantry on both wings ; the light infantry immediately behind the regular infantry, 
and the cavalry covering all. 

For a few moments the Roman line seemed advancing evenly to meet the line 
of the enemy. But suddenly the troops on the right wing began Scili0 g aina a com piete 
to wheel round to the left, and those on the left wing wheeled to Tict01> 
the right, changing their lines into columns ; while the cavalry moved round from 
the rear, and took up its position on the outside of the columns ; and both infan- 
try and cavalry now advanced with the utmost fury against the enemy. Thus 
the centre of the Roman army was held back by the rapid advance of its wings ; 
and the Africans in Hasdrubal's centre were standing idle, doing nothing, whilst 
the battle was raging on their right and left, and yet not venturing to move from 
their position to support their wings, because of the enemy in their front, who 
threatened every moment to attack, yet still advanced as slowly as possible to give 
time for the attacks on the two wings to complete their work. And this work 
was not long ; Roman and Italian veterans were opposed to newly raised Span- 
iards ; men well fed to men exhausted by their long fast ; men perfect in all their 
movements, and handled by their general with masterly skill, to barbarians con- 
fused by evolutions which neither they nor their officers could deal with. As 
usual, the elephants did as much mischief to friends as to foes ; and the Cartha- 
ginian wings, broken and slaughtered, began to fly. Then the Africans in the 
centre commenced their retreat also ; slowly at first, as men who had not them- 
selves been beaten ; but the flight of their allies infected them ; and the Romans 
pressed them so hardly, that they too rushed towards their camp with more 
haste than order. 19 The battle was won ; and Scipio said that the camp would 
have been won also, had not a violent storm suddenly burst on the field of battle, 
and the rain fallen in such a deluge, that the Romans could not stand against it, 
but were obliged to seek the shelter of their own camp. Their work, however, 
was done ; not least probably by the effect which the battle would have on the 
minds of the Spaniards. In the Carthaginian army, their countrymen had been 
exposed to defeat and slaughter, while the Africans looked on tamely, and moved 
neither hand nor foot to aid them ; on the other hand, the Spaniards in Scipio's 
army had obtained a victory, with no loss to themselves ; it had been purchased 
altogether by the blood of the Romans. 

Accordingly, the Carthaginian generals found that the contest in Spain was 
virtually ended. The Spanish soldiers in their army went over in 
large bodies to the enemy ; the Spanish towns opened their gates thagmian dominion £ 
to the Romans, and put the Carthaginian garrisons into their hands. pam ' 
Hasdrubal and Mago, closely followed by the enemy, retreated by the 'right 
bank of the Bastis to the shores of the ocean, and effected their escape by sea to 
Gades. Masinissa left them, and went home to Africa, not, it is said, without 
having a secret interview with M. Silanus, and settling the conditions and man- 
ner of its defection. Scipio himself returned by slow marches to Tarraco, inquir- 
ing by the way into the merits or demerits of the various native chiefs, who came 
crowding around him to plead their services, and to propitiate the favor of the 
new conqueror of Spain. Silanus, whom he had left behind in the south, to wit- 
ness the final dispersion of the army of Hasdrubal, soon after rejoined him at 

" Polybius, XI. 23, 24. Livy, XXVIII. 15, 16. 



602 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVII 

Tarraco, and reported to him that the war was over, that no enemy was to be 
found in the field, from the Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules. 80 Scipio there- 
fore sent off his brother to Rome, to announce the completion of his work. 

His own mind was already turned to another field of action : the expulsion of 
the Carthaginians from Spain seemed to him only to be valued as 

Scipio crosses to Africa, ., . , , 1_i i • ,j • ,1 • , a j? ■ tt 

and negotiates wnh Sy- it might enable him the easier to carry the war into Africa. He 
had already won the support of Masinissa : but he desired to se- 
cure a more powerful ally ; and accordingly he sent Laelius over to Africa, to 
sound the dispositions of the Massesylian king, Syphax, the most powerful of all 
the African princes, and who, although at present in alliance with the Carthagini- 
ans, had been, not many years .since, their enemy. Syphax told Laelius that he 
would negotiate only with the Roman general in person ; and Scipio, relying on 
his own personal ascendency, and affecting in all things what was extraordinary, 
did not hesitate to leave his province, and to cross over from New Carthage to 
Africa, with only two quinqueremes, in order to visit the Masaesylian king. No 
less fortunate than Napoleon, when returning from Egypt to France in his soli- 
tary frigate, Scipio crossed the sea without accident, and entered the king's port 
in safety, with the wind so brisk and fair as to carry him into the harbor in a 
straight course, in a very short time after his ships had first been seen from the 
shore. sl In the harbor, by the strangest of chances, were seven ships of the 
Carthaginians, which had just brought Hasdrubal from Spain with the very same 
object as Scipio, to secure the alliance of king Syphax ; it having been known, 
probably, that a Roman officer had lately visited his court, with purposes which 
could not be doubtful. Hasdrubal and Scipio met under the roof of Syphax ; 
and by his special request, they were present at the same entertainment. 82 Lae- 
lius, who had accompanied his friend to Africa, magnified the charms of his ad- 
dress and conversation, according to his usual practice, and told Polybius, many 
years afterwards, that Hasdrubal had expressed to Syphax his great admiration 
of Scipio's genius, which, he said, appeared to him more dangerous in peace than 
in war. 83 Laelius further declared that Syphax was so overcome by Scipio's in- 
fluence, as to conclude a treaty of alliance with him, 84 which treaty, however, we 
may be very sure, was not one of those which Polybius found preserved in the 
capitol. It is very possible that Syphax amused Scipio with fair promises ; but 
in reality Hasdrubal negotiated more successfully than his Roman rival ; and the 
beauty of his daughter, Sophonisba, was more powerful over the mind of 
Syphax, than all the fascinations of Scipio's eloquence and manners. 65 Scipio, 
however, was satisfied with the success of his mission, and returned again to 
New Carthage. 

It is manifest that, when Scipio and Silanus returned from the south of Spain 
insurrection of the s^n- to Tarraco, after the dispersion of the Carthaginian army, they im- 
iards - agined that their work was done ; and they cannot have expected 

to be called out again to active operations in the same year. But, after Scipio's 
return from his voyage to Africa, we find him again taking the field in the south : 
we find a general revolt of the Spanish chiefs, who had so lately joined him ; and 
what is most startling, we find his own Roman army breaking out into an alarm- 
ing mutiny. Livy's explanation is, simply, that the present appeared a favorable 
opportunity to punish those Spanish towns which had made themselves most 
obnoxious to Rome in the course of the war, and on which it would not have been 
expedient to take vengeance earlier. 86 But surely, if any such intention had been 
entertained a few weeks sooner, the Roman army would never have been march- 
ed back behind the Iberus, but would have proceeded at once to attack the ob- 
noxious towns, as soon as Hasdrubal and Mago had retired to Gades, and the 

" Livv, XXVIIT. 1(5. M Livv, XXVIII. 18. 

M Livv, XXVIII. 17. * Livv, XXIX. 23. 

m Livv, XXVUL 18. M Livv, XXV11I. 19. 
M XL Fragm. Mid. Livv, XXVIII. 18. 



Chap. XL VII] SIEGE OF ILLITURGI. 603 

Carthaginian army was broken up. Either the Spaniards must have given some 
new provocation, which called Scipio again into the field ; or some new motive 
must have influenced him, which hitherto he had not felt, and, outweighing all 
other considerations, forced him to retrace his steps to the south. 

Either of these causes is sufficiently probable. Mago had by this time received 
instructions from Hannibal ; and acting under such direction, he 

^ i T-« •,! ,t Probable causes of it. 

was not likely to abandon Spain to the Romans without another 
struggle. We read of a Carthaginian garrison in Castulo, which is said to have 
fled thither after the dispersion of Hasdrubal's army f but it may also have been 
sent thither by Mago from Cades, to assist in organizing a new rising against the 
Romans. The mines were still in his hands ; and he probably employed their 
treasures liberally. Nor were causes wanting to rouse the Spaniards, without 
any foreign instigation. If they had admired Scipio, they had since found that 
his virtues did not restrain the license of his army; the Roman soldiers had 
fleshed themselves with the plunder of Spain, and were likely to return after a 
moment's respite, and fall again upon their prey. On the other hand, the Roman 
army, like the Spaniards afterwards in America, may have been so eager to 
prosecute their conquest, and to win more of the wealth of Spain> that their 
general found it impossible not to gratify them ; or they may have she wn symp- 
toms of license and turbulence, which made it desirable to keep them actively 
employed, that they might not have leisure to contrive mischief : whatever was 
the cause, the Roman army again marched into the south of Spain. L. Marcius 
was ordered to attack Castulo ; Scipio himself laid siege to Illiturgi. 

Illitursri stood on the north, or right bank of the Baetis, near to the site of the 
present town of Andujar, and not far therefore from Baylen, and situation and state of 
from the scene of the almost solitary triumph of the Spanish arms milur s 1 - 
in the war with Napoleon. Its people had been allies of the Carthaginians, and 
had revolted to Rome, when the two Scipios first advanced into the south of 
Spain ; S8 but after their defeat and death, Illiturgi had gone back to the alliance 
of Carthage ; and the Roman fugitives from the rout of the two Scipios, who 
escaped to Illiturgi, were either cut off by the inhabitants, or given up b) r them 
to the Carthaginians. Such was the Roman account of the matter ; and Castulo 
was charged with a similar defection after the defeat of the Scipios, a defection 
however not aggravated, as at Illiturgi, by any particular acts of hostility. 89 

Vengeance was now to be taken for this alleged treason. Without any terms 
of peace offered or solicited on either side, the Romans prepared Us capture and de stmc- 
to attack Illiturgi, and the Spaniards with all their national ob- tlon- 
stinacy to defend it. They fought so stoutly, that the Romans were more than 
once repulsed ; and Scipio was at last obliged to offer to lead the assault in per- 
son, and was preparing to mount the first ladder, when a general shout of his 
soldiers called upon him to forbear : with an overwhelming rush of numbers they 
crowded up the ladders in many places at once, and drove the defenders by 
main force from the ramparts. At the same moment, Leelius scaled the walls 
on the opposite side of the city ; and some African deserters, who were now in 
the Roman service, men trained to all feats of daring activity, climbed up the 
almost precipitous cliff on which the citadel was built, and surprised it without 
resistance. 90 Then followed a horrible massacre, in which neither age nor sex 
was spared ; and when the sword had done its work upon the people, fire was 
let loose upon the buildings of the city, and Illiturgi was totally destroyed. 

Scipio then marched to Castulo to support L. Marcius, who had been able, it 
seems, to make no impression with the force under his separate 
command. But Scipio's arrival, fresh from the storming of Illi- apur ' 
turgi, struck terror into the besieged ; and the Spaniards hoped to make their 

* Livy, XXVHI. 20. 89 Livy, XXVIII. 19. 

88 Livy, XXIII. 49. ao Livy, XXVIII. 19, 20. 



604 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

peace by surrendering, not their town only, but a Carthaginian garrison, which 
was engaged jointly with them in its defence. The Romans treated Castulo, says 
Livy, more mildly than they had treated Illiturgi ; which seems to imply that 
even at Castulo blood was shed after the town was taken, though it did not 
amount to an indiscriminate massacre. 91 

After the second conquest, Scipio left it to L. Marcius to complete the work, 
of Astapa: seifdevo- whether of vengeance or of ambition, by the subjugation of the 
tionofitsinbabiianu. ti ier towns of Baetica, while he himself returned to New Car- 
thage. 92 Marcius crossed the Baetis, and received the submission'of some of the 
towns on the left bank ; but the inhabitants of one place, Astapa, which had 
rendered itself obnoxious, by carrying on an active guerilla warfare against the 
Roman detached parties and communications, exhibited one of those shocking in- 
stances of desperation which testify so painfully to the miserable lot of the van- 
quished in ancient warfare. They erected a great pile in the middle of their city, 
on which they threw all their ornaments and most valuable property, and then 
bade their wives and children ascend it, and sit down quietly on the top. Fifty 
chosen men were left to keep watch beside the pile, while the rest of the citizens 
sallied out against the Romans, determined to fight till they were cut to pieces. 
They fell to a man, selling their lives dearly : in the mean while the fifty men left 
by the pile performed their dreadful task ; they set it on fire ; they butchered 
the women and children who were placed on it, and then threw themselves into 
the flames. The Roman soldiers lost their plunder, and exclaimed against the 
desperate ferocity of the people of Astapa. 93 

After this tragedy, the neighboring towns submitted ; and Marcius returned to 
offer to surrender Ga- bis general at New Carthage. But he was not allowed to rest: 
dcs - for a secret deputation came to Scipio from Gades, offering to sur- 

render the city to him, along with the. Carthaginian fleet and garrison employed 
in maintaining it, and Mago their general, Hannibal's brother. Again therefore 
Marcius took the field with a light division of the army ; and Lselius accompanied 
him by sea with a small squadron, to ascertain whether the offer could really be 
executed. 94 

It was now late in the summer ; and the season, combined with the fatigue and 
scipio's iiiness : mutiay excitement which he had undergone, brought on a serious illness 
in the Roman army. u p on Scipio, which rumor magnified, spreading the tidings over 
Spain that the great Roman general could not live. At once, it is said, the 
fidelitv of the Spanish chiefs was shaken : Mandonius and Indibilus, who had re- 
garded Scipio with such extreme veneration, cared nothing for the Roman people, 
and prepared to assert their country's independence, by driving out the Roman 
army. 95 But a worse mischief was threatening ; a division of eight thousand Ro- 
man or Italian soldiers, who were quartered in a stationary camp on the Sucro, at 
once as a reserve for the army engaged in the field, and as a covering force to 
keep the more northern parts of Spain quiet, broke out into open mutiny ; and 
having driven their tribunes from the camp, they conferred the command on two 
private soldiers, the one C. Atrius, of the allied people of the Umbrians, and the 
other C. Albius, of the Latin colony of Cales. It is probable that this division 
of Scipio's army consisted almost entirely of Latins and Italian allies ; and the 
generals chosen accordingly represented both of these, and assumed the full state 
of Roman generals, causing the lictors to go before them, and to bear the i - ods 
and axes, which were the symbol of the consul's imperium, his absolute power of 
life and death. 96 

The. alleged grievance of the mutinous soldiers was, that their pay was greatly 
in caiwos; scipio's re. i' 1 arrears. This indeed was likely to be the case, the treasury of 
covery. Rome being ill able to meet the numerous demands for the public 

01 Liw. XXVIII. 20. ° 4 Livy, XXVIII. 23. 

w Livy. XXV1I1. 21. ° 6 Livy, XXVIII. 24. 

w Livy, XXV111. 22, 28. AppiA, VI. 33. " Livy, XXVIII. 25. 



Chap/XLVIL] SCIPIO'S POLITIC CONDUCT. 605 

service ; and as the Spanish army had avowedly been left to its own resources 
as to money, it is probable that the soldiers were allowed to plunder the more 
freely, in order to reconcile them to their not being paid in the regular manner. 
Scipio himself was charged with injuring the discipline of his army by his indul- 
gence : here, as in other things, it was in his character to rely on his own per- 
sonal ascendency ; and he thought that he might dispense with the constant 
strictness necessary to ordinary men, as he was sure that his soldiers would never 
be disobedient to him. But however lax his discipline was, troops at a distance 
from the seat of war, and quartered amongst a friendly or submissive people, 
must be somewhat restrained in their license of plunder ; and accordingly, even 
before Scipio's illness, the soldiers on the Sucro complained that they were 
neither paid regularly as in peace, nor allowed to provide for themselves as in 
war. And*when they heard that Scipio was at the point of death, and that the 
Spaniards in the north were revolting from Rome, they hoped to draw their own 
rjrofit out of these troubled waters, and, following the example of the Campanians 
at Rhegium, to secure a city for themselves, and to live in luxury upon the plun- 
der and the tributes of the surrounding people. 91 It is said that Mago from Gades 
sent them money, to prevail on them to enter into the service of Carthage, and 
that they took the money, but did no more than appoint their own generals, take 
oath of fidelity to one another, and remain in a state of open revolt from Rome. 93 
They probably thought that they might establish themselves in Spain without 
serving any government at all ; and that their own swords were more to be relied 
on than Mago's promises. While this was the state of affairs on the Sucro, 
tidings came, not of Scipio's death, but of his convalescence ; and presently seven 
military tribunes arrived in the camp, sent by Scipio to prevent the soldiers from 
breaking out into any worse outrage. The tribunes affected to rejoice that mat- 
ters had not been carried to any greater extremity ; they acknowledged the 
former services of the troops, and said that Scipio was not a man to forget or 
leave them unrewarded ; meanwhile the general would endeavor to raise money 
from the subject tribes of Spain, to make good their arrears of pay. Accordingly 
soon afterwards a proclamation appeared, inviting the soldiers to come to New 
Carthage to receive it. 99 

Scipio's recovery was felt from one end of Spain to the other ; the revolted 
Spaniards gave up their hostile purposes, and returned quietly to The mutineers come to 
their homes ; and the soldiers on the Sucro, moved at once by the New Cartha s e - 
fear of resisting one whom the gods seemed to favor in all things, and by the 
hope of receiving, not only pardon for their fault, but the very pay which they 
demanded, resolved to march in a body to New Carthage. As they drew near 
to that city, the seven tribunes, who had visited their camp on the Sucro, came 
to meet them, gave them fair words, and mentioned, as if incidentally, that M. 
Silanus, with the troops at New Carthage, was to march the next morning to put 
down the revolt of Mandonius and Indibilis. Delighted to find that Scipio would 
thus be left without any force at his disposal, they entered New Carthage in high 
spirits : there they saw the troops all busy in preparations for their departure ; 
and they were told that the general was rejoiced at their seasonable arrival, to 
supply the place of the soldiers who were going to leave him. In perfect confi- 
dence they dispersed to their quarters for the night. 100 

Thus the prey had run blindly into the snare. The seven tribunes, who met 
the soldiers on their march, had each been furnished with the names 

P ~ /■ . 1 ••i , ii i ,i i • They are surrounded. 

or nve oi the pnncipal ringleaders, whom they were to secure in 
the course of the evening without disturbance. Accordingly they invited them 
to supper in their quarters, seized them all, and kept them in close custody till 
the next morning. But all else was quiet : the baggage of the army which was 

97 Livy, XXVIII. 24. " Livy, XXVIII. 25. 

68 Appian, VX 34. M0 Livy, XXVIII. 26. 



606 HISTORY OF ROME. [Chap. XLVIL 

to take the field against the Spaniards began to move before daybreak ; about 
dawn the columns of the troops formed in the streets, and marched out of the 
town. But they halted at the gates ; and parties were sent round to every other 
gate to secure them all, and to take care that no one should leave the city. In 
the mean time the troops from the Sucro were summoned to the forum to meet 
their general ; and they crowcfed impatiently to the place, without their arms, as 
was the custom of the Greek soldiers on similar occasions. No sooner were they 
all assembled, than the columns from the gates marched into the town, and oc- 
cupied all the streets leading to the market-place. Then Scipio presented him- 
self on his tribunal, and sat a while in silence. But as soon as he heard that the 
prisoners, who had been secured on the preceding evening, were brought up, the 
crier, with his loud clear voice, commanded silence, and Scipio arose to speak. 101 

The scene had been prepared with consummate art ; and its effect was over- 
whelming. The mutinous soldiers saw themselves completely in 
by the" punishment of their general's power; they listened in breathless anxiety to his 
address, and with joy beyond all hope heard his concluding sen- 
tence, that he freely pardoned the multitude, and that justice would be satisfied 
with the punishment of those who had misled them. The instant he ceased 
speaking, the troops posted in the adjoining streets clashed their swords on their 
shields, as if they were going to attack the mutineers ; and the crier's voice was 
again heard calling the names of the thirty-five ringleaders, one after another, to 
receive the punishment to which they had been condemned. They Avere brought 
forth, already stripped and bound ; each was fastened to his stake ; and all un- 
derwent their sentence, being first scourged, and then beheaded. When all was 
finished the bodies were dragged away, to be thrown out of the city ; the place 
of execution was cleansed from the blood ; and the soldiers from the Sucro heard 
the general and the other officers swear to grant them a free pardon with an en- 
tire amnesty for the past. They were then summoned by the crier, one by one, 
to appear before the general to take the usual military oath of obedience, after 
which each man received his full arrears of pay. 102 Never was mutiny quelled 
with more consummate ability ; and Scipio's ascendency over his soldiers after 
this memorable scene was doubtless more complete than ever. 

The punishment of the mutineers, however, we are told, rendered the revolted 
The revolted Spaniards Spaniards desperate. Thinking that they had already done enough 
areaubdued. ^ draw down Scipio's vengeance, they resolved to try the chances 

of war, and again took the field, and began to attack the allies of the Romans on 
the north of the Iberus. Scipio lost not a moment in marching in pursuit of 
them : he was not sorry to employ his soldiers against the enemy, as the surest 
means of effacing the recollection of their recent disorders ; and he spoke of the 
Spaniards with bitter contempt, as barbarians equally powerless and faithless, on 
whom he was resolved to take signal vengeance. In ten days he marched from 
New Carthage to the Iberus ; and on the fourth day after crossing the river he 
came in sight of the enemy. He engaged and totally defeated them, not, how- 
ever, without a loss of more than four thousand men killed and wounded ; and 
immediately after the battle the chiefs threw themselves on his mercy. He re- 
quired nothing more than the immediate payment of a sum of money, which was 
to make good the money lately advanced or borrowed to pay the soldiers after the 
mutiny ; and then, leaving Silanus at Tarraco, he returned to New Carthage. 103 

Even yet he would not allow himself to rest. Leaving the mass of his army 
sdpio'i interview Trith at New Carthage, he joined L. Marcius, his lieutenant, in the 
neighborhood of Gades, for the sole purpose, it is said, of gratify- 
ing Masinissa's earnest desire of a personal interview. Masinissa had returned 
from Africa to Gades, and was professedly consulting with Mago how one more 

101 Liw, XXVIII. 26. ™ Polybius, XI. 31-83. Liw, XXVIII. 

101 Polybius, XI. 80. Livy, XXVIII. 29. Ap- 81-84. 
pian, VI. 30. 



Chap. XLVIL] MAGO EVACUATES SPAIN. 607 

attempt might be made to restore the Carthaginian dominion in Spain. But his 
mind was already made up to join the Romans ; and he took the opportunity of 
a pretended plundering excursion with his Numidian cavalry to arrange and effect 
a meeting with Scipio. He too, it is said, like all other men, was overawed at 
once, and delighted by Scipio's personal appearance, manner, and conversation ; 
he promised the most zealous aid to the Romans, and urged Scipio to cross over 
as soon as possible into Africa, where he might be able to serve him most effect- 
ually. 104 Scipio's keen discernment of character taught him the value of Masi-: 
nissa's friendship ; and his journey from New Carthage to Cades, in order to 
secure it, was abundantly rewarded afterwards ; for had Masinissa fought in Han- 
nibal's army, Scipio, in all probability, would never have won the day at Zama. 

Mago heard of the termination of the mutiny in the Roman army, and of the 
defeat of the revolted Spaniards in the north ; and he found that Ma ^ evacuatea Spaill; 
the Roman army was again returned to New Carthage, and that fnMTnwcaforinvadS 1 ! 
all hopes of making head against Rome in Spain were, for ttu Italy - 
present, at an end. Hannibal summoned him to Italy ; and the Carthaginian 
government, acting, as it seems, cordially upon Hannibal's views, ordered him to 
obey his brother's call. It was not the least bold enterprise of this great war, to 
plan the invasion of Italy from Gades, at a time when the whole of Spain, from 
the Pillars of Hercules to the Pyrenees, was possessed by the enemy. But 
Scipio, to strengthen his land forces, had laid up the greater part of his fleet ; 
and the exertions of the Carthaginian government, or his own, had provided Mago 
with a naval force, small probably in point of numbers, but consisting of excellent 
ships manned by skilful seamen, and capable, if ably used, of rendering essential 
service. He was supplied with money from Carthage ; and he levied large con- 
tributions, it is said, on the people of Gades, and even emptied their treasury, 
and stripped their temples. 105 He then put to sea, so late in the season, that 
Scipio was gone back to Tarraco, and was preparing to return to Rome ; and the 
Roman army being gone into its winter-quarters behind the Iberus, New Carthage 
was left to the protection of its own garrison. This encouraged Mago to attempt 
to surprise the place ; but in this he failed : he then crossed over to the Island 
of Pityusa (Iviza), which was held by the Carthaginians ; and having there re- 
ceived supplies of provisions and of men, he proceeded to attack the two Balerian 
islands, now called Majorca and Minorca. He was repulsed from the larger 
island, but made himself master of the smaller : there he landed his men, and 
drew up his ships, and purposed to pass the winter, the season securing him 
from any attack by sea, perhaps even hiding his movements altogether from the 
knowledge of the Romans ; while he lay in readiness to catch the first return of 
spring, and to run over to Italy, and establish himself on the coast of Liguria, in 
the midst of a warlike population, furnishing the materials of a future army. 106 

Spain was thus abandoned by the Carthaginians ; and Gades, left to itself, 
went over to the Roman alliance, and concluded a treaty with L. Treaty with Gades 
Marcius, which for two centuries formed the basis of its relations scipio returns to Rome, 
with Rome. 107 He had probably been left in command at New Carthage, when 
Scipio returned to Tarraco. Scipio himself was known to be desirous of leaving 
Spain, and offering himself as a candidate for the consulship ; and accordingly 
L. Lentulus and L. Manlius Acidius were appointed proconsuls to succeed him 
and M. Silanus in the command of the Roman army and province. Scipio mean- 
while, accompanied by C. Laalius, returned to Rome ; he could not have a tri- 
umph, because he had been neither consul nor praetor ; but he entered the city 
with some display, with an immense treasure of silver, in money and in ingots, 
which he deposited in the treasury ; and his name was so popular, that he was 

104 Livy, XXVIII. 35. 3 °' Livy, XXVIII. 37. Appian, VI. 37. See 

1M Livy, XXVIII. 36. Cicero pro Cornelio, c. XVII. 

106 Livy, XXVIII. 37. 



608 HISTORY OF ROME. [Supplement. 

elected consul immediately, with an almost unanimous feeling in his favor. His 
colleague was P. Licinius Crassus, who at that time held the dignity of Pontifex 
Masimus. 103 

Thus the war, being altogether extinguished in Spain, was reduced as it were 
Prospects of the war in to Italy only ; and there it smoldered rather than blazed; for 
Italy- Hannibal with his single army could do no more than maintain his 

ground in Bruttium. Was it possible that Mago might kindle a fierce flame in 
Liguria ? might blow up the half-extinguished ashes in Etruria, and reviving the 
fire in the south, spread the conflagration around the walls of Rome ? This was 
not beyond possibility : but Scipio, impatient of defensive warfare, and himself 
the conqueror of a vast country, was eager to stop the torrent at its source, rather 
than raise barriers against it, when it was sweeping down the valley : he was 
bent on combating Hannibal, not in Italy, but in Africa. 



SUPPLEMENT, 



[With the preceding chapter the work is unfortunately terminated. From a note in 
the margin, that chapter appears to have been finished on the 5th of May; on the 12th 
of June the author breathed his last. Two more chapters at least would have been 
requisite to bring the history down to the end of the Second Punic War; for the heading 
of the forty-eighth chapter shows what it was intended to contain : — Last years of the 
war in Italy — Consulship of P. Scipio — Seipio in Sicily — Siege of Locri — Scipio in 
Africa — His victories over Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax — The Carthaginians recall Han- 
nibal and Mago from Italy — a. u. c. 548 to a. tr. c. 551. 

Every reader of the foregoing narrative of one of the most interesting and eventful 
periods in ancient history, must regret that the author was not allowed to carry it on to 
the close of the war. As the best substitute for that which we should have had, the 
following account of the last years of the war, written by Dr. Arnold in the year 1823, 
for the life of Hannibal in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, is here inserted.] 



The defeat and destruction of Hasdrubal's army reduced Hannibal to the neces- 
Adventnres and death sity of acting entirely on the defensive. It had been for some time 
of Mago. evident, that his single army could not overthrow the supremacy 

of Rome in Italy. Still, while the fate of the war was balanced in Spain and 
Sicily, and while he was looking forward to the arrival of his brother to co-oper- 
ate with him, he might be justified in making himself as troublesome as possible 
to the enemy, even though by so doing he might sometimes incur the danger of 
some loss. But now his policy was altered : to maintain his ground in Italy, till 
another effort could be made by his government to support him, was become his 
most important duty. He was obliged to abandon several towns which had re- 
volted to him from "the Romans ; and he forced the inhabitants of others to desert 
their home9, and to retire with him into the remotest part of Bruttium. The 
superiority of his personal character was«so great, that the Romans never dared 
to attack him ; and thus he might repose for a while, watching the first favor- 
able opportunity of issuing from his retreat, and attempting once more to accom- 
plish the design with which he had originally invaded Italy. The death of Has- 
drubal had not extinguished all his hopes. Mago, after the total wreck of the 

m Livy, XXVIII. 88. 



Supplement.] HANNIBAL EVACUATES ITALY. 609 

Carthaginian interest in Spain, was ordered, as we have seen, to attempt a diver- 
sion in Italy, and transporting a small force with him by sea, landed in Liguria, and 
surprised the town of Genoa. 1 The name of his family urged the Gauls and Li- 
gurians to flock to his standard ; and his growing strength excited much alarm 
among the Romans, and obliged them to keep a large army in the north of Italy 
to watch his movements. The details of his adventures are unknown ; nor are 
we informed what cause prevented him from attempting to penetrate into Tus- 
cany. We only find that he became so formidable an enemy as to maintain an 
obstinate contest against an army of four Roman legions, a few weeks before the 
final evacuation of Italy by Hannibal ; nor were the Romans certain of victory, 
till Mago was mortally wounded, and obliged to leave the field. From the scene 
of this battle, which is said to have been in the country of the Insubrian Gauls, 
he retreated with as much expedition as his wound would allow, to the coast of 
Liguria ; and there he found orders from Carthage that he should immediately 
return to Africa, to oppose the alarming progress of P. Scipio. He accordingly 
embarked with his troops, and commenced his voyage homewards : but his exer- 
tions and anxiety of mind had proved too great for his strength ; and he had 
scarcely passed the coast of Sardinia, when he expired. So unwearied was the 
zeal, and so great the ability, with which the sons of Hamilcar maintained the 
cause of their country, almost solely by their personal efforts, against the over- 
bearing resources and energy of the Roman people. 

When the Carthaginian government sent for Mago from Italy, they also re- 
called Hannibal. The account of his operations during the three H annibai evacuatea tt- 
or four years that preceded his return to Africa is peculiarly un- aly- 
satisfactory. The Roman writers have transmitted some reports of victories ob- 
tained over him in Italy, too audacious in falsehood for even themselves to have 
believed. But, in truth, the terror with which he continued to inspire his ene- 
mies, after his career of success was closed, is even more wonderful than his first 
brilliant triumphs. For four years after the death of Hasdrubal, he remained in 
undisputed possession of Bruttium, when the Romans had reconquered all the 
rest of Italy. Here he maintained his army, without receiving any supplies from 
home, and with no other naval force at his disposal, than such vessels as he could 
build from the Bruttium forests, and man with the sailors of the country. Here 
too he seems to have looked forward to the renown which awaited him in after- 
times ; and as if foreseeing the interest with which posterity would follow his 
progress in his unequalled enterprise, he recorded many minute particulars of his 
campaigns on monumental columns, erected at Lacinium, 2 a town situated in that 
corner of Italy, which was so long like a new country acquired by conquest, for 
himself and his soldiers. At length, when it was plain that no new diversion 
could be effected in his favor, and when the dangerous situation of his country 
called for his presence, as the last hope of Carthage, he embarked his troops 
without the slightest interruption from the Romans ; and moved only by the dis- 
asters of others, while his own army was unbroken and unbeaten, he abandoned 
Italy fifteen years after he had first entered it, having ravaged it with fire and 
sword from one extremity to the other, and having never seen his numerous vic- 
tories checkered by a single defeat. 

Scipio, meanwhile, after his important services in Spain, had returned to Rome, 
and been elected consul, hoping to carry into execution the design 
which he had for some time conceived, of forcing Hannibal to leave 204. 'scipio carries' ti» 
Italy, by attacking the Carthaginians in Africa. But according to 
the invariable policy of Rome, he was desirous of securing the aid of some ally 
in the country which he was going to make the seat of war. For this end, as we 
have seen, he had already opened a communication with Syphax, the most con- 
siderable of the Numidian princes, and, according to Livy, had actually concluded 
a treaty with him. But Syphax was won over to the interests of Carthage by 

1 Livy, XXVIII. 46. XXX. 18. s Polybius, III. 33, 56. 

39 



610 HISTORY OF ROME. [Supplement 

the charms of Sophonisba, the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco ; and a short time 
before Scipio crossed over into Africa, he sent to inform him of his new connec- 
tion, and to dissuade him from his intended expedition, as he should now be 
obliged to join the Carthaginians in opposing him. Scipio, however, was not yet 
without the prospect of finding allies in Africa. Masinissa had deserted the Car- 
thaginian cause after its disasters in Spain, and had privately pledged himself to 
support the Romans on the first opportunity. Since that time he had been de- 
prived of his paternal dominions by the united efforts of Syphax and the Cartha- 
ginians ; but though his power was thus reduced, his zeal in the cause of Rome 
was likely to be the more heightened ; and as his personal character was high 
among his countrymen, many of them might be expected to join him, when they 
saw him supported by a Roman army. Accordingly, he united himself 3 to Scipio 
so soon as he had landed in Africa ; and his activity, and perfect familiarity with 
the country and its inhabitants, made him a very valuable auxiliary. The land- 
ing had been effected within a few miles of Carthage itself ; and after some plun- 
der, amongst which eight thousand prisoners to be sold for slaves are particularly 
specified, had been collected from the adjoining country, the army formed the 
siege of Utica, whilst a considerable fleet co-operated with it on the side of the 
sea. But the approach of Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax, at the head of two im- 
mense armies of Carthaginians and Numidians, induced Scipio to raise the siege, 
and to remove his troops to a strong position near the sea, where he proposed 
to remain, as winter was fast approaching, and secure of subsistence, through 
the co-operation of his fleet, to wait for some favorable opportunity of striking a 
vigorous blow. 

His first hope was 4 to win over Syphax again to the Roman cause ; and with 

this view his emissaries were continually going and returning be- 
thagmian "and Numid- tween the Roman and Numidian camps. Their temptations to 

Syphax were ineffectual : but their report of the manner in which 
the Carthaginian and Numid ian armies were quartered, suggested to Scipio the 
possibility of insuring success by other means than negotiation. They related, 
that the Carthaginians were lodged in huts constructed of stakes or hurdles, and 
covered with leaves, and that the Numidian quarters were composed of similar 
materials, of reeds, thatch, and dried leaves. Upon this intelligence Scipio con- 
ceived the plan of setting fire to both the camps of the enemy. In order to gain 
a more perfect knowledge of their situation, and the approaches to them, he pre- 
tended to listen to the terms of peace which Syphax had before proposed to him 
in vain. Under pretence of negotiation, he was for some months in constant cor- 
respondence with the Numidian king ; and disguising some of his most intelligent 
soldiers in the dress of slaves, he procured them an easy entrance into the ene- 
my's camp, as forming part of the suite of the officers employed in the negotia- 
tion. At last, when the season for military operations was returning, and his 
seemingly sincere desire of peace had thrown the enemy into a state of perfect 
security, he suddenly broke off all communication with them, declaring that, how- 
ever disposed he himself was to agree to the proposed terms, the other members 
of the military council were fixed on rejecting them. This sudden rupture disap- 
pointed Syphax ; but neither he nor the Carthaginian general had any suspicion 
of Scipio's real designs ; when suddenly the Roman army marched out by night 
in two divisions, the one commanded by Scipio, and the other by Loclius, his 
second in command, and advanced against the camps of the enemy, which were 
not more than six miles from their own. Lcelius, assisted by Masinissa, first 
silently approached the encampment of the Numidians, and set fire to the first 
tents that he met with. The games spread so rapidly, that the Numidians were 
soon precluded from approaching the quarter where" they had first broken out, 
and thus, having no suspicion that they had been kindled by the enemy, crowded 

1 Livy, XXIX. 29. « Polybius, XTV. 1, &c. 



Supplement.] SCIPIO'S VICTORIES IN AFRICA. 611 

together in the utmost disorder to effect their escape out of the camp. Numbers 
were trampled to death in the confusion at the several outlets ; numbers were 
overtaken by the flames and burnt to death ; and the rest, on reaching the open 
country, found themselves intercepted by Masinissa, who had posted his troops in 
the quarter to which he knew that the fugitives were most likely to direct their 
flight. In this manner the whole Numidian army, amounting to sixty thousand 
men, was completely destroyed or dispersed, with the exception of Syphax him- 
self and a few horsemen. 

Meanwhile the Carthaginians, when they first saw the camp of their allies on 
fire, not doiibting that it was occasioned by accident, began partly to run with 
assistance to the Numidians, and the rest rushed hastily out of their tents, with- 
out their arms, and stood on the outside of the camp, contemplating the progress 
of this fearful conflagration with dismay. In this helpless state they found them- 
selves attacked by the enemy, under the command of Scipio in person : some 
were instantly cut down ; and the rest, driven back into their camp, saw it set 
on fire by their pursuers. They then understood the whole extent of the calamity 
which had befallen their allies and themselves ; but resistance and flight were 
alike impracticable ; the fire spread with fury to every quarter ; and every avenue 
was choked up by a struggling crowd of men and horses, all striving with the 
same distracted efforts to effect their escape. In this attempt, Hasdrubal and a 
few followers alone succeeded ; thirty thousand men, who had composed the 
Carthaginian army, perished. The annals of war contain no bloodier tragedy. v 

Hasdrubal, hopeless of delaying the progress of the enemy, continued his flight 
to Carthage ; while Syphax had retreated into the opposite direc- H e gains another vic- 
tion towards his own dominions, and was endeavoring to rally the tory ' 
wrecks of his army. After much debate in the Carthaginian supreme council, it 
was resolved that the fortune of war should be tried once more. Syphax was 
prevailed upon to join his troops to theirs, instead of confining himself to the de- 
fence of Numidia ; and the recent arrival of four thousand Spaniards, who had 
been enlisted by Carthaginian agents in Spain, encouraged the two confederates 
to hope for a successful issue. Scipio was so engrossed with the siege of Utica, 
which he had pushed with additional vigor after his late victory, that he 
allowed the enemy to unite their forces, and appear again in the field with no 
fewer than thirty thousand men. But when he heard of their junction, he lost 
no time in advancing to meet them ; and engaging them a second time, in little 
more than a month after the destruction of their former armies, he again totally 
defeated them, and obliged their two generals to fly once more, Syphax to Nu- 
midia, and Hasdrubal to Carthage. 

The victors now divided their forces : Laelius and Masinissa were dispatched 
in pursuit of Syphax ; and in a short time Masinissa recovered his 

A U C 5 r 2 A C 

father's kingdom ; and Syphax, having risked a third battle, was 202. Defeat and ca P I 
not only defeated as before, but was himself made prisoner, and carthaginuns^sue for 
his capital fell into the hands of the enemy. Scipio meantime pea ° 
overran the country towards Carthage, receiving or forcing the submission of the 
surrounding towns, and enriching his soldiers with an immense accumulation of 
plunder. The chief part of this, in order to lighten his army, he sent back to his 
winter- quarters before Utica ; and then he advanced as far as Tunis, and finding 
that important place abandoned by its garrison, posted himself there, hoping by 
his presence in the immediate neighborhood of the capital, to terrify the Cartha- 
ginians into complete submission. But they had not yet abandoned more reso- 
lute counsels ; and instead of suing for peace, they determined to send messen- 
gers to Italy, to recall Hannibal and Mago, and, in the mean time, to make an 
attempt to raise the blockade of Utica, by destroying the Roman fleet. The at- 
tempt was made, and was partly successful ; but this slight advantage was so far 
overbalanced by the defeat and capture of Syphax, intelligence of which reached 
Carthage about the same time, that the further prosecution of the war appeared 



g!2 HISTORY OF ROME. [Supplement. 

desperate, and a deputation from the council of elders was sent to Scipio to solicit 
terms of peace. It is said that these deputies forgot their own and their coun- 
try's dignity in the humbleness of their entreaties : they moved Scipio, however, 
to" dictate such conditions as he might well deem a sufficient recompense of his 
victories ; conditions which, by obliging the Carthaginians to evacuate Italy and 
Gaul, — to cede Spain and all the islands between Italy and Africa, — to give up 
all their ships of war, except twenty, — and to pay an immense contribution of 
corn and money, — sufficiently declared the complete triumph of the Roman 
arms. Hard as they were, the Carthaginians judged them sufficiently favorable 
to be accepted without difficulty. A truce was concluded with Scipio ; and am- 
bassadors were sent to Rome to procure the ratification of the senate and people. 
With regard to the transactions that followed, we are more than ever obliged 
,. . ., to rearret the want of a Carthaginian historian. Wherever the 

Interruption of the ne- *^o o • t /• t-* i l • T_ 

gotiations. family of Scipio is concerned the impartiality of Polybms becomes 

doubtful ; and besides, we have only fragments of this part of his narrative, so 
that we cannot exactly fix the dates of the several events, a point which here be- 
comes of considerable importance. According to our only existing authorities, 
the Carthaginians, emboldened by the arrival of Hannibal, or, according to Livy, 
by the mere expectation of his arrival, wantonly Woke the truce subsisting be- 
tween them and Scipio, by detaining some Roman transports which had been 
driven by a storm into the bay of Carthage ; and then denied satisfaction to the 
officers whom Scipio sent to complain of this outrage ; and lastly, in defiance of 
the law of nations, endeavored to seize the officers themselves on their way back 
to the Roman camp at Utica. By such conduct the resentment of Scipio is de- 
scribed to have been very naturally provoked ; and the war was renewed with 
greater animosity than ever. This, no doubt, was Scipio's own report of these 
transactions, which Polybius, the intimate friend of his adopted grandson, and 
deriving his information, in part at least, from Lselius, in all probability sincerely 
believed. But it is probable that a Carthaginian narrative of the Avar in Africa 
would so represent the matter, that posterity would esteem the behavior of the 
Carthaginians, in breaking off the truce when it suited their purposes, as neither 
more nor less dishonorable than the conduct of Scipio himself, when he set fire 
to the camps of Syphax and Hasdrubal ; and that, although the success was dif- 
ferent, yet the treachery in both cases, whatever it may have been, was pretty 
nearly equal. 

Hannibal, we are told, landed at Leptis, 5 at what season of the year we know 

not ; and after refreshing his troops for some time at Adrumetum, 

B 8 tae ofzama. hg took the field) and advanced to the neighborhood of Zama, a 

town situated, as Polybius describes it, about five days' journey from Carthage, 
towards the west. It seems that Scipio was busied in overrunning the country, 
and in subduing the several towns, when he was interrupted in these operations 
by the approach of the Carthaginian army. He is said to have detected some 
spies sent by Hannibal to observe his position; and by causing them to be led 
carefully round his camp, and then sent back in safety to Hannibal, he so excited 
the admiration of his antagonist, as to make him solicit a personal interview, with 
the hope of effecting a termination of hostilities. The report of this conference, 
and of the speeches of the two generals, savors greatly of the style of Roman 
family memoirs, the most unscrupulous in falsehood of any pretended records of 
facts that the world has yet seen. However, the meeting ended in nothing ; 
and the next day the two armies were led out into the field for the last decisive 
struggle. The numbers on each side we have no knowledge of ; but probably 
neither was in this respect much superior. Masinissa, however, with four thou- 
sand Numidian cavalry, besides six thousand infantry, had joined Scipio a few 
days before the battle ; while Hannibal, who had so often been indebted to the 

• Livy, XXX. 25, &c. Polybius, XV. 1, &c. 



Supplement.] BATTLE OF ZAMA. 613 

services of Numidians, had now, on this great occasion, only two thousand horse 
of that nation to oppose to the numbers, and fortune, and activity of Masinissa. 
The account of the disposition of both armies, and of the events of the action, 
was probably drawn up by Polybius from the information given to him by Lse- 
lius, and perhaps from the family records of the house of Scipio. And here we 
may admit its authority to be excellent. It states that the Roman legions were 
drawn up in their usual order, except that the maniples of every alternate line did 
not cover the intervals in the line before them, but were placed one behind an- 
other, thus leaving avenues in several places through the whole depth of the army 
from front to rear. These avenues were loosely filled by the light-armed troops, 
who had received orders to meet the charge of the elephants, and to draw them 
down the passages left between the maniples, till they should be enticed entirely 
beyond the rear of the whole army. The cavalry, as usual, was stationed on the 
wings ; Masinissa, with his Numidians, on the right, and Laelius, with the Italians, 
on the left. On the other side, Hannibal stationed his elephants, to the number 
of eighty, in the front of his whole line. Next to these were placed the foreign 
troops in the service of Carthage, twelve thousand strong, consisting of Liguri- 
ans, Gauls, inhabitants of the Balearian islands, and Moors. The second line 
was composed of those Africans who were the immediate subjects of Carthage, 
and of the Carthaginians themselves ; while Hannibal himself, with his veteran 
soldiers, who had returned with him from Italy, formed a third line, which was 
kept in reserve, at a little distance behind the other two. The Numidian cavalry 
were on the left, opposed to their own countrymen under Masinissa ; and the 
Carthaginian horse on the right, opposed to Lselius and the Italians. After some 
skirmishing of the ISTumidians in the two armies, Hannibal's elephants advanced 
to the charge ; but being startled by the sound of the Roman trumpets, and an- 
noyed by the light-armed troops of the enemy, some broke off to the right and 
left, and fell in amongst the cavalry of their own army on both the wings ; so 
that Laelius and Masinissa, availing themselves of this disorder, drove the Cartha- 
ginian horse speedily from the field. Others advanced against the enemy's line, 
and did much mischief ; till at length, being frightened, and becoming ungov- 
ernable, they were enticed by the light-armed troops of the Romans to follow 
them down the avenues which Scipio had purposely left open, and were thus 
drawn out of the action altogether. Meantime the infantry on both sides met : 
and after a fierce contest, the foreign troops in Hannibal's army, not being prop- 
erly supported by the soldiers of the second line, were forced to give ground ; 
and in resentment for this desertion, they fell upon the Africans and Cartha- 
ginians, and cut them down as enemies ; so that these troops, at once assaulted 
by their fellow-soldiers, and by the pursuing enemy, were also, after a brave re- 
sistance, defeated and dispersed. Hannibal, with his reserve, kept off the fugi- 
tives, by presenting spears to them, and obliging them to escape in a different 
direction ; and he then prepared to meet the enemy, trusting that they would be 
ill able to resist the shock of a fresh body of veterans, after having already been 
engaged in a long and obstinate struggle. Scipio, after having extricated his 
troops from the heaps of dead which lay between him and Hannibal, commenced 
a second, and a far more serious contest. The soldiers on both sides were per- 
fect in courage and in discipline ; and as the battle went on, they fell in the ranks 
where they fought, and their places were supplied by their comrades with un- 
abated zeal. At last Laelius and Masinissa returned from the pursuit of the 
enemy's beaten cavalry, and fell, in a critical moment, upon the rear of Hannibal's 
army. 6 Then his veterans, surrounded and overpowered, still maintained their 

6 The battle of Marengo forms, in many tance from the scene of the first engagement, 

points, an exact parallel with that of Zama. The struggle, which was obstinately maintained, 

The Austrians having routed the advanced was decided, as at Zama, by a timely charge of 

divisions of the French army, commenced an cavalry on the flank of the enemy's infantry ; 

entirely new action with the reserve, which but the victorious cavalry in the two battles did 

Bonaparte, like Hannibal, had kept at a dis- not belong to the armies whose situations cor- 



614 HISTORY OF ROME. [Supplement. 

high reputation ; and most of them were cut down where they stood, resisting to 
the last. Flight, indeed, was not easy ; for the country was a plain, and the 
Koman and Numidian horse were active in pursuit ; yet Hannibal, when he saw 
the battle totally lost, with a nobler fortitude than his brother had shown at the 
Metaurus, escaped from the field to Adrumetum. He knew that his country 
would now need his assistance more than ever ; and as he had been in so great a 
degree the promoter of the war, it ill became him to shrink from bearing his full 
share of the weight of its disastrous issue. 

On the plains of Zama twenty thousand of the Carthaginian army were slain, 
and an equal number taken prisoners ; but the consequences of the 
battle far exceeded the greatness of the immediate victory. It was 
not the mere destruction of an army, but the final conquest of the only power 
that seemed able to combat Rome on equal terms. In the state of the ancient 
world, with so few nations really great and powerful, and so little of a common 
feeling pervading them, there was neither the disposition nor the materials for 
forming a general confederacy against the power of Rome ; and the single efforts 
of Macedonia, of Syria, and of Carthage herself, after the fatal event of the sec- 
ond Punic war, were of no other use than to provoke their own ruin. The defeat 
of Hannibal insured the empire of the ancient civilized world. 

The only hope of the Carthaginians now rested on the forbearance of Scipio ; 
Terms of the peace an( l they again sent deputies to him, with a full confession of the 
granted to Carthage, injustice of their conduct in the first origin of the war, and still 
more in their recent violation of the truce, and with a renewal of their supplica- 
tions for peace. The conqueror, telling them that he was moved solely by consid- 
erations of the dignity of Rome, and the uncertainty of all human greatness, and 
in no degree by any pity for misfortunes which were so well deserved, presented 
the terms on which alone they could hope for mercy. " They were to make 
amends for the injuries done to the Romans during the truce ; to restore all pris- 
oners and deserters ; to give up all their ships of war, except ten, and all their 
elephants ; to engage in no war at all out of Africa, nor in Africa without the con- 
sent of the Romans ; to restore to Masinissa all that had belonged to him or any 
of his ancestors ; to feed the Roman army for three months, and pay it till it 
should be recalled home ; to pay a contribution of ten thousand Euboic talents, 
at the rate of two hundred talents a year, for fifty years ; and to give a hundred 
hostages, between the ages of fourteen and thirty, to be selected at the pleasure 
of the Roman general." At this price the Carthaginians were allowed to hold 
their former dominion in Africa, and to enjoy their independence, till it should 
seem convenient to the Romans to complete their destruction. Yet Hannibal 
strongly urged that the terms should be accepted, and, it is said, rudely inter- 
rupted 1 a member of the supreme council at Carthage, who was speaking against 
them. He probably felt, as his father had done under circumstances nearly sim- 
ilar, that for the present resistance was vain ; but that by purchasing peace at 
any price, and by a wise management of their internal resources, his countrymen 
might again find an opportunity to recover their losses. Peace was accordingly 
signed ; the Roman army returned to Italy ; and Hannibal, at the age of forty- 
five, having seen the schemes of his whole life utterly ruined, was now beginning, 
with equal patience and resolution, to lay the foundation for them again. 

From our scanty notices of the succeeding years of his life, we learn that his 
wi»e dnme.iic policy of conduct, as a citizen, displayed great wisdom and great integrity. 
ST'i''c»'' e i'»"^'»"J He ' s SfU( i to nave reduced the exorbitant 8 power of an order of 
goe. to Anuochut. perpetual judges, whose authority was very extensive, and had been 
greatly abused. He turned his attention also to the employment of the public 

respond with one another ; for at Zama the re- thieu Dumas, Campagne de 1800, and Vktoirea 

serve was defeated hy the charge of L;elhis ; et Oonquites its FrcmfOM, tome xiii. 

while it was victorious at Marengo, owing to 7 Polybius. XV. 10. 

the attack made by Kellerman. Sec Gen. Mat- " Liv'y, XXX11I. 45, 46, &c. 



Supplement.] CONCLUSION. 615 

revenue, much of which he found to be embezzled by persons in office, while the 
people were heavily taxed to raise the yearly contributions due to the Romans 
by the last treaty. When a man of such high character raised his voice against 
so gross an abuse, there was yet vigor enough in the popular part of the Cartha- 
ginian constitution to give him effectual support ; and it appears that the evil was 
removed, and the public revenue henceforward applied to public services. Han- 
nibal, however, had thus created many powerful enemies; and ere long they 
found an opportunity of gratifying their hatred. The war between Rome and 
Macedonia had lately been concluded ; and the success of the Romans, and their 
commanding interference in the affairs of Greece, awakened the fears and jealousy 
of Antiochus, king of Syria, whose kingdom was the greatest possessed by any 
of the successors of Alexander. He seemed disposed to take up the contest 
which Philip, king of Macedonia, had been compelled to resign ; and the Romans 
were either informed, or fancied, that Hannibal was using all his influence at 
Carthage to persuade his countrymen to join him. Accordingly a commission 
was sent to the Carthaginian government, requiring them to punish Hannibal as 
a disturber of the peace between the two nations. Hannibal, knowing that he 
should be unable to resist the efforts of his domestic enemies, when thus sup- 
ported by the influence of Rome, seems at last to have surrendered his long- 
cherished hopes of restoring his country to her ancient greatness. He found 
means to escape from Carthage, and procured a vessel to transport him to Tyre, 
where he was received with all the honors due to a man who had shed such 
glory on the Phoenician name, and from whence he easily reached the court ot 
Antiochus, at Antioch. Finding that the king was already set out on his way 
towards Greece, he followed and overtook him at Ephesus ; and being cordially 
received, he contributed powerfully to fix him in his determination to declare 
war on the Romans, and was retained near his person, as one of his most valuable 
counsellors. 

The ability of Hannibal was displayed again on this new occasion, by the plans 
which he recommended for the prosecution of the war. He first War of Ant i ehns. 
and most strongly urged that he should be sent 9 with an army into ^ ib f ^J° : ^ 
Italy ; there, he said, the Romans were most vulnerable ; and an death - 
attack made upon their own country might distract their counsels, and at least 
lessen their means of carrying on hostilities in Greece or Asia. When this meas- 
ure was abandoned, owing, as it is said, to the king's jealousy of the glory which 
Hannibal would gain by its success, his next proposal was 10 that the alliance of 
Philip, king of Macedon, should be purchased at any price. Macedon was a 
power strong enough to take a substantial part in the war, and would be too im- 
portant to escape, as the little second or third-rate states might do, by forsaking 
its ally as soon as he should experience any reverses. This counsel was also 
neglected ; and Philip united himself with the Romans against Antiochus ; so 
that Hannibal, employed only in a subordinate naval command, a duty for which 
his experience had in no way fitted him, could render the king no essential service ; 
and in a short time, when the Romans had brought the war to a triumphant end, 
he was obliged to seek another asylum, as Antiochus had agreed, by one of the 
articles 11 of the treaty, to surrender him up to the Roman government. His last 
refuge was the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia. With that prince he remained 
about five years ; and it is mentioned by Cornelius Nepos, that he gained a vic- 
tory, while commanding his fleet, over his old enemy Eumenes, king of Per- 
gamus. All his own prospects had long since been utterly ruined ; and the con- 
dition of such a man, reduced to the state of a dependent exile, under the pro- 
tection of so humble a sovereign as Prusias, might have satisfied the most violent 
hatred of the Romans. But it seems they could not be free from uneasiness 
while Hannibal lived ; and when a Roman embassy was sent to the court of Pru- 

• Livy, XXXIV. 60. 10 Livy, XXXVI. 7-! u Polybius, XXI. 14. 



616 HISTORY OF ROME. [Supplement. 

sias, that king, whether spontaneously, or at the solicitation of the ambassadors, 
promised to put their great enemy into their hands. His treachery, however, was 
suspected by Hannibal ; and when he found the avenues to his house secured by 
the king's guards, he is said to have destroyed himself by a poison which he had 
long carried about him for such an emergency. Some particulars are added by 
Livy and Plutarch, which, not being credibly attested, nor likely to have become 
publicly known, it is needless to insert here. It is sufficient to say, that Hanni- 
bal died by his own hand, to avoid falling into the power of the Romans, at 
Nicomedia, in Bithynia ; and, as nearly as we can ascertain, in the sixty-fourth 
year of his age. 

If the characters of men be estimated according to the steadiness with which 
they have followed the true principle of action, we cannot assign 
a high place to Hannibal. But if patriotism were indeed the great- 
est of virtues, and a resolute devotion to the interests of his country were all the 
duty that a public man can be expected to fulfil, he would then deserve the most 
lavish praise. Nothing can be more unjust than the ridicule with which Juvenal 
has treated his motives, as if he had been actuated merely by a romantic de- 
sire of glory. On the contrary, his whole conduct displays the loftiest genius, 
and the boldest spirit of enterprise, happily subdued and directed by a cool judg- 
ment to the furtherance of the honor and interests of his country ; and his sacri- 
fice of selfish pride and passion, when after the battle of Zama he urged the 
acceptance of peace, and lived to support the disgrace of Carthage, with the pa- 
tient hope of one day repairing it, affords a strong contrast to the cowardly despail 
with which some of the best of the Romans deprived their country of their 
service by suicide. Of the extent of his abilities, the history of his life is the 
best evidence : as a general, his conduct remains uncharged with a single error ; 
for the idle censure which Livy presumes to pass on him for not marching to 
Rome after the battle of Cannae, is founded on such mere ignorance, that it does 
not deserve any serious notice. His knowledge of human nature, and his ascendency 
over men's minds, are shown by the uninterrupted authority which he exercised 
alike in his prosperity and adversity over an army composed of so many various and 
discordant materials, and which had no other bond than the personal character 
of the leader. As a statesman, he was at once manly, disinterested, and sensible ; 
a real reformer of abuses in his domestic policy, and in his measures, with respect 
to foreign enemies, keeping the just limit between weakness and blind obstinacy. 
He stands reproached, however, with covetousness by the Carthaginians, and 
with cruelty by the Romans. The first charge is sustained by no facts that have 
been transmitted to us ; and it is a curious circumstance, that the very same vice 
was long imputed by party violence to the great duke of Marlborough, and that 
the imputation has been lately proved by his biographer to have been utterly 
calumnious. Of cruelty indeed, according to modern principles, he cannot be 
acquitted ; and his putting to death all the Romans whom he found on his march 
through Italy, after the battle of the lake Thrasymenus, was a savage excess 
of hostility. Yet many instances of courtesy are recorded of him, even by his 
enemies, in his treatment of the bodies of the generals who fell in action against 
him ; and certainly, if compared with the ordinary proceedings of Roman com- 
manders, his actions deserve no peculiar brand of barbarity. Still it is little to 
his honor, that he was not more careless of human suffering than Marcellus or 
Scipio ; nor can the urgency of his circumstances, or the evil influence of his 
friends, to both which Polvbius attributes much of the cruelty ascribed to him, 
be justly admitted as a defence. It is the prevailing crime of men in high sta- 
tion to be forgetful of individual misery, so long as it forwards their grand 
objects; and it is most important, that our admiration of great public talents 
and brilliant successes should not lead us to tolerate an indifference to human 
suffering. 



CONSULS Md MILITARY TRIBUNES, 

FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE COMMONWEALTH TO THE TAKING 
OF ROME BY THE GAULS. 



618 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



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53 ► 



EXPLANATION OF THE FIRST TABLES. 



The preceding tables exhibit a view of the lists of consuls and military tribunes from 
the beginning of the commonwealth to the Gaulish invasion, according to four distinct 
authorities : the remains of the Fasti Capitolini, Livy, Diodorus Siculus, and Dionysius 
of Halicarnassus. And I have endeavored to arrange each list according to the chronol- 
ogy adopted by its own particular author ; so that as this chronology varies, the same 
year will be found marked by the names of different sets of consuls, according as we 
prefer one of these four authorities to the other. 

I. The principal fragments of the Fasti Capitolini were discovered in the year 1546, 
in the course of some excavations which were then being made on the ground of the 
ancient Forum. They have been preserved in the museum of the Capitol, and their 
contents have been long known to the world, as they have been often published. My 
extracts have been taken from the edition of Sigonius ; and I have been careful to give 
them in their genuine state, without noticing the additions by which Sigonius attempted 
to supply from conjecture the lost or effaced words of the original marble. 

It happened, however, that about two hundred and seventy years after the discovery 
of these fragments, two other fragments of the same marble were brought to light in 
the course of a new excavation in the Forum, on the very spot where the former re- 
mains had been found. This was in the years 1817 and 1818 ; and Signor Borghesi, an 
eminent Italian antiquary, published a fac-simile of these new portions of the Fasti, and 
illustrated them in two able memoirs published at Milan in the year 1818. The new 
pieces joined on exactly with those discovered before ; so that in several instances a 
Word, of which only one syllable had been preserved in the former fragments, was now 
completed by the discovery of the remaining syllable, after an interval of nearly three 
centuries. I have, therefore, copied their contents from Borghesi's edition, and incorpo- 
rated them with the older fragments published long ago by Sigonius. 

These Fasti do not notice the Greek Olympiads ; but they preserve in several places 
notices of the years from the foundation of Rome. Thus the consulship of Sex. Quinc- 
tilius and P. Curiatus is placed in the year 300, and the triumph of the consuls who im- 
mediately succeeded the decemvirate, M. Horatius and L. Valerius, is assigned to the 
month of August, 304. It appears, then, that these Fasti only allow two years to the 
decemvirate, and not three ; and, moreover, that they place its commencement in the 
year 302, agreeing in that respect with the chronology of Livy. 

II. Livy also makes no mention of the Greek chronology ; but he too, from time to 
time, notices the years from the building of Rome. Thus he places the first institution 
of the military tribuneship in 310 (IV. 7), and the beginning of the decemvirate in 302 
(III. 33). Taking these two dates for my starting points, I have calculated from them 
the dates of the years before and after them, according to Livy's list of consuls. This 
brings the date of the expulsion of the Tarquins to the year 247 ; but then it seems 
probable that Livy has omitted the consuls of the fourth year of the commonwealth by 
accident; and it seems as if he had omitted those of one or two years more at the be- 
ginning of the great Volscian war of Coriolanus. With the addition of these three 
years, the first year of the commonwealth would become the year 244, which would 
agree with Livy's own calculation of the reigns of the several kings ; but as my object 
in these tables was rather to give the actual chronology of the several authorities than 
to endeavor to correct it, I have reckoned no greater number of consulships in the table 
of the Fasti according to Livy, than Livy himself allows for. 

III. Dionysius regularly gives the Olympiads along with the Roman consulships, so 
that the synchronistic part of his chronology can be ascertained with certainty. With 
him, the first year of the commonwealth is the first year of the sixty-eighth Olympiad 
(I. 74) ; and the Gaulish invasion falls in the first year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad ; 
so that there were just one hundred and twenty years between them. Again, the first 



628 HISTORY OP ROME. 

year of the commonwealth is the two hundred and forty-fifth from the foundation of 
Rome (I. 75) ; so that the Gaulish invasion falls, according to Dionysius, in the year of 
Rome 365, and the intermediate years can, therefore, be determined without difficulty. 
But as the remaining part of Dionysius' history ends at the year of Rome 312, we can- 
not compare his lists of the consuls and military tribunes, from 313 to 365, with those 
of the Fasti Capitolini, of Livy, and of Diodorus. 

IV. Diodorus gives the Olympiads also, but his synchronistic system does not agree 
with that of Dionysius. We have not his list of the early consulships, because his tenth 
book which contained them is lost : but the seventy-fifth Olympiad falls, according to 
him, in the consulship of Sp. Cassius and Proclus Virginius, whereas that same consul- 
ship is by Dionysius placed five years earlier, in the last year of the seventy-third Olym- 
piad. Accordingly, if the list of consuls in the two writers had continued to agree with 
one another, the invasion of the Gauls would have fallen, by Diodorus' reckoning, in 
the second year of the ninety-ninth Olympiad. And yet he does place it in the second 
year of the ninety-eighth Olympiad. This is the date assigned to it by Polybius (I. 6), 
and it was probably so generally agreed upon, that Diodorus thought himself obliged to 
conform his reckoning to it. He had already introduced into his list several variations 
from the Fasti followed by Dionysius. For instance, he had omitted the consulship of 
C. Julius and Q. Fabius, which Dionysius places in Olymp. 74-4 ; and he had then in- 
serted two consulships unknown to Dionysius, to Livy, and to the Fasti Capitolini, in 
Olymp. 82-2, and 82-3. Thus the first year of the decemvirate, which according to Dio- 
nysius was Olymp. 82-3, is with Diodorus Olymp. 84-1. The difference is then reduced 
by one year, because Diodorus assigns only two years to the decemvirate instead of 
three ; and thus the famous consulship of L. Valerius and M. Horatius is placed by him 
five years later than by Dionysius, in Olymp. 84-3 instead of Olymp. 83-2. But after 
this he inserts another consulship in Olymp. 90-1, so that the difference is again raised 
to six years, and the Gaulish invasion ought consequently to have been placed in Olymp. 
99-3. To prevent this, and to bring it to Olymp. 98-2, he strikes out the consulships 
and military tribuneships of five years from Olymp. 91-2 to Olymp. 92-2 inclusive, so that 
the tribunes whom he places in Olymp. 91-2 are L. Sergius, M. Papirius, and M. Servilius, 
whom he ought, according to his own system, to have placed in Olymp. 92-3. The ob- 
ject desired is thus accomplished, and the Gaulish invasion is in this manner thrown back 
to Olymp. 98-2. But so resolved was Diodorus to follow his own system in his general 
chronology, although he had felt himself in a manner forced to depart from it in giving 
the date of the Gaulish invasion, that, in order to return to it, he fills up the five years 
following Olymp. 98-2 with the very same consulships and tribuneships which he had 
already given for it and the four years preceding it; so that the military tribunes of 
Olymp. 99-4 are, in fact, the tribunes of the year next after the Gaulish invasion, and 
those of Olymp. 99-3 are evidently, although the names are grievously corrupted, the 
very same with the tribunes whom he had before placed in Olymp. 98-2, and under whose 
tribuneship he had given his account of the Gaulish war. 

Thus much will suffice in illustration of the table. It may be observed, however, as 
a proof of the confusion of the early chronology of Rome, that the only instance in which 
the Roman annals of this period attempted any synchronism with the events of foreign 
history, tends but to perplex the subject still more. The annals of the year of Rome 
323, according to Livy's reckoning, that is, the year of the consulship of T. Quintius and 
C. Julius, had recorded that in that year the Carthaginians first crossed over with an army 
into Sicily, having been invited to take part in the domestic wars of the Sicilian states. 
Now this year, according to Dionysius, was Olymp. 87-4, and according to Diodorus it 
would be Olymp. 89-1. But the Carthaginians crossed over into Sicily, for the first time 
since the reign of Gelon, in Olymp. 92-3, according to Diodorus, XIII. 43, and this is con- 
finned by Xenophon, Hellenic. I. 1, ad finem, so that the true date of this event is nine- 
teen years later than the date assigned to it in the Roman annals, if we follow the reck- 
oning of Dionysius, and fourteen years later if we follow that of Diodorus. Niebuhr 
supposes that the Roman annalists confused the Carthaginian invasion with the first ap- 
pearance of an Athenian fleet in Sicily, namely, with the expedition of Laches, in the fifth 
year of the Peloponnesian war (Thucydides, III. 86), that is, in Olymp. 88-2. But this 
is one of the very few conjectures of Niebuhr which appear to me quite improbable. The 
expedition of Laches consisted only of twenty ships, and its operations were so insignifi- 
cant that it cannot be conceived to have attracted the attention of the Romans. But the 
Carthaginian expedition which Hannibal led against Selinus consisted, according to the 
lowest computation, of one hundred thousand men and sixty ships of war; and his great 
success in the destruction of so powerful a city as Selinus was likely to have spread ter- 
ror through all the neighboring countries. Yet how is it possible to make the ninety- 



EXPLANATION OF THE FIRST TABLES. 529 

second Olympiad synchronize with the consulship of T. Quinctius and C, [ulius, ; iat is, 
with the year 323 or 324 of Rome? 

Note. — I have said that Livy places the beginning' of the decemvirate in the . ■ 302. 
His words are, "Anno trecentesimo altero quam condita Roma erat." III. 33. Bt.i Sigo- 
nius understands this to mean the year 301, although he finds it difficult to m ke out 
nine years in Livy's narrative between the first decemvirate and the institution of the 
military tribuneship, which Livy places beyond all dispute in the year 310. As to the 
grammatical question, although I am aware that the point has been contested, yet it 
seems to me certain that "Anno trecentesimo altero" must signify the year 3>J2, and not 
301. For "alter" must immediately precede "tertius," and there can be no doubt that 
"Anno trecentesimo tertio" would signify the year 303. The confusion seems to have 
arisen from such expressions as "alter ab undecimo," which, although Servhis interprets 
even this to mean the " thirteenth," may yet, I suppose, be fairly understood to be the 
twelfth, because here the inclusive system of reckoning is followed, and the eleventh 
year itself is counted as the first, the twelfth as the second from the eleventh, the 
thirteenth as the third, and so on. Thus the thirteenth of March is, according to the 
Roman reckoning, the third day before the Ides, or fifteenth, because the fifteenth itself 
is reckoned as the first. But in abstract numeral expressions, such as " trecentesimo 
altero," it is different, for here the inclusive system is not followed, and '-' alter" is there- 
fore the " second" in our sense of the word, and " trecentesimo primo" would be the 
date of the year preceding it. The usage of the Greek word Savrepos is exactly analo- 
gous to this. Aevrip<f eru /isto. rr\v ndxvv would be the year next after the battle, which we 
should more naturally call the "first year" after it. But 'oA^Ti-iaf ievripa npbs rats tKarbv 
is not the one hundred and first, but the one hundred and second Olympiad. If Sigo- 
nius' interpretation could be shown to be right, it would only embarrass his system still 
more; for if "trecentesimo altero" means what we should call "the three hundred and 
first," then "trecentesimo decimo" in Livy, IV. 7, must be what we should call the 
" three hundred and ninth," it being certain that in all reckonings " alter" is immediately 
followed by " tertius." 



630 



HISTORY OF ROME. 



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HISTORY OF ROME. 



62 
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EXPLANATION OF THE SECOND TABLES. 



I have continued the tables of military tribunes and consuls from the point of time 
at which they ended in the preceding ones, to the end of the first Punic war. I have 
given, as before, the lists of consuls from Livy and Diodorus so far as their remaining 
works contain them ; and I have now given the fragments of the Fasti Capitolini which 
relate to the period contained in the tables without any omission, and at the same time 
without adding to the words or even letters which exist on the fragments of the marble 
hitherto discovered. 

The Fasti of Diodorus end with the year 452, and those of Livy with the year 459 ; 
and the Fasti Capitolini are wanting for several years here and uk e both before and 
after that period. I have, therefore, given two other sets of Fasti, one of which goes by 
the name of the Sicilian Fasti, because Onufrio Panvini found the MS. containing it in 
Sicily. Casaubon copied the MS. and gave his copy to Scaliger, who published it in his 
edition of Eusebius, pp. 227-299, under the title of Ikitohv xpfow- 

The other Fasti were first made known by John Cuspiniani, who published extracts 
from them in his commentary on Cassiodorus in the sixteenth century. They have been 
since published entirely by Noris towards the end of the seventeenth century, and they 
may be found, with his dissertation on them, in the eleventh volume of Gfraevius' Collec- 
tion of Roman Antiquities. The MS. containing them is in the imperial library at Vienna, 
and, according to Noris, they were compiled about the year 354 of the Christian era. 

These last Fasti are no doubt older and more correct than the Sicilian, which are full 
of errors ; but both are useless for the period of the military tribuneships, because, rep- 
resenting all the years of the commonwealth as marked by consulships, they never give 
to any year the names of more than two magistrates. But the author of the Sicilian 
Fasti seems to have copied his lists from some writer who, like Cassiodorus, gave only 
the consulships, and purposely omitted the years of military tribuneships; and not being 
aware of this, and supposing that the lists of consuls were continuous in point of time, 
he has marked the years immediately preceding the first plebeian consulship with the 
names of the consuls who preceded "the Gaulish invasion ; insomuch that, placing that 
invasion in the third year of the 99th Olympiad, he notwithstanding makes it fall in the 
consulship of M. Genucius and C. Curtius, who were consuls only five years after the 
expulsion of the decemvirs. Both the Sicilian Fasti and those of Noris give merely the 
cognomen, or last name, of each consul: it seems as if they had looked hastily up some 
Fasti where all the names were given at length, and had, to save trouble, merely copied 
down the name which came last. Sometimes the recurrence of the same names near to 
each other has misled them ; as, for instance, in the third Samnite war, the Sicilian Fasti 
give three consulships of Q. Fabius and P. Decius instead of two, and two of Ap. Clau- 
dius and Volumnius instead of one. The corruptions of the Roman names are as bad 
as those in the Fasti of Diodorus: Calatinus is corrupted into "Catacion," Dentatus 
into ' : Benacus," Csedicius into " Decius," Caudex into " Thaugatus," Canina, a rather un- 
common cognomen of one branch of the Claudian house, becomes " Cambius" in the Si- 
cilian Fasti, and " Cinna" in those of Noris; and many others recur which it is in general 
easy to correct from the corresponding years in the Fasti Capitolini, or from any correct 
list of the consuls. Some corruptions, however, cannot easily be restored, nor is it al- 
ways easy to ascertain how much must be ascribed to mere errors of the copyist, and 
where the authors really meant to give different consuls from those named in the other 
Fasti. 

With regard to Livy's Chronology, the fixed point from which we must set out is the 
year of Rome 400, which, according to his express statement, VII. 18, was the thirty- 
fifth year after the expulsion of the Gauls, and was marked by the consulship of C. Sul- 
picius Peticus and M. Valerius Publicola. Reckoning the years from this point, accord- 
ing to Livy's own statement of events, the consulship of Q. Fabius Gurges and D. Junius 



EXPLANATION OF THE SECOND TABLES. 647 

Brutus, the last mentioned in his tenth book, would fall in the year 459. But Sigonius 
places it one year later, and makes the year 422 to have been wholly taken up by inter- 
regna, and so to have been marked by no consuls' names. This he does, in order to rec- 
oncile Livy with himself, because his reckonings elsewhere require, as he thinks, the 
insertion of a year more than he has actually accounted for. That is to say, Livy, in the 
beginning of the 31st book, says that the sixty-three years which passed between the 
beginning of the first Punic war and the end of the second, had furnished him with mat- 
ter for as many books as the four hundred and seventy-eight years which had elapsed 
from the foundation of Rome to the consulship of Ap. Claudius, when the first Punic 
war began. Such are the numbers in almost all the MSS. But as the number four 
hundred and seventy-eight would agree with no system of chronology, it has been long 
since corrected in the printed editions to " four hundred and eighty-eight." Sigonius, 
however, argued that the true reading was four hundred and eighty-six, the Roman nu- 
merals CDLXXVIII. having, as he thinks, been corrupted from CDLXXXVI. the third 
X having been altered to V, and the V separated into II. He therefore places the be- 
ginning of the first Punic war in 486, having, as I have above mentioned, inserted a 
whole year of interregna, not noticed by Livy, which he makes out to be the year 422. 
Now, without this additional year, the first Punic war does actually, as I think, accord- 
ing to Livy, begin in 487 ; for Sigonius omits two consulships between the retreat of 
Pyrrhus and the consulship of Ap. Claudius and M. Fulvius, namely, those of Q. Ogul- 
nius and C. Fabius in 485, and of Q, Fabius Gurges and L. Mamilius in 489. The first 
of these is mentioned expressly by Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIII. § 44, as well as by Zo- 
naras, VIII. 7, and by the Sicilian Fasti and those of Noris, and is admitted by Sigonius 
himself in his commentary on the Fasti Capitolini. The consulship of Q. Fabius and L. 
Mamilius is mentioned by the Sicilian Fasti and by those of Noris, and is required by 
the dates of the Fasti Capitolini, which place the consulship of D. Junius Pera and N. 
Fabius in 487, and that of Ap. Claudius and M. Fulvius in 489, manifestly making an 
interval of a year between them, although the names of the intermediate consuls are Tost. 
Zonaras speaks of Fabius as being sent against the Volsinians, and expressly says that 
he was consul in that year with " JSmilius," according to the present text of Zonaras in 
the edition of Du Cange, Venice, 1729. But in the second chapter of the same eighth 
book of Zonaras, L. iEmilius, the colleague of Q. Marcius Philippus in 473, is in one 
MS. called UaviXiov, which shows how readily the names AlirfXws and Ha^iXtos may be 
confounded with each other. And further, Sigonius acknowledges this consulship of Q,. 
Fabius and L. Mamilius in his commentary on the Fasti Capitolini. Thus, according to 
Livy, there would be, in fact, the events of 486 years related in his fifteen first books, 
and the sixteenth book began with the year 487 — that is, with the consulship of Ap. Clau- 
dius and M. Fulvius ; and the fifteen next books did contain also the events of sixty- 
three years — from the year 487 to the year 550, the consulship of Cn. Cornelius and P. 
iElius Paetus, before the expiration of which the war with Carthage was'concluded — as 
the first Punic war had begun about the middle of 487. And thus the correctness of 
Sigonius' alteration of Livy's date from CDLXXVIII. to CDLXXXVI. is indeed estab- 
lished, although, as I think, his way of justifying it is erroneous, and so also is his inter- 
pretation of it ; for Livy does not say that App. Claudius was consul in 486, but that his 
own fifteen first books, which stopped at the beginning of App. Claudius' consulship, 
had contained the events of 486 years. And, therefore, according to Livy, the first year 
of the war with Pyrrhus would fall in 471, the first year of the first Punic war in 487, 
and the end of the second Punic war in 550. 

Meantime I follow the common chronology of the years of Rome, because it is hope- 
less now to endeavor to supersede it by any other system, and it would be a mere per- 
plexity to my readers if they were to find every action recorded in this history fixed to 
a different year from that with which they had been accustomed to connect it. Nor 
does there seem any adequate object to be gained by the attempt. The era of the foun- 
dation of Rome is itself a point impossible to fix accurately ; nor can we determine the> 
chronology of the fourth and fifth centuries of Rome either in itself or as compared with 
the chronology of Greece. Our existing authorities are too uncertain and too conflict- 
ing to allow of this; and, as I have said already in another place, the uncertainty of the 
history and chronology act mutually on each other, and a sure standing-place is not to 
be found. The five years of anarchy during the discussions on the Licinian laws are, 
indeed, utterly improbable, and we may safely assume that they could not have happen- 
ed exactly as they are represented. But Cn. Flavius, in the middle of the fifth "century, 
recorded on his Temple of Concord 1 that it was dedicated 204 years after the dedication 

i Pliny, Hist. Natur. XXXIII. § 19. Ed. Sillig. 



6 48 HISTORY OF ROME. 

of the Capitol ; and this agrees exactly with the Fasti Capitolini, which place the aedile- 
ship of Flavius and the censorship of Fabius and Decius in the year of Rome 449. It 
is, indeed, probable that the Gaulish invasion should be placed later than its common 
date ; and the five years of the anarchy may well be inserted in the early part of the com- 
monwealth, a period for which we have neither a history nor a chronology that will bear 
any inquiry. Yet Polybius followed the common date of the Gaulish invasion, and his 
chronology of the subsequent Gaulish wars is all based on the assumption that Rome 
was taken in the 98th Olympiad, and not later. Polybius doubtless may have been mis- 
led, and Cn. Fulvius may have had no sufficient authority for fixing the interval between 
the dedication of his temple of Concord and that of the Capitol ; but if they were both 
mistaken, where are we to find surer guides? and if the records on which they relied 
were uncertain, as indeed they very possibly were, what evidence or what probability 
can we find now, so as to be enabled to arrive at a more certain conclusion ? 

I follow, then, the common chronology of Rome; not, indeed, as thinking with the 
authors of " L'Art de verifier les Dates," that it is possible to fix the very year, and even 
the day of the month, on which the several consuls of the fifth century entered upon 
their office, but because it is a convenient standard of reference ; and if not correct, 
which in all probability it is not, yet is quite as much so as any other system which 
could be set up in its room. And this has determined me not to adopt Niebuhr's dates 
even on his authority, because I cannot persuade myself that the certainty of his amend- 
ed chronology is so clear as to compensate for the manifest inconvenience of departing 
from a system which is fixed in the memories of all the readers of Roman history 
throughout Europe. 



CORRECTION OF NOTE 15.— Page 37. 

I might have spared the first part of this note had I known, when I wrote it, that the 
reading, " Turrianum a Fregellis accitum," is undoubtedly corrupt. The Bamberg MS. 
reads " vulcaniveis accitum ;" one of those at Paris (called by Harduin and Brotier " Re- 
gius II." and numbered at present in the Catalogue of the Library, 6797) reads "at vul- 
gamulis accitum :" both show that the common text, like so many others in Pliny, is 
merely a false restoration of a passage which in the oldest and best MSS. is unintelligi- 
ble, but which clearly contained a meaning very different from that exhibited in the later 
MSS. Sillig, in his Dictionary of ancient Artists, has conjectured that the true reading 
was " et Volsiniis accitum ;" but in his edition of Pliny he approves rather of Jahn's con- 
jecture, " Vulcanium a Veiis accitum," as agreeing more nearly with the traces preserved 
in the Bamberg MS. At any rate, Pliny is relieved from an apparent contradiction, and 
Turrianus or Turianus should no longer be quoted as an artist on Pliny's authority. I 
find that Mr. Millingen had already anticipated me in correcting " Fregenis" instead of 
" Fregellis," he not knowing, I suppose, any more than I did, that we were but fighting 
with a shadow. 



ADDENDA. 



The following notes are extracted from manuscripts of the Author's, some of them 
written while he was collecting materials for the latter portion of this history, but the 
chief part in 1833, when he was thinking of converting the series of Biographies in the 
Encyclopaedia Metropolitana into a continuous history of Rome, which was to open 
with the first Punic war, the period where Niebuhr's great work had just been broken 
off by his death. As they contain information, and express opinions on several inter- 
esting questions connected with Roman history, it has been thought expedient to in- 
sert them. 

Note A, to p. 455, 1. 54. 

If we endeavor to picture to ourselves wbat the Roman people were at the 
beginning of the sixth century of their history ; to represent to ourselves the size 
and aspect of their city and its neighborhood ; their language, their manners, 
their social and domestic habits, their wealth, private and public, their principles 
of religion and of law ; their character and condition, in short, as men and as 
citizens ; where are the eyes so piercing as to discern the almost vanishing forms 
of these objects amidst the dimness of antiquity ? or how can we supply, and 
arrange into an intelligible whole, the disjointed and seemingly unmeaning images, 
which our fragments of information offer, as perplexing and incongruous as the 
chaos of a dream ? 

The city of Rome, properly so called, was still contained at the beginning of 
the sixth century, and for some centuries afterwards, within the walls ascribed 
to Servius Tullius. Its circumference Avas about seven miles ; but this enclosure 
was far from being all built over. Sacred groves, the remains of the forest 
which in the earliest times had covered all the higher grounds, were still very 
numerous ; gardens, orchards, perhaps copse-wood, such as still grows on the 
sides of the Monte Testaccio, also occupied a considerable space. 1 As in so many 
other towns in their original state, the walls did not come down close to the 
river, 2 but ran parallel to it at some distance, passing from the Capitol to the 
Aventine by what is called the Janus Quadrifons, and the western extremity of 
the Oircus Maximus. But, as was natural, one of the earliest suburbs sprang up 
in this quarter ; and the space between the walls and the Tiber, without the 
Porta Flumentana, was already covered with houses in the time of the second 
Punic war. 3 Buildings had probably grown up beyond the Tiber also, connect- 
ing the fortress on the Janiculus with the city : on the eastern side of Rome, 
from the Esquiline to the end of the Quirinal, the space before the walls seems 
to have been open. 

The streets were narrow and winding, 4 and the houses lofty ; the different 
floors 5 being occupied by different families, according to the practice still so com- 
mon in Scotland and on the continent. There was as yet little of ornamental 

1 Bunsen's Beschreibung der Stadt Eom, 3 Niebuhr, Abriss der Geschichte de Stadt 
Vol. I. p. 678. [in Bunsen's Borne, p. 112]. 

2 Bunsen, p. 628, &c. Niebuhr, Eom. Hist. 4 Tacitus, Annal. XV. 43. 

Vol. III. p. 360, note 525. 6 This is said expressly by Dionysius, X. 32, 

of the houses on the Aventine. 



650 ADDENDA. 

architecture, such as was introduced at a later period from Greece ; and of the 
style of the older temples we have no means of judging. Those great works 
which peculiarly characterize Rome, her aqueducts and her roads, were as yet 
in their infancy. Of the former, only two were in existence, the Appia and the 
Anio Vetus ; but these were not carried upon a long line of magnificent arches, 
like the aqueducts of a later age ; their course was almost wholly underground ; 6 
for it was not yet beyond possibility that the Romans might see an invading 
enemy in the neighborhood of their city, and it was of the utmost importance to 
conceal the line by which they obtained their supplies of water. Of the roads 
there existed the Appian, which in the year 459 had been paved with basalt, 7 as 
far as Bovillee, that is, to the foot of the Alban hills, ten miles from Rome ; and 
according to Niebuhr, there must also have existed the Latin, the Salarian, the 
Nomentan, and the oldest Tiburtine. AVhether these were as yet. paved, we 
have, I believe, no information. 

If we look to the neighborhood of Rome, we shall find that many of the old 
towns with which Latium was so thickly set in early times, had already been 
utterly destroyed. Nothing more surprises those who fancy the Campagna of 
Rome to be like Champagne, or like the great chalk plains of Hampshire and 
Wiltshire, than the sight of its actual scenery. The swellings of the ground con- 
tinually end in little precipitous cliffs ; and the numerous streams flow between 
deep rocky banks, offering exactly such situations as the old Italians loved to 
choose for the citadels of their towns. Accordingly, Pliny reckons up the names 
of fifty-three 8 people of Latium, who had all perished without leaving a trace of 
their existence behind. Many of these indeed were destroyed at a period not 
only beyond historical memory, but even beyond the reach of those traditions 
which once passed for history ; some, however, occur in the early annals of the 
commonwealth, and are afterwards lost to us altogether, as Crustimeria, Corioli, 
Longula, Polusca, <fec, while others, as Gabii and Fidense, though not actually 
destroyed, fell into such a state of decay that they became a proverb to express 
the extremity of loneliness and desolateness. 9 No doubt the law of conquest had 
been applied to these states in its full extent ; and their lands, having been taken 
in war, had mostly been occupied by the patricians, and thus became, in fact, 
though not in law, the property of individual Romans. Thus, at a very early 
period, we find that the fortunes of the nobility consisted chiefly in land 10 con- 
quered from an enemy ; the old Ager Romanus, or original territory of Rome, 
extending only about five miles 11 from the city towards Alba, and still less in 
other directions. Accordingly. Strabo says expressly that Antenince and Fidenoe, 
the latter five miles from Rome, the former less than three, were in his time the 
property of private persons. By property, xttjCsi?, he meant possessions, land 
which had been originally won from an enemy, and never divided out as a colony ; 
which was the possession of individuals, sold, let, and bequeathed, like actual 
property, so long as the state did not choose to exercise its right of resuming it. 

Polybius has remarked, 12 that the old Latin language differed so much from 

• Frontinus, do AqnSBdnctibus, 7. IS. The of its course was forty-three miles, nil of which, 

Aqua Appia had its source near the road to except 221 paces, was underground. Fronta- 

Prameste, between the seven th.and eighth mile- nus, c. 6. 

j from Rome; and the whole length of its 7 Livy X. 47. Silice peretrata est. Silexis 

course to the point at which the distribution lava basaltina, of a blackish gray color, made 

of the water took place, near the Porta Tri- up of a crystallized mass of augite, leocite, ze- 

gemina (at the foot of the Aventine, looking olite,&o. See Bunsen's Eome, p. 50, note. 

towards the Palatine), was 11 miles and 190 ' 111. 5. 

paces. It was carried underground the whole " Gabiis desertior atque Fidems Vious. See 

of the distance, except for sixty paces close to also Cicero, pro Plahoio. 

the Porta Capena (in the low ground, just un- 10 Livy. IV. 48. Nee enim ferine qmcquam 

der the southern end of the Csefian). The Anio agri, at in urbe alieno solo positu, non armia 

Vetus was contracted for in the year 482(481 partum erat. 

accord intr to ITrontinua), and completed a few " Strabo, V. p. 159. Compare Livy, I. 23, 

years afterwards. Its sourer was twenty miles and II. 39. 

from Home, above Tibur; and the whole length M 111. 22. 



ADDENDA. 651 

that spoken in his time, that even those of the Romans who understood it best 
met with expressions in it which they found great difficulty in interpreting. This 
refers to the language spoken at the beginning of the commonwealth ; and the 
famous hymn of the Fratres Arvales, which has been preserved to our own times, 
enables us to confirm the truth of the statement. But in the Punic wars the 
Latin language was substantially the same as in the age of Cicero and Virgil : 
the inscription on the Duillian column, and that on the tomb of L. Scipio, who 
was consul in 495, are both perfectly intelligible to us, and only differ in the 
forms of the words from the writings of the Augustan age. 

The free male population of Italy of an age to bear arms, exclusive of Bruttium, 
of the Greek cities of Magna Graecia, and of the whole country north of the Rubicon 
and theMacra, is said byPolybius to have amounted to 770,000 men, in the year 
529. It is not clear however whether there is not some confusion 13 in the reck- 
oning, and whether the sum total ought not to be reduced by nearly 50,000. 
Even adopting the lower number, we get a free population of 1,440,000 persons 
in the vigor of life ; and if we add half as many for those of both sexes who 
were under seventeen or above sixty, it makes the whole free population of Italy, 
with the important omissions already noticed, to amount to 2,120,000 souls. The 
slave population it is impossible to calculate. In Campania the slaves must have 
been numerous : in Etruria those who were not reckoned amongst the citizens, 
that subject population who, though not strictly slaves, are often carelessly 
called so, must have greatly outnumbered those properly called Etruscans. But 
in Latium, in Samnium, amongst the Sabines, and in Rome itself, the slaves 
were as yet perhaps a minority of the whole population. Still, if we reckon the 
whole population, free and slave together, at five millions, and consider the num- 
ber and populousness of the Greek cities, of which no account is given, the sum 
for the whole peninsula south of the Macra and the Rubicon will appear suffi- 
ciently great. No doubt it had once been far greater ; but the long and bloody 
wars which led to the Roman conquest of Italy, must have diminished it enor- 
mously, to say nothing of the wasting invasions of the Gauls. 

Extensive tracts of land had been seized by the Romans, and were mostly held 
in occupation by a small number of proprietors ; nor must we conceive of these 
large estates, as of the large farms of modern times, which are supposed to be so 
favorable to agriculture. On the contrary, they were cultivated carelessly and 
partially : and ground, which the necessities of the small proprietor had forced 
into productiveness, was allowed to return to its natural barrenness. Besides, 
the extent of the woodlands must have been much greater than at present ; and if 
some spots were then well peopled, which the malaria has now rendered uninhabit- 
able, yet, on the other hand, there were places, as particularly in the valley of the. 
Arno, which have only -been reclaimed in later times from the state of imprac- 
ticable marshes ; and the number of individuals supported by trade, or by any 
other means than agriculture, was beyond»all comparison smaller than in modern 
Italy. 

I know of only one fact which seems to indicate the existence of a commer- 
cial spirit among the Romans at the period with which we are now engaged. 
This is the law of Q. Claudius, 14 one of the tribunes, passed a short time before 
the second Punic war, which made it unlawful for any senator, or father of a 
senator, to possess a ship of the burden of more than three hundred amphorae. 

13 Polybius reckons the four Kornan legions citizens of foreign states, who were municipes 

employed in the field, and the reserve which of Eome, it would on this occasion comprise 

covered the city, as exclusive of the census of the Campanians ; and we thus get a number 

the Eomans and Campanians ; that is, the com- very closely agreeing with the sum of the Eo- 

plete census, inchiding the legions stationed in mans and Campanians as given by Polybius, 

Sicily and Tarentum, would have given a sum 273,000, if we suppose that he ought to have 

total'of 324,900. But the census for the year included the soldiers actually employed in this 

532, gives only 270,213 citizens. Now if, as amount, instead of reckoning them separately. 
Niebuhr supposes, the census included all those M Livy, XXI. 63. 



6 52 ADDENDA. 

The avowed object of this law was to exclude the nobility from engaging in 
maritime commerce ; the professed reason for the exclusion was, that trade was 
deoradino- to the dio-nity of a senator : but the circumstance that it was resisted 
strenuously by the whole senate, and carried in despite of their opposition, proves 
that they felt the restriction much more as an injury than an honor, and makes 
it probable that the real object of the friends of the law was to monopolize the 
profits of trade to the middling classes, and to exclude the competition of the 
nobility, whose superior wealth would have given them great advantages in every 
market. But the commercial spirit of the Romans had no time to develop itself ; 
the invasion of Hannibal was fatal to the security, and much more to the acqui- 
sition of capital ; and after the struggle was over, society had undergone a change 
which fixed the attention of the people on other objects. Trade therefore con- 
tributed but little to the greatness of Rome : indeed it is ridiculous to speak of 
the trade of a country, where some of the simplest callings 15 were as yet tmknown, 
and where silver money had been coined 16 for the first time only five years before 
the first Punic war. 

Were the manners of Rome, then, as pure as those writers would imagine, 
who consider an agricultural people to be placed in so much healthier a moral 
condition than a commercial or manufacturing one ? Undoubtedly the Roman 
character before the second Punic war was full of nobleness ; but it is idle to 
connect its excellence with the preference given to agriculture, rather than to 
trade. The Roman people were as yet in the youth of their existence ; and 
their minds enjoyed a youthful freshness. They had not lost the feelings of ad- 
miration and veneration ; feelings which knowledge and experience, inasmuch as 
their field is an evil world, surely lessen ; feelings whose destruction is the worst 
degradation of human nature. Respect for the gods, respect for the laws, re- 
spect for the aged, respect for the judgment of the good and the wise, power- 
fully influenced a Roman's mind ; and, opposed to these, self-confidence and 
self-indulgence could as yet do nothing. What there was of crime was not the 
mere wickedness of individual gratification : of whatever offences a Roman was 
guilty, his idol was not that vilest of all, his own single pleasure or pride. He 
was cruel and treacherous to foreigners ; for such conduct might save the ma- 
jesty of Rome from humiliation : if a patrician, he might be oppressive and in- 
solent to the commons, or the mob of the forum, turba forensis ; but he was 
striving against the confusion of sacred things with vile, against dishonoring the 
images of his ancestors, whose spirits watched over the welfare of their race, and 
required of their descendants in every generation to transmit its honor and dig- 
nity to their children unimpaired. So in Rome, as in more corrupted states, there 
was violence and injustice, and towards foreigners cruelty and falsehood ; but 
there was, withal, a surrender of self to some more general interest ; and where 
the commands of that interest were in accordance with truth and justice, there 
was exhibited virtue in some of its most heroic forms, resolute control of appe- 
tite, obedience even to death, unshaken fortitude, and entire self-devotion in the 
cause of duty. 

In such a state of things the domestic relations are purely and faithfully dis- 
charged ; for on tliese points law and public opinion always speak the language 
of nature and of truth ; it is only individual wickedness that leads to the viola- . 
tion of these plain duties. Accordingly we find that the marriage tie was sel- 
dom broken, either by adultery or by divorce ;" and the obedience of children 

15 Barbers were unknown at Rome, accord- " It is a well-known story that Sp. Carvilius 

inp to Varro (Pliny, VII. 59), till the year 554 ; was the first Soman who "divorced his wile ; 

bakers, or rather bread makers, tall the year and that this took place after the end of the 

580. (l'liny, XVIII. 11.) But the oldest 'food Bret l'unie war (See Aul. Gellius. IV. 8. Valov. 

of the Romans was pub, a sort of paste made. Maxima*. 11. l, <54). Niebahr (Bom. HiskVoL 

of spelt i fan; like the pi'lentu of maize, so com- 111. p. 414) and Hugo (Geschiehte des Rom, 

monlv eaten in Italy now. Keehts, p. 114") consider this as a mistake; and 

18 Pliny, XXXIll'. 3. possibly it is not to be taken to the letter. But 



ADDENDA. 653 

to their parents was secured at once by the general feeling and by law. The 
laws indeed relating to the patria potestas confer on the parent an exclusive au- 
thority, and even profane one of the most sacred of human relations by placing it on 
the footing of that of master and slave. Yet so strong is parental affection, that 
there is little danger of a father's tyrannizing over his children ; and this natural 
love makes the great distinction between domestic government and political ; 
neglect and disobedience on the part of the child being the evil most to be dreaded 
in the one, as oppression on the part of the rulers is in the other. 

But although in the early times of Rome, the marriage tie was most rarely 
broken, yet we are not to imagine that the standard of morals approached nearly 
to the purity required by Christianity. As if compromising with passions which 
it could not wholly extirpate, public opinion almost tolerated some kinds of sen- 
sual indulgence, in order more effectually to put down others. The plays of 
Plautus, although the stories are of Greek origin, could not have been relished 
by a Roman audience, had not the state of morals which they describe resem- 
bled actual life at Rome, no less than that at Athens. So universal is the ten- 
dency of our nature to impurity, that we could readily believe, even without 
express testimony, 18 that the conversation of the Romans at their entertainments, 
even in the most ancient times, was unfit for a modest woman to hear. Nor can 
we wonder that the young Romans acted in the entertainments known by the 
name of Fabulae Atellanaa, 19 without any degradation, although these 20 in the 
coarseness of their ribaldry went far beyond the regular drama. It seems as 
if the ancient commonwealths acted on the famous principle of Aristotle, and 
deemed it wise to give the passions their full range on particular occasions, that 
their violence might so be exhausted, and the general course of life preserved 
safe from their dominion. Thus, while the purity of the Athenian tragedy has 
been guarded with such scrupulous care, the comedy of the same people in- 
dulged in the grossest indecencies ; and thus, as the slaves had their season of 
liberty at the Saturnalia, so the Floralia, the Liberalia, and other religious festi- 
vals, gave free license to the lowest and most slavish passions of our nature ; and 
abominations were then practised and publicly sanctioned, which would be utterly 
inconsistent with the severity of the Roman discipline in other respects, did we 
not believe that they were looked upon as a sort of safety-valve, whereby it was 
possible to regulate the escape of feelings too powerful to be repressed altogether. 

i 

Note B, to page 460, 1. 39. 

The expression in Yarro is remarkable, " T. Manlio Consule bello Carthagini- 
ensi piimo confecto" (Ling. Lat. IY. p. 39, Ed. Yarior. 1619), and again in Livy, 

if, as the story seems to imply, Carvilius di- therefore, in later times, when divorces were 
vorced his wife in order to marry another (and frequent, it fell into disuse, as did, in fact, the 
this is the notion of the word " Divortium," Gonventio in Manvm altogether ; and a less for- 
given in Scholium on Cicero de Oratore, I. 40, mal marriage came into general use, founded 
Divortium est, quoties dissoluto matrimonio merely on the consent of the parties, which 
alter eorum alteras nuptias sequitur), then it could be dissolved more readily, 
may have been one of the earliest instances of K See Fragin. Varro, Satyr. Menipp. in 
such a divorce, if not absolutely the very earli- Agathon. 

est. For the Eomans in early times, no less M ^ V J} VII. 2. Festus in Personata Fabula. 

than the Germans in the days of Tacitus, ab- 20 Augustine, Civit. Dei, II. 8. "Hsec sunt 

horred second marriages (Valor. Maxim. II. 1, scenicorum tolerabilia ludorum, comcedise sci- 

§3). Again, marriages celebrated with the re- licet et tragcedise, hoc est, fabulee, poetarum 

ligions ceremonies known by the name of Con- agendas in spectaculis, multa rerum turpitu- 

farreatio were held to be indissoluble, except dine, sed nulla saltern, sicat alia multa, verbo- 

by the performance of certain other ceremonies, rum obsccenitate compositse." That the " alia 

which were purposely made horrid and revolt- multa" include the Atellana? Fabulte is clear 

ing, in order to deter any one from having re- from the distinction between them and regular 

course to them. This shows the old feeling comedy, and from Livy's words, " Juventas, 

with regard to divorce ; for marriage by Con- histrionibus fabellarum actu relicto, ipsa inter 

farreatio was doubtless considered originally se more antique ridicula intexta versibus jacti- 

as the only true and solemn marriage. And tare coepit." 



654 ADDENDA. 

I. 19, "T. Manlio Consule, post Punicum primum perfectum bellum." This 
cannot allude to the first treaty concluded by Catulus six years before, but must 
relate to the apparently entire termination of all disputes by the solemn con- 
firmation of it in 518-19. And thus, according to the expression of Paterculus, 
" Certae pacis argumentum Janus geminus clausus dedit." The gate of Janus 
was the Porta Janualis, one of the gates of the original Rome on the Palatine. 
Afterwards, by the addition of the Sabine settlement on the Quirinal and Capi- 
tol, it became a passage gate, rather than an entrance gate, being now in the 
middle of the city, just like Temple Bar. It stood near the present arch of Sep- 
timius Severus, on the edge of the Forum, and close upon the Via Sacra. Livy 
places it in the Argiletum ; that is, in the low ground between the Capitol and 
the Tiber, near the site of the existing arch of Janus Quadrifons ; but this is 
probably a confusion, as we read of a temple of Janus in this quarter, but one 
which had been built by C. Duillius in the first Punic war. (Tacitus, Annal. II. 
49.) The notion of opening the gates of Janus in war was, that this god, who 
under his name of Quirinus was worshipped by the old Italians, as the god of 
battles, might go out to war in defence of his people. And his statue was set 
up at the Porta Janualis, rather than at any other place, because tradition re- 
corded, that in the battle between the Romans and Sabines, in the reign of Rom- 
ulus, he had wrought a signal deliverance for Rome on that very spot. See 
Macrobius, Saturnal. I. 9. I am aware that Niebuhr (Vol. I. p. 202, 2d edit.) 
gives a different explanation of the origin of the custom, and supposes that the 
Porta Janualis, connecting the Roman and Sabine towns with each other, was 
closed in peace, to show that they were distinct and independent states, but 
opened in war to imply that then they were allies, and rendered one another 
mutual aid. This seems to me rather forced ; whereas the statement given 
above from Macrobius is simple and probable. Besides, Virgil, a high author- 
ity in such matters, declares that the custom of opening the gates of Janus in 
time of war was not of Roman origin, but borrowed from the general practice of 
the Latins. (Mn. VII. 601.) It could not, therefore, have referred to any local 
peculiarities in the situation of Rome. 



Note C, to p. 461, 1. 19. 

Nothing is known of the language or customs of the fflyrians, by which we 
can confidently ascertain their race. A legend recorded by Appian (Illyrica, 
c. I.), which makes Keltus, Illyrius, and Gala to have been three brothers, the 
sons of the Cyclops Polyphemus, is grounded probably on the known intermix- 
ture of Keltic tribes, the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci, amongst the Illyr- 
ians at a later period ; and the Japodes, a tribe on the borders of Istria, are 
described by Strabo (IV. p. 143) as half Kelts, half Illyrians. In the practice 
of tattooing their bodies, the Illyrians resembled the Thracians (Strabo. VII. p. 
218, Herodot. V. 6) ; the custom of one of their tribes, the Dalmatians, to have 
a new division of their lands every seven years (Strabo, VII. p. 218) resembles 
the well-known practice of the Germans, only advanced somewhat further to- 
wards civilized life ; and the names of Teuta and Teutus might make us fancy a 
connection between them and the Teutonic race. The author of the Periplus 
ascribed to Scylax speaks of the great influence enjoyed by their women, whose 
lives in consequence he describes as highly licentious ; but Scymnus Chius, wri- 
ting about a hundred years before the Christian era, calls them "a religious peo- 
ple., just and kind to strangers, loving to be liberal, and desiring to live orderly 
and soberly," a character which often marks the first growth of the virtues of 
peace amongst a people newly reclaimed from barbarism ; while they yet retain 
the simplicity of their earlier state, but have laid aside its lawlessness and cruelty. 
These happy fruits of Roman conquest and dominion were exhib'ted in Illyria in 
35 



ADDENDA. 655 

the time of Scymnus Chius, as at a later period they were displayed among the 
Cisalpine Gauls, who in the time of Pliny preserved a simplicity and purity of 
manners unknown in the rest of Italy. (Pliny, Epist. I. 14.) But at the time 
of the first Illyrian war, the Illyrians were as yet merely barbarous, dreaded for 
their ferocity, and with that low sense of justice or true nobleness which com- 
monly characterizes the barbarian. 



Note D, to p. 463, 1. 3. 

The Spaniards value the harbor of Carthagena so highly, that, according to 
their proverb, " there are four harbors in'the Mediterranean : — Carthagena, June, 
July, and August." 

Note E, to p. 464, 1. 29. 

From the mention of Greeks on this and other similar occasions (as in Livy, 
XXII. 5*7), Niebuhr concludes that the prophecies referred to cannot have been 
of Greek origin, and therefore not what were properly called " Sibylline books," 
but rather of Etruscan origin, or Latin, some of which were kept together with 
the Sibylline books, under the care of the same officers. But it does not appear 
that the prophecy and the method of evading it were contained in the same books ; 
nor is it likely, for no prophecy would seek to render itself nugatory. If the 
books were Greek, they were likely to contain prophecies of Greek triumphs ; 
and such must undoubtedly have been the meaning of the declaration, that the 
Greeks should take possession of Rome. Prophecies relating to the Gauls may 
have been of Etruscan origin, dictated by that fear of the Gaulish arms, which 
the Etruscans had learnt in earlier ages, when the Gauls had driven them from 
their settlements on the north of the Apennines. The evasion of these prophe- 
cies was merely the commentary of the Roman pontifices, such as was generally 
practised in order to avert a prediction, whose authority it was not thought 
proper to deny. Niebuhr refers to a similar trick practised by the Apulians 
against the Brundisians. An oracle had declared that the ^Etolians, the follow- 
ers of Diomedes, should possess Brundisium forever ; so, when the Apulians had 
expelled them from Brundisium, and they on the assurance of this oracle sent an 
embassy to reclaim it, the Apulians put the ambassadors to death, and buried 
them within the city; thus fulfilling the prophecy, and preventing its fulfilment 
in anv other sense. (Justin, XII. 2.) 



Note F, to p. 465, 1. 23. 

Nothing shows more clearly the great rarity of geographical talent, than the 
praise which has been commonly bestowed on Polybius as a good geographer. 
He seems indeed to have been aware of the importance of geography to history, 
and to have taken considerable pains to gain information on the subject ; but this 
very circumstance proves the more the difficulty of the task ; for his descriptions 
are so vague and imperfect, and so totally devoid of painting, that it is scarcely 
possible to understand them. For instance, in his account of the march of the 
Gauls into Italy, and of the subsequent movements of their army and of the 
Romans, there is an obscurity, which never could have existed, had he conceived 
in his own mind a lively image of the seat of war as a whole, of the connection 
of the rivers and chains of mountains with each other, and of the consequent di- 
rection of the roads and most frequented passes. The Gauls, he tells us, crossed 
the Apennines into Tuscany, and advanced to Clusium ; and thus placed them- 
selves on the rear of the prsetor's army, which had been destined to cover thl 



656 ADDENDA. 

Etruscan frontier. We must suppose, then, that the praetor's army was posted 
between Feesulse and Pistoria, expecting the Gauls to cross the Apennines nearly 
by the line of the present road from Modena to Florence by Pistoria ; and that the 
Gauls, instead of taking this line, came in the direction of the modern road from 
Bologna ; except that after descending the main chain of the Apennines, near 
Moncarelli, they followed the Val Mugello, or Valley of the Sieve, to their left, 
and thus came out on the Valdarno, about half way between Florence and In- 
cisa : from thence they may either have ascended the Valdarno, till they crossed 
over from it to the Val di Chiana by the line of the Valdambra ; or else, as is 
more probable, they may have moved at once in. the direction of Sienna, and 
then crossed from Sienna, by the upper part of the Val d'Ombrone, and Monte- 
pulciano, to Chiusi or Clusium. 



Note G, to p. 466, 1. 38. 

The text of Polybius (II. 25) places this battle at Fcesulce ; this should clearly 
be corrected into Rusaloe. The Italian names of places in our manuscripts of 
Polybius are continually corrupt, as the Constantinople copyist knew nothing 
about them. 

Note H, to p. 466, 1. 1. 

In Polybius, the Gauls are said to be intercepted, rfegl TsXa^wva t% Tuppi^ 
via£. This is evidently a mistake. Fipntinus (I. 2, 7) places the scene of the 
battle at Poplonia, which is far more intelligible. 



Note I, to p. 466, 1. 20. 

It was probably about eighty years after this period that the historian Po- 
lybius travelled through Cisalpine Gaul, and was struck with the unrivalled pro- 
ductiveness of the country. It yielded wine and all sorts of grain in the greatest 
abundance ; its oak woods, scattered at intervals over the plain, fed the largest 
part of those immense droves of swine which were annually consumed in Italy, 
or required for the use of the Roman army ; and travellers at the inns were pro- 
vided plentifully with every thing that they wanted after their day's journey, at 
the rate of a quarter of an obulus for each person. Such are the fruits of the 
first application of the security and energy of civilization to a soil highly favored 
by nature. The earth is in its first freshness and vigor ; the woods thinned, but 
not destroyed : the population flourishing and increasing, but far below the num- 
ber of inhabitants capable of being maintained in comfort ; and whilst the vices 
of barbarism have been put down, those of corrupted and ill-watched civilization 
have not yet had time to grow up. But this was the state of Cisalpine Gaul 
after it had been subjected for more than half a century to the dominion of Rome. 
It must have presented a very different aspect to the first Roman settlers of the 
year 534. The roads or tracts were cut through a wide extent of forest and 
marshes ; and only a small space of the most inviting character had been hardly 
recovered from its natural wildness by the lazy and careless cultivation of the 
Gauls. Towns were nowhere to be seen ; the population was scattered about in 
unwalled villages, if the name of village may be given to a collection of wretched 
huts, so devoid of the commonest articles of furniture, that " man's life" spent in 
them was literally " as cheap as beasts'." And along with this state of physical 
degradation, there was the total absence of civil society. There were men in the 
country ; there were families, bands, and hordes ; but there was no common- 
wealth. One relation alone, beyond those of blood, seems to have been ac- 



ADDENDA. 657 

knowledged ; the same which, introduced into Europe six hundred years after- 
wards by the victories of the German barbarians, has deeply tainted modern 
society down to this hour ; the relation of chief and followers, or, as it was called 
in its subsequent form, lord and vassals. The head of a family distinguished for 
his strength and courage, gathered around him a numerous train of followers 
from other families ; and they formed his clan, or band, or followers, bound to 
him for life and death, bestowing on him those feelings of devoted attachment, 
which can be safely entertained only towards the commonwealth and its laws, and 
rendering him that blind obedience, which is wickedness when paid to any less 
than God. This evil and degrading bond is well described by the Greek and 
Roman writers, by words expressive of unlawful and antisocial combinations 
("Factio," Caesar, de Bell. Gallic. VI. 11 ; £<rai£ei'a, Polybius, II. 17) : it is the 
same which in other times and countries has appeared in the shape of sworn 
brotherhoods, factions, parties, sects, clubs, secret societies, and unions, every- 
where and in every form the worst enemy both of individual and of social excel- 
lence, as it substitutes other objects in place of those to which as men and citi- 
zens we ought only to be bound, namely, God and Law. 



Note K, to p. 468, 1. 42. 

The remova of the freedmen into the four city tribes is recorded in the Epi 
tome of the 20th book, nearly in the same words as in the Epitome of the 9th. 
There it is said, " forensis factio cum comitia et campum turbaret . . . a Q. 
Fabio censore in quatuor tribus redacta est, quas urbanas appellavit." In the 
20th Epitome it is said, " libertini in quatuor tribus redacti sunt, cum antea dis- 
persi per omnes fuissent, Esquilinam, Palatinam, Suburranam, Collinam." The 
" forensis factio" of the 9th book is said to have consisted of " humiles," " hu- 
millimi ;" and they are called also " forensis turba," as if their occupation were 
described rather than their birth. In the 20th book, the persons removed are 
called simply " libertini." But libertini in general must have followed city em- 
ployments from the necessity of the case ; few can have had landed property. 
We must therefore suppose that Fabius' measure was considered as a remedy 
for a crying evil, rather than a general rule for the time to come ; and that, when 
slaves were set free, they were generally entered in their late master's tribe, 
which, as he was still in a close relation with them, that of patronus, would be the 
most natural course to take, when no particular political excitement was stirring. 
But that such an excitement was stirring in the years immediately preceding the 
second Punic war, appears from what Livy says of C. Varro : " Proclamando pro 
sordidis hominibus causisque adversus rem et famam bonorum primum in noti- 
tiam populi, deinde ad honores pervenit." XXII. 26. Varro was praetor in 536, 
and before that time had been quaestor, aedile, and curule aedile ; so that he must 
have come into notice before the censorship of Flaminius. Now it is easy to 
conceive that, under such circumstances, the aristocracy would wish to lessen 
the influence of the poorer citizens in the tribes ; but the wonder is, how C. Fla- 
minius should have become their instrument in doing this, after his violent con- 
tests with them about his Agrarian law, and afterwards about his recall from 
Cisalpine Gaul, both of which took place before his censorship. JSTor could his 
colleague have done it against his will, according to the well-known law, " Me- 
lior est conditio prohibentis." 

The solution can only be, that Flaminius was a very honest man, and, whilst 
he liked the agricultural commons, did not like the populace of the Forum. He 
was like M. Curbs, who also vehemently upheld an Agrarian law, yet sold 
as a slave a citizen who refused to serve as a soldier. He was, like P. Decius, 
the colleague of Fabius in the former clearing of the tribes, yet forward as a 
supporter of the Ogulnian law. He was, like Marius, the stoutest opposer of the 
42 



658 ADDENDA. 

aristocracy, yet a resolute opposer also of a Lex Frumentaria. (Plutarch, Ma- 
rius, 4.) Perhaps, too, his notions were wholly against giving political influence 
to any thing but agriculture ; and his support of the Claudian law, the object of 
which was to prevent the senators from becoming merchants, was perhaps con- 
ceived in the same spirit as his removing the freedmen into the four city tribes. 
In this, and perhaps in the vehemence of his temper, he seems to have resem- 
bled Cato the censor. 



Note L, to p. 478, 1. 25. 

The question, in what direction this famous march was taken, has been agita- 
ted for more than eighteen hundred years ; and who can undertake to decide it ? 
The difficulty to modern inquirers has arisen chiefly from the total absence of 
geographical talent in Polybius. That this historian indeed should ever ha^e 
gained the reputation of a good geographer, only proves how few there are wl o 
have any notion what a geographical instinct is. Polybius indeed labored with 
praiseworthy diligence to become a geographer ; but he labored against nature ; 
and the unpoetical character of his mind has in his writings actually lessened the 
accuracy, as it has totally destroyed the beauty of history. To any man who 
comprehended the whole character of a mountain country, and the nature of its 
passes, nothing could have been easier than to have conveyed at once a clear idea 
of Hannibal's route, by naming the valley by which he had ascended to the main 
chain, and afterwards that which he followed in descending from it. Or admit- 
ting that the names of barbarian rivers would have conveyed little information to 
Greek readers, still the several Alpine valleys have each their peculiar character, 
and an observer with the least power of description could have given such lively 
touches of the varying scenery of the march, that future travellers must at once 
have recognized his description. Whereas the account of Polybius is at once so 
unscientific and so deficient in truth and liveliness of painting, that persons who 
have gone over the several Alpine passes for the very purpose of identifying his 
descriptions, can still reasonably doubt whether they were meant to apply to 
Mont Genevre, or Mont Cenis, or to the Little St. Bernard. 

On the whole, it appears to me most probable, that the pass by which Hanni- 
bal entered Italy was- that which was known to the Romans by the name of the 
Graian Alps, and to us as the Little St. Bernard. Nor was this so circuitous a 
line as we may at first imagine. For Hannibal's object was not simply to get 
into Italy, but to arrive in the country of those Cisalpine Gauls with whom he 
had been corresponding, and who had long been engaged in wars with the Ro- 
mans. Now these were the Boii and Insubrians ; and as the Insubrians, who 
were the more westerly of the two, lived between the Addi and the Ticinus, the 
pass of the Little St. Bernard led more directly into the country of his expected 
allies, than the shorter passage into Italy by the Cottian Alps, or Mont Genevre. 

Note M, to p. 481, 1. 2. 

Such is the story of the earliest recorded passage of the Alps by civilized men, 
the earliest and the most memorable. Accustomed as we are, since the com- 
pletion of the great Alpine roads in the present century, to regard the crossing 
of the Alps as an easy summer excursion, we can even less than our fathers con- 
ceive the difficulties of Hannibal's march, and the enormous sacrifices by which 
it was accomplished. He himself declared that he had lost above thirty thou- 
sand men since lie had crossed the Pyrenees, and that the remnant of his army, 
when he reached the plains of Italy, amounted to no more than twenty thou- 
sand foot, and six thousand horsemen : nor docs Polybius seem to suspect any 



ADDENDA. 659 

exaggeration in the statement. Yet eleven years afterwards Hasdrubal crossed 
the Alps in his brother's track ■without sustaining any loss deserving of notice ; 
and " a few accidents" 21 are all that occurred in the most memorable passage of 
modern times, that of Napoleon over the Great St. Bernard. It is evident that 
Hannibal could have found nothing deserving the name of a road, no bridges 
over the rivers, torrents, and gorges, nothing but mere mountain- paths, liable to 
be destroyed by the first avalanche or landslip, and which the barbarians neither 
could nor cared to repair, but on the destruction of which they looked out for 
another line, such as for their purposes of communication it was not difficult to 
find. It is clear also, either that Hannibal passed by some much higher point 
than the present roads over the Little St. Bernard, or Mount Cenis ; or else, as 
is highly probable, 22 that the limit of perpetual snow reached to a much lower 
level in the Alps than it does at present. For the passage of the main chain is 
described as wholly within this limit ; and the " old snow" which Polybius speaks 
of was no accidental patch, such as will linger through the summer at a very 
low level in crevices or sunless ravines ; but it was the general covering of the 
pass, which forbade all vegetation, and remained alike in summer as in winter. 
How great a contrast to the blue lake, the green turf, the sheep and cattle freely 
feeding on every side tended by their shepherds, and the bright hues of the thou- 
sand flowers which now delight the summer traveller on the Col of the Little 
St. Bernard ! 

I have little doubt as to Hannibal's march up the Tarentaise ; but the Val 
d'Aosta puzzles me. According to any ordinary rate of marching, an army could 
never get in three days from the Little St. Bernard to the plains of Ivrea ; not 
to mention that the Salassians of that valley were such untameable robbers, 
that they once even plundered Caesar's baggage, and Augustus at last extirpated 
them by wholesale. And yet Hannibal, on the Italian side of the main chain, 
sustains little or no annoyance. I have often wished .to examine the pass which 
goes by the actual head of the Isere, by Mont Iseran, and descends by Usseglio, 
not exactly on Turin, but nearly at Chivasso, where the Po, frdm running N. and 
S., turns to run E. and W. In some respects also, I think, Mont Cenis suits the 
description of the march better than any other pass. I lay no stress on the 
Roche blanche ; it did not strike me when I saw it as at all conspicuous ; nor 
does the Xsvxonrsrpav mean any remarkably white cliff, but simply one of those 
bare limestone cliffs, which are so common both in the Alps and Apennines. 



Note N, to p. 484, 1. 2. 

There is a passage in the third volume of Niebuhr's life, in a letter to the 
Count de Serre, in which he says that Hannibal at the Trebia acted like Napo- 
leon at Marengo, throwing himself between the Romans and the line of their re- 
treat, by Placentia and Ariminum. I believe that this is right, and that Hanni- 
bal was on the right bank of the Trebia between the Romans and Placentia, so 
that the expression in Livy is correct. The Romans had several emporia on the 
right bank of the Po', above Placentia, Clastidium, Victumvife, &c. From these, 
their army, I suppose, was fed ; and the taking of Clastidium thus helped to 
force them to a battle. Polybius' words are equally clear with Livy's. The front 

21 " On n'eut que pen d'accidens." Napo- luxuriant about the village, that the road seems 

leon's Memoirs, Vol. I. p. 261. to run through an ornamental park. And 

23 Even as late as the year 1646, Evelyn's again above Sempione, Evelyn was told by the 

description of the passage of the Simplon in country people that " the way had been covered 



"half covered with snow," and says that made for some way "through an ocean of 
" there is not a tree or bush growing within snow." Memoirs, Vol. I. p. 220, 221. 
many miles;" whereas now the pines are so 



660 ADDENDA. 

of the Roman centre, he says, despaired of retreating to their own camp xcoXuo- 
jasvoi Siol <rov tforafjiov xai rvjv sVjpo^dv xa; tfuaV^o^v rou xard xs<paX^v o'(ju/3^ou (the 
rain having made the river deeper than it had been in the morning:) nj^ouvrsg <5i 
Tocff ra^sig dS|ooi fjosr'cltfpaXsiaj dtfs^cl^rjtJ'av efe IlXaxJvriav. It is still a diffi- 
culty how Sempronius could have been allowed to effect his junction with Scipio, 
while Hannibal was actually lying between them ; but I suppose that he must 
have turned off to the hills before he approached Placentia, and so have left 
Hannibal in the plain on his right. 

Note 0, p. 486, 1. 35. 

Niebuhr in the same letter speaks of the following view of Thrasymenus 
as absolutely certain. Flaminius, with Servilius, was originally at Ariminum, 
expecting Hannibal by that road. But when he heard that Hannibal had en- 
tered Etruria by the marshes of the Lower Arno, he hastened over the Apen- 
nines to Arezzo, eager to cover the road to Rome. He moved then by Cortona 
upon Perugia ; but Hannibal turned to the right, and followed the western side 
of the lake towards Chiusi ; then turning short round, occupied the defile of 
Passignano, and spreading out his right upon the hills, forced the long Roman 
column by a flank attack into the lake, while he engaged the head of it in the 
defile. Polybius and Livy differ decidedly as to the scene of the main battle : 
the latter represents it as taking place in the defile of Passignano, where the 
Romans had their right flank to the lake. But Polybius says, that only the rear 
was caught there ; most of the army had cleared the defile, and turned to the 
left into a valley running down at right angles to the lake, so that the lake was 
exactly on their rear. And the modern road does so turn from the lake to 
ascend the . hills towards Perugia : the only difficulty is (I have been twice on 
the ground), that there is nothing that can be called a valley ; for the road 
ascends almost from the edge of the lake : still it is true that the hills do form 
a small comb, so that an army ascending frorn the lake might have an enemy on 
both its flanks on the hill-sides above it. 

Note P, to p. 505, 1. 43. 

It seems to me that the Latin colonies and Hannibal's want of artillery were 
the main causes of his failure. The Romans had in these colonies, not one of 
which he ever took, fortresses in the heart of the countries which revolted to him. 
Thus Apulia revolted ; but the Romans still held Luceria, Venusia, and Brundi- 
sium : Samnium revolted ; but the Romans held iEsernia and Beneventum ; and 
so on. Casilinum cost him a siege of several weeks, but the Romans recovered it 
in a much shorter time. If he had engaged Archimedes as his engineer in chief, 
and got Philip to send him artillery, he would have done far better ; for the 
Macedonian princes seemed to have carried their artillery to great perfection. 
As it was, his only very strong arm was his cavalry : for his infantry, veterans 
as they were, could never beat the Roman raw levies behind works. It appears 
to me that the sieges are the great defect of Hannibal's operations in Italy ; 
and thus as soon as his army moved from any place, the inhabitants who had 
joined him were at the mercy of the Roman garrisons. And their colonies were 
very strong garrisons : Venusia was originally settled with 20,000 colonists. 

Note Q, to p. 53G, 1. 25. 

According to Livy, Hannibal collects all the boats which are to be found on 
the Vulturnus, orders his men to provide themselves with provisions for ten 
days, and crosses in the night. (XXVI. 7.) 



ADDENDA. 661 

He remains on the right bank the next day and night, then moves by Cales in 
Agrum Sidicinum, and there remains one day plundering. 

He advances by the Latin road, per Suessanum, Allifanumque et Casinatem 
agrum. He then remains for two days under Casinum, plundering the country 
in all directions. 

He goes on by Interamna and Aquinum to Fregellse, where he finds the 
bridges over the Liris broken down ; he ravages the ager Fregellanus with pe- 
culiar spite for that reason; and then advances by Frusino, Ferentinum, and 
Anagnia, in Agrum Lavicanum. 

From thence he goes over Algidus to Tusculum, descends to Gabii, thence 
marches down in Pupiniam, and pitches his camp eight miles from Rome. 

He moves his camp ad Anienem, three miles from Rome, and there estab- 
lishes stativa ; he himself advancing along under the walls from the Colline gate 
to the temple of Hercules, to look about him. 

On the next day he crosses the Anio, and offers battle to the enemy ; a storm 
breaks off the action. 

Next day he offers battle again, and there comes a second storm. He falls 
back ad Tutiam fluvium, six miles from Rome. 

He plunders the temple of Feronia, and marches to Eretum : from thence he 
goes to Reate, Cutiliee, and Amiternum. From thence through the Marsian and 
Marrucinian territory by Sulmo, through the Pelignian territory into Samnium, 
and from Samnium into Campania. From Campania into Lucania, thence into 
Bruttium, and thence to Rhegium. 

Here are traces of two accounts jumbled together. The march from the Vul- 
turnus, as far as the camp in Pupinia, eight miles from Rome, is all highly con- 
sistent and probable, and comes, I suspect, either from Fabius or Cincius. But 
the advance to the Anio, the crossing it to offer battle, and then the retreat ad 
Tutiam, belong to a different story, that namely which made Hannibal advance 
upon Rome from Reate. For in advancing by the Latin road, or the Via Ga- 
bina, he had nothing to do with the Anio ; and if he crossed the Anio to offer 
battle, he must have been between Rome and the Roman army, and the Roman 
army would have been between him and the Tutia. This then is all absurd and 
inconsistent. 

Again, according to Livy, Fulvius had heard beforehand of Hannibal's design, 
and had warned the senate of it ; he receives an answer from Rome, selects 
15,000 foot, and 1000 horse, crosses the Vulturnus on rafts after a long delay, 
because Hannibal had burnt all the boats, advances to Rome by the Appian way, 
and arrives by the Porta Capena just as Hannibal had reached Pupinia. Now, 
according to Polybius, Hannibal set out for Rome only five days after his arrival 
before Capua : there was no time therefore for Fulvius to send to Rome and get 
an answer before Hannibal set out. Again, Casilinum being in the power of the 
Romans, the passage of the Vulturnus was in their own hands, and the story 
about the rafts is an absurdity. 

Appian says, that Hannibal marched with urgent haste through many and 
hostile nations, some of whom could not and some did not try to stop him ; and 
thus he arrived on the Anio, and encamped at 32 stadia from Rome. The Ro- 
mans break down the bridge over the Anio ; and two thousand men from Alba 
Marsorum come valiantly to the aid of Rome. This all agrees with Caelius, and 
supposes evidently that Hannibal advanced through Samnium and by Reate. 
The " many and hostile nations" are the Pelignians, Marsians, Marrucinians, and 
Sabines. Thus, too, he arrives naturally on the Anio ; and the Albensians, see- 
ing him pass through their country, set off at once by the Valerian road to Rome, 
to be ready to meet him. Had he advanced by the Latin road, they would 
have known nothing about his march, and he would have been between them 
and Rome. 

Fulvius then, according to Appian, hastens to Rome, and meets Hannibal on 



662 ADDENDA. 

the Anio* with the river between them. Hannibal ascends the right bank of the 
river to turn it by its source. Fulvius ascends the left bank watching him. 
Hannibal leaves some Numidians behind, who cross the river when Fulvius was 
gone, plunder all the country round the walls, and then rejoin Hannibal. Han- 
nibal goes round by the sources of the river ; and, as it was only a little way to 
Rome, he steals out by night with three squires to have a look at it, and then 
takes fright and returns to Capua. Fulvius follows him ; and Hannibal, in at- 
tempting to surprise his camp on the road, is sadly foiled. He then marches off 
to winter in Lucania; and Fulvius rejoins Appius before Capua. This is be- 
neath criticism ; but I observe that the story of Fulvius being too cunning for 
Hannibal is given by Livy at the assault of the Roman lines before Capua, and 
is probably as true of one as of the other. Again, the line of retreat here indi- 
cated is by the Latin road ; the ascending the Anio shows this, and is inconsist- 
ent with the retreat by Reate. 

Caslius Antipater had expressly given Hannibal's advance upon Rome thus : — 
From Campania into Samnium, and thence to the Pelignians, that is, by the 
present great road up the Vulturnus to Venafro ; thence by Isernia and Castel 
di Sangro to the Five Mile plain ; then passing by Sulmo to the Marrucinians - 
thence by Alba to the Marsians ; thence "to Amiternum and Foruli: from Ami- 
ternum, by Cutilise, Reate, and Eretum, upon the Anio. 

What a confusion ! which neither Nauta nor Prinsterer meddle with. The 
road from Sulmo to Amiternum is simple enough ; descending along the Gizio 
to the Aterno or Pescara at Popoli, thence ascending to the high upland plain 
by JSTavelli and Citta Retenga, and so by Aquila to Amiternum, S. Vittorino. 
But conceive a man, — to say nothing of an army in a hurry, — going down from 
Popoli to Chieti, then turning back to Sulmona, and going over by the Forchetta 
to Celano, and thence by Rocca di Mezzo into the valley of Aquila. All this 
folly arises from the untimely correction where the MS. gives corruptly in Mar- 
rucinos, Martinos, Martianos, Maceranos, &c. Caelius supposed that Hannibal, 
instead of descending from Sulmo towards Popoli, turned to his left, and crossed 
the mountains by the Forchetta 23 to Cilano, and thence either by Rocca di Mezzo 
over the mountains to Aquila, or else by the Cicolano, and down the valley of 
Tornimparte. Instead of Marrucinos, the better condition would be Marrubios, 
or Marruvios ; the people of Marruvium, a Pelignian town on the E. or S. E. shore 
of the lake Fucinus. 

According to Polybius, Hannibal, five days after his arrival before Capua, left 
his fires burning at night, and set off after supper. He marched by vigorous 
and uninterrupted marches through Samnium, always exploring and preoccu- 
pying the ground near the road with his advanced guard ; and whilst all at 
Rome were thinking only of Capua, he suddenly crossed the Anio, and encamped 
at a distance of not more than four miles from Rome. He intended the next day 
to assault the city ; but the consuls with their two newly raised legions en- 
camped before the walls. He then gives up the assault, and sets about plun- 
dering the country and burning the houses in all directions. After this (how 
long after is not said, nor why, but we must suppose after Fulvius had arrived 
from Capua) the consuls advance boldly, and encamp within ten stadii of Hanni- 
bal. Then Hannibal, having filled his army with plunder, and thinking that his 
diversion must now have taken effect at Capua, commenced his retreat. But the 
bridges over the Anio had been broken down ; and in fording the river he was 
attacked and sustained some loss : his cavalry, however, served him so well, that 
the Romans returned to their camp, atgaxroi. He continued his march hastily, 
which the enemy thought was through fear ; so they followed him close, but 
keeping to the higher grounds. He was moving in haste upon Capua ; but on 
the fifth day of his retreat, learning that the Romans there were still in their 

" At Raiano. This is still a carriageable road. Keppel Craven calls the pass, Furca Caruso. 



ADDENDA. 663 

lines, he halted to wait for his pursuers, and turning upon them attacked their 
camp by night, and stormed it. The Romans rallied by daybreak on a steep hill 
which he could not force ; so he would not wait to besiege them, but marched 
through Apulia and Bruttium, and nearly succeeded in surprising Rhegium. 

Again what a narrative ! with no details of time or place, jumping at once 
from a five days' march from Rome into Apulia, and merely implying that Han- 
nibal's retreat was on the right bapk of the Anio. But this mention of the Anio, 
connected with the expression " marching through Samnium," seems to show 
that Polybius, like Cselius, made Hannibal advance by a circuitous route upon 
Rome, and not by the Latin road. 

The season of the year must have been early, according to the Roman calen- 
dar, not later than April, whatever that was by true time ; because the levy of 
the two city legions was only half finished. But, unless the Roman calendar 
was at least two months behind true time, how could Hannibal have passed 
such defiles as that of Rocca, Vail' Osuira ; or such passes as those between 
Isernia and Castel di Sangro ? Would not the snow have covered the ground 
at such a season ? 



APPENDIX. 



I. NOTE ON THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF MANLIUS. 

Zonaras, whose history is taken generally from Dion Cassius, relates that Manliufi 
was holding the Capitol against the government, and that a slave, having offered to be- 
tray him, went up to the Capitol as a deserter, and begged to speak with Manlius. He 
professed to be come to him on the part of the slaves of Rome, who were ready to rise 
and join him ; and while Manlius was speaking to him apart on the edge of the cliff, the 
slave suddenly pushed him down it, and he was then seized by some men who had been 
previously placed there in ambush, and was by them carried off as a prisoner. Then he 
was tried in the Campus Martius ; and as the people could not condemn him in sight of 
the Capitol, the trial was adjourned, and the people met again in another place out of 
sight of the Capitol, and then condemned him. The scene of the second trial is said by 
Livy to have been the Peteline Grove. Now we find that on two other occasions after 
a secession assemblies were held in groves without the city walls, and not in the Cam- 
pus Martius; once after the revolt of the soldiers and secession of the commons in 413, 
in this very Peteline Grove (Livy, VII. 41), and once after the last secession to the/ani- 
culum, in the Oak Grove, " in Esculeto." (Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVI. § 37.) Now as there 
is little reason to doubt that there was a secession also in the disturbance caused by 
Manlius, it is likely that when peace was restored the terms would have been settled in 
an assembly held in some sacred grove, and that there a general amnesty would be pass- 
ed, and any exceptions to the amnesty discussed and determined. And if Manlius had 
fallen into the power of his enemies in the manner described by Zonaras, his partisans, 
having thus lost their leader, would have been ready to submit, and could not have op- 
posed his execution, if it were insisted upon by the government as a necessary sacrifice 
to public justice. The story of his trial before the centuries in the Campus Martius is 
every way suspicious, and may possibly have been invented to account for the fact of 
his death having been decreed in an assembly held in the Peteline Grove. It was obvi- 
ous that trials before the centuries, the only tribunal which could legally try a Roman 
citizen capitally, were held in the Campus Martius ; and as the fact of the secession was 
more and more glossed over, so the real nature of the assembly in the Peteline Grove 
would be less understood ; and then it was attempted to be explained as a mere ad- 
journed meeting of the centuries, held in an unusual place, because the deliverer of the 
Capitol could not be condemned in the Campus Martius, where his judges had the Capi- 
tol directly before their eyes. 

I may observe that the law which forbade any patrician's residing from henceforth in 
the Capitol strongly confirms the fact of an actual secession. Manlius had occupied the 
citadel as a fortified position, and had held it with an armed force against the govern- 
ment ; and this pointed out the danger of allowing any one to reside within its precinct? 



II. ON THE LATER CONSTITUTION OE THE CENTURIES. 

The constitution of the comitia of the centuries, as it originally existed, is perfectly 
familiar to every reader. But it is remarkable that this well-known form of it never ex- 
isted during those times of which we have a real history; and the form which had suc- 
ceeded to it is a complete mystery. It is strange, but true, that we know how the cen- 
turies were constituted in the times of the later kings, but that we do not know what 
was their constitution in the time of Cicero and Ceesar. 

It is quite clear that the old constitution of the centuries gave a decided ascendency 
to wealth. The first class, together with the centuries of the knights, formed a majority 



666 APPENDIX. 

of the whole comitia. Thus every election would have been in the hands of the rich, 
and such a state of things as existed in the last years of the commonwealth, when the 
aristocracy had no other decided influence than what they could gain by bribery, is alto- 
gether inconceivable. 

Again, the division of the people into tribes had nothing to do with the earlier consti- 
tution of the centuries; fhe votes were taken by classes, and a man's class depended on 
the amount of his property. But in the later constitution the votes were taken by tribes, 
and a man's tribe, except in the case of the four city tribes, implied nothing as to his rank 
or fortune. The agents employed to purchase votes were called divisores tribuum ; such 
and such tribes are mentioned as interested in behalf of particular candidates (Cicero pro 
Plancio) ; and some one tribe was determined by lot to exercise the privilege of voting 
before the rest. In short, the tribes are mentioned as commonly at the comitia in the 
Campus Martius, whether held for trials or for elections, as at the comitia held in the 
Forum. 

On the other hand, the division by classes continued to exist in the later constitution. 
Cicero speaks of the comitia of centuries differing from the comitia of tribes, inasmuch as 
in the former, he says, " the people are arranged according to property, rank, and age, 
while in the latter no such distinctions are observed." De Legibus, III. 19. The cen- 
turies of the first class are spoken of both in trials (Livy, XLIII. 16) and in elections 
(Cicero, Philippic. II. 33); and in the second oration of the pseudo-Sail ust to Cresar, de 
Republica Ordinanda, the author notices, as a desirable change in the actual constitution, 
that a law formerly proposed by C. Gracchus should be again brought forward and enact- 
ed, that the centuries should be called by lot from all the five classes indiscriminately. 
This proves not only that the division into classes existed to the end of the common- 
wealth, but also that the first class continued to enjoy certain advantages above the 
others. The problem, therefore, is to determine how the system of classes was blended 
with that of tribes, and in what degree the centuries of the historical period of the com- 
monwealth retained or had forfeited the strong aristocratical character impressed on 
them by their original constitution. 

Various solutions of this problem have been offered at different times by scholars of 
great ability. Octavius Pantagathus in the 16th century supposed that each of the five 
classes had two centuries belonging to it in each of the tribes, and that the Equites had 
one century in each tribe, making the whole number of centuries to amount to 385, out 
of which those of the Equites and the first class together would amount to 105, while 
those of the other classes were 280 ; so that the two former, instead of being a majority 
of the whole comitia, stood to the other centuries only in the proportion of 3 to 8. This 
notion of seventy centuries in each class, or ten centuries in each tribe, has been main- 
tained also by Savigny, according to Zurnpt; and by Walther, in his History of the Ro- 
man Law, Vol. I. p. 136. This also is the opinion of another living authority of the 
highest order, who has expressed to me his full acquiescence in it. 

Niebuhr, on the contrary, held that the whole division into five classes was done away 
with ; that each tribe contained two centuries only, one of older men, the other of young- 
er; that the thirty-one country tribes constituted the first class under this altered sys- 
tem, and the four city tribes the second class; and that besides these two classes there 
were no more. He held the aristocratical character of the comitia of centuries, as com- 
pared with the assembly of the tribes, to consist in the following points: that the ple- 
beian knights voted distinctly from the rest of the commons, and that the patricians also 
had their separate votes in the sex suflragia, or six old centuries of knights; 2d, that 
the centuries of each tribe were divided according to their age, one of older men, and 
the other of younger; 3d, that the proletarians, or those who possessed property under 
four thousand ases, were altogether excluded; and 4th, that the auspices were necessa- 
rily taken at the comitia of centuries, and that they were thus subjected to the influence 
of the augurs. Niebuhr held also that the prerogative century could only be chosen out 
of the tribes of the first class, and never out of the four city tribes. 

Zumpt, in a recent essay on the constitution of the comitia of centuries, read before 
the Prussian academy in 1836, maintains that the old centuries of Ser. Tullius subsisted 
to the end of the commonwealth without any material alteration, except that those of 
the first class wen- reduced from eighty to seventy. He then supposes that two of these 
centuries were allotted to each of the thirty-five tribes, together with three centuries 
from the four remaining classes; and of these three one, he thinks, was taken from the 
fifth class, and two-thirds of a century from the second, third, and fourth classes. Thus 
the richer citizens still retained an influence in the comitia more than in proportion to 
their numbers, although much less than it had been in the original constitution of Ser. 
Tullius. 



APPENDIX. 667 

Lastly, Professor Huschke, of Breslau, in his work on the constitution of Ser. Tul- 
lius, published in 1838, agrees with Niebuhr in supposing that the whole number of 
centuries was reduced to seventy, each tribe containing two, one of older men and the 
other of younger; but these seventy centuries were divided, he thinks, into five classes ; 
so that about ten tribes, or twenty centuries, would contain the citizens of the first 
class, a certain number of tribes would, in like manner, contain all the citizens of the 
second class, and so on to the end : some tribes, according to this hypothesis, consist- 
ing only of richer citizens, and others only of poorer. 

But I confess that all these solutions, including even that of Niebuhr himself, are to me 
unsatisfactory. If the first class had contained thirty-one out of the thirty-five tribes, 
while each tribe contained only two centuries, we should hear rather of the tribes of 
the first class, than of the centuries; whilst on the other hand the positive testimony of 
the pseudo-Sail ust, who, according to Niebuhr himself, could not have lived later than 
the second century after the Christian era, to the existence of five classes down to the 
time of the civil war, seems to be on that point an irresistible authority. 

It appears to me to be impossible to ascertain with certainty either the number ^.f the 
centuries in the later constitution, or their connection with the five classes. To guess 
at points of mere detail seems hopeless, and positive information on the subject there 
is none. But we know that the comitia of centuries differed from those of the tribes 
expressly in this, that whereas all the members of a tribe voted in the comitia tributa 
without any further distinction between them, and, as far as appears, without any sub- 
divisions within the tribe itself, so in the comitia of centuries the members of the same 
tribe were distinguished from each other ; the older men certainly voted distinctly from 
the younger men, and probably the richer men also voted distinctly from the poorer : 
so that the centuries were a less democratical body than the tribes. 

In the account given by Polybius of the composition of the Roman army, we find 
traces at once of the existence of something like the old system of classes, and of the 
changes which it must have undergone. All citizens whose property exceeded four 
thousand ases, were now enlisted into the legions, whereas in old times none had been 
required to provide themselves with arms whose property fell short of twelve thousand 
five hundred ases. But one hundred thousand ases still appear to have been the quali- 
fication for the first class ; and it is remarkable that the peculiar distinction of this class, 
the coat of mail, was the same as it had been in the oldest known system of the classes. 
All distinctions of arms, offensive or defensive, between the second, third, and fourth 
classes, seem to have been abolished : but the fifth class still, as in old times, supplied 
the light-armed soldiers of the legions, or the velites. 

But however much of the old system of the classes was preserved in the later con- 
stitution of the centuries, the difference in the political spirit of the tribes and centuries 
is scarcely, I think, perceivable. We do not find the votes of the centuries ever relied 
upon by the aristocracy to counterbalance the popular feeling of the tribes. It might 
have been conceived that a popular assembly, where wealth conferred any ascendency, 
would have been decidedly opposed to one of a character purely democratical; that the 
centuries, in short, like our own House of Commons, during more than one period of 
our history, should, have sympathized more and more with the senate, and have coun- 
teracted to the utmost of their power on the Campus Martius the policy embraced by the 
tribes in the Forum. But this is not the case ; the spirit of the Roman people, as dis- 
tinguished from the senate and the equestrian order, appears to have been much the 
same whether they were assembled in one sort of comitia or another; the centuries 
elected Flaminius and Varro to the consulship in the second Punic war, although their 
opposition to the aristocracy seems to have been one of their chief recommendations ; 
and in later times the centuries elected many consuls who advocated the popular cause 
not less violently than the most violent of the tribunes elected by the tribes. 

The cause of this is to be found in the great wealth of the equestrian order and of the 
senate, which drew a broad line of separation between them and the richest of the ple- 
beians, and thus drove the members of the first class to sympathize with those below 
them rather than with those above them. While the possession of the judicial power 
was disputed by the senate and the equestrian order, it was only after many years that 
any share of it was communicated to the richest of the plebeians. Thus it is probable 
that the middle classes at Rome, as elsewhere, repelled by the pride of the highest 
classes, were forced back, as it were, into the mass of the lower ; and entered as bitterly 
into all measures galling to the aristocracy, as the poorest citizens of the tribes. 

If this be so, the question as to the exact form of the comitia of centuries in later 
times, however curious in itself, is of no great importance to our right understanding 
of the subsequent history. For whether the influence of the first class as compared 



668 APPENDIX. 

with that of the lower classes was greater or less, it does not appear that the character 
of the comitia was altered from what it would have heen otherwise ; the first class was 
as little attached to the aristocracy as the fourth or fifth. After the unsuccessful at- 
tempts of so many men of ability and learning, I have no confidence that I could ap- 
proach more nearly to the true solution of the problem ; and, in fact, there seem diffi- 
culties in the way of every theory, which our present knowledge can hardly enable us 
to remove. I must at present express my belief that the exact arrangement of the 
classes in the later comitia of centuries is a problem no less inexplicable than that of 
the disposition of the rowers in the ancient ships of war. 



III. OF THE ROMAN LEGION IN THE FIFTH CENTURY OF ROME. 

The accounts of the Roman legion in the fourth and fifth centuries of Rome are full of 
perplexity. Nor is this to be wondered at, for as there were no contemporary histo- 
rians, and as the military system afterwards underwent considerable changes, the older 
state of things could be known only from accidental notices of it in the stories of the 
early wars, or from uncertain memory. How little help in these inquiries is to be ex- 
pected from Livy, may be understood from this single fact: that although he himself in 
two several places (I. 43 and VIII. 8) has expressly stated that the ancient Roman tac- 
tic was that of the phalanx, yet in no one of his descriptions of battles are any traces 
to be found of such a system ; but the sword and not the pike is spoken of as the most 
efficient weapon, just as it was in the tactic of the second Punic war, or of the age of 
Marius and of Caesar. 

Livy, however, has preserved in one place a detailed account of the earlier legion, as 
it existed in the great Latin war in the beginning of the fifth century. And Polvbius, 
as is well known, has described at length the arms and organization of the legion of his 
time, that is, of the latter part of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century of 
Rome. I shall notice the similar and dissimilar points in these two accounts, and then 
see how far we can explain the changes implied in them ; and, finally, notice some 
statements in other writers which relate to the same subject. 

Both accounts acknowledge the existence of four divisions of fighting men, in the 
legion: the light-armed (ypootpdnaxoi, Polyb. rorarii, Livy), thehastati, the principes, and 
the triarii. But to these there was in the older legion a fifth added, the accensi, or su- 
pernumeraries ; who, in ordinary cases, were not armed, but went to the field to be 
ready to take arms and supply the places of those who fell. 

In both accounts the hastati, when the legion is drawn up in order of battle, are 
placed in front of the principes, and the principes in front of the triarii. But in the old 
legion the greater part of the light-armed soldiers are described as stationed with the 
triarii in the third line, and only about a fourth part of them are with the hastati in the 
front. Whereas, in the later legion, the light troops are divided equally among the 
three lines. 

Again, in the older legion the triarii were equal in numbers to the hastati and princi- 
pes, respectively, each division consisting of somewhat more than nine hundred men. 
Whereas, in the later legion, the triarii were never more than six hundred men ; while 
the hastati and principes were regularly twelve hundred each, and sometimes exceeded 
this number. 

In the older legion the light-armed troops carried each man a pike, "hasta," and two 
or more javelins, " gsesa,' These were the arms of the fourth class in the Servian con- 
stitution. •' nihil prater hastam et verutum datum :" verutum and gresa alike signifying 
missile weapons or javelins as opposed to the hasta or pike. But in the later legion, 
the light-armed soldier carried no pike, but had a round shield, na'^ij, and a dirk or cut- 
lass, p6x<"pa, together with his javelins. 

In the older legion again the hastati, principes, and triarii, all bore the arms of the 
second and third classes in the Servian constitution; that is to say, the large oblong 
shield, " scutum," the pike, and the sword, " gladius." But in the later legion, the has- 
tati and principes had both dropped the pike, and were armed instead of it with two 
large javelins, of about six feet in length, which Polybius calls loool, and which were no 
other than the formidable pila. 



APPENDIX. 669 

Further, we have a remarkable notice that there was a time when the triarii alone 
carried pila, and were called pilani, while the hastati and principes still carried pikes. 2 

Again, the older legion was divided into forty-five maniples or ordines ; fifteen of 
hastati; fifteen of principes, and fifteen of triarii ; but as the triarii were, in fact, a triple 
division, so their maniples contained one hundred and eighty-six, or possibly one hun- 
dred and eighty-nine men each, while those of the hastati and principes contained only 
sixty-three men each. 

In the later legion, the hastati, principes, and triarii contained ten maniples each ; and 
those of the two former divisions consisted of one hundred and twenty men each, while 
those of the triarii contained only sixty. The light troops were divided into thirty 
divisions, one of which was added to each maniple of the heavy-armed troops, in just 
proportion to its respective strength ; that is, that twenty-four light-armed men were 
added to each maniple of the triarii, and forty-eight to each maniple of the hastati and 
principes. It may be, however, that the divisions of the light-armed troops were all 
equal : in which case they would have raised each maniple of the triarii to one hundred 
men, and each maniple of the hastati and principes to one hundred and sixty. 

In the older legion, each maniple contained two centurions; that is, it consisted of 
two centuries. Therefore the century of the old legion consisted of thirty men. 

In the later legion each maniple also had two centurions; but the maniples being of 
unequal numbers, the centuries were unequal also ; the centuries of the triarii contained 
thirty men each, as in the older legion, but those of the hastati and principes had each 
sixty. 

On comparing these two forms of the legion, it is manifest that in the older there is 
retained one of the characterestic points of the system of the phalanx, or of fighting in 
columns, the keeping of the light-armed or worst-armed men mostly in the rear. The 
old legion consisted of a first division of about nineteen hundred men, of whom only 
three hundred and fifteen had inferior arms ; and of a second division of nearly twenty- 
eight hundred men, of whom only nine hundred and thirty were well armed ; nine hun- 
dred and thirty were light armed, and the remaining nine hundred and thirty, the accensi, 
were not armed at all. Nay, it appears doubtful whether even the triarii, properly so 
called, were quite equal to the hastati and principes ; for in the Latin war it seems to 
be a mistake of Livy's to suppose that they carried pikes ; they appear at that time to 
have borne only pila and swords, and were therefore less fitted than the hastati and 
principes for the peculiar manner of fighting then in use in the Roman army. 

But even in this earlier form of the legion there seems to have been some change 
introduced from a form still earlier. The mixture of light-armed soldiers in the front 
ranks of the phalanx, unless we are to suppose that they were always thrown forward 
as mere skirmishers, and had no place in the line, seems to show that a modification of 
the tactic of the phalanx had already been found necessary, and that the use of the 
javelin instead of the pike was already rising in estimation. 

This alteration seems to derive its origin from the Gaulish wars. The Gauls used 
javelins themselves, and the weight of their charge was such that the full-armed sol- 
diers of the Roman legions were not numerous enough to withstand them ; it became 
of importance, therefore, to improve the efficiency of the light-armed soldiers, and at 
the same time to enable the Roman line to reply to the Gaulish missiles, if the enemy 
preferred a distant combat to fighting hand to hand. 

That something of this sort was done is directly stated ; but as usual the accounts 
are conflicting and inconsistent with themselves. Dionysius makes Camillus say to his 
soldiers, that whereas " the Gauls had only javelins, they had arrows, a weapon of 
deadly effect." 'Avti \6yxvs ilarbs, aipv<Tov @e\os. Fragm. Vatic. XXX. Plutarch says 
that Camillus instructed his soldiers " to use their long javelins as weapons for close 
fight," rots vaaoli iitucpols Sia x^pfc xP'Jf'dat, Camill. 40, and in the next chapter he describes 
the Gauls as grappling with the Romans, and trying to push aside their javelins, which 
evidently supposes them to have been used as pikes. And yet in the very sentence be- 
fore he talks of the Gaulish shields as being weighed down by the Roman javelins, which 
had run through them, and hung upon them, roUg Se Bvpsovs ovuirtTzapdai koX (Sapiveodai riiv 
haaZv fyeXicoixivoiv (Camill. 41), a description applicable only to weapons thrown at the 
enemy, and'not used as pikes. 

A passage in Livy seems to offer the solution of this difficrJty. When the Gauls 
attacked the Roman camp in their invasion of the Roman territory in the year 405, only 
ten years before the Latin war, the triarii were engaged in throwing up works, and the 

2 Livy says that the hastati and principe3 were called ler) and Ovid (Fasti, III. 129) call the triarii expressly 
autepilani -VIII. 8. Varro (Ling. Lat. V. § Ed. Miil- pilani. 



670 APPENDIX. 

hastati and principes covered them. Then, as the Gauls advanced up hill to attack the 
Roman position, " all the pila and spears," " pila omnia hastaeque," " took effect," says 
Livy, " from their own weight ; and the Gauls had either their bodies run through, or 
their shields weighed down by the darts that were sticking in them." VII. 23. It 
appears, then, that both the pilum and hasta could be used as missiles; but both also 
could be used as pikes, for the pilum was six feet in length, and therefore it is very 
possible that Camillus may have shortened the spear of the hastati, to render it avail- 
able as a missile, and also strengthened and lengthened the pilum to make it serve on 
occasion the purposes of a pike. 

Thus the hastati and principes were armed with swords, with large oblong shields, 
scuta, and with spears, hastse ; but the large shield already fitted them for a more inde- 
pendent and personal mode of fighting than that of the phalanx, and the spear might be 
used as a javelin, no less than as a pike. The Samnite wars, following so soon after- 
wards, decided the Romans to give up the tactic of the phalanx still more entirely : the 
spear which might be used as a javelin, but was more fitted for close fight, was now 
given only to the soldiers of the third line ; while the pilum, which might be used as 
a pike, but was properly a missile, was taken from the third line, and given to the sol- 
diers of the first and second lines. At the same time those citizens whose properties 
were rated between four thousand ases and twelve thousand five hundred, and who 
were not formerly required to provide themselves with arms, were now called upon to 
do so, and therefore the accensi are no more heard of; while the rorarii, who seem to 
have belonged to the fifth class of the old Servian division, and to have gone to battle 
with no other weapons than slings, were now called upon to provide themselves with 
light arms of a better description, and became the velites of the new legion. Why 
the triarii should have been also reduced in number does not certainly appear ; except 
that as the whole Roman tactic was now become a very active system of personal com- 
bats along the whole line, it was necessary to have as many men as possible available 
for the two first divisions, and that the mere reserve, which was not to form any part 
of the fighting force, except on emergency, should be kept low, and confined to the 
older soldiers, who had no longer sufficient activity to be employed in the constantly 
moving battle of the regular line. 

Niebuhr has attempted to explain the number of centuries in the legion, and of men 
in each century, by a reference to the varying number of tribes, and to the centuries in 
the classes of the Servian constitution. But his explanation does not seem to me sat- 
isfactory; and the question is not essential to our understanding of the military char- 
acter of the legion. It may be observed, however, that the germ of the division of the 
legion into ten cohorts, may be traced already in the legion of the time of Polybius, 
as a tenfold division existed in it in each of the three lines of the hastati, principes, 
and triarii. A cohort then would be merely one maniple of each of these three lines; 
a miniature legion, presenting the same variety of force on a small scale, which the 
legion itself did on a large scale. And thus the cohorts of the legion of four thousand 
two hundred men would consist of four hundred and twenty men each, as afterwards 
in the imperial legion they consisted properly of six hundred men each. 

Sallust, it is well known, makes Caesar say that the Romans had borrowed their 
arms, offensive and defensive, from the Samnites. (Bell. Catilinar. 51.) And although 
the Samnites are not named, yet the order of time seems to show that they must, partly 
at least, be intended, where Diodorus says, Fragm. Vatic. XXIII. 1, that the Romans, 
having first adopted the tactic of the phalanx in their wars with the Etruscans, after- 
wards exchanged it for the system of fighting in cohorts (<nrapa?s being a certain correc- 
tion for TTupals, which has no meaning at all), and with the large oblong shield, $vpco7s, 
because the nations whom they subsequently encountered used this tactic. And it 
probably is true, that the peculiar form of the Roman legion was owing to the wars 
with the Gauls and Samnites, which led to the total disuse of the phalanx, and to the 
perfecting of those weapons, such as the sword and the javelin, which, in the system of 
the phalanx, are of the least importance. 



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